The cathedral church.
The castle site fortified by the Conqueror.
The city. Norman military architecture, had perhaps not even a forerunner of its own class.[1] And the minster of Saint Andrew, which the enlargements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have still left one of the least among the episcopal churches of England, had then only the lowly forerunner which had risen, which perhaps was still only rising, under the hands of Gundulf.[2] But the steep scarped cliff rising above the broad tidal stream was a stronghold in the Conqueror's days, as it had doubtless been in days long before his. Whether a stone castle had yet been built is uncertain; the fact that such an one was built for William Rufus by Gundulf later in his reign might almost lead us to think that as yet the site, strong in itself, was defended only by earthworks and defences of timber.[3] Below the castle to the south-east lay the city, doubtless fenced
- [Footnote: Anglicis qualiter circa castrorum assultationes agendum sit, qui penitus
hujusmodi diebus illis fuerant ignari." A forerunner of Kanarês, he had a fire-ship in the river; he also used mines, as the Conqueror had done at Exeter.]
- ↑ Mr. Hartshorne showed distinctly that the present tower of Rochester was not built by Gundulf, but by William of Corbeuil. See the passages which he quotes from Gervase, X Scriptt. 1664, and the continuator of Florence, 1126. But we have seen (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 366) that Gundulf did build a stone castle at Rochester for William Rufus ("castrum Hrofense lapidum"), and we should most naturally look for it on the site of the later one. On the other hand, there is a tower, seemingly of Gundulf's building and of a military rather than an ecclesiastical look, which is now almost swallowed up between the transepts of the cathedral. But it would be strange if a tower built for the King stood in the middle of the monastic precinct.
- ↑ The odd position of the cloister at Rochester suggests the notion that Gundulf's church occupied only the site of the present eastern limb, and that the later Norman nave was an enlargement rather than a rebuilding.
- ↑ Domesday, 2 b. "Episcopus de Rouecestre pro excambio terræ in qua castellum sedet, tantum de hac terra tenet quod xvii.s. et iv.d. valet." This is said of land at Aylesford; but the castle spoken of must surely be that of Rochester. The Domesday phrase "sedet" seems beautifully to describe either the massive square donjon or the shell-keep on the mound; yet it may be doubted whether Rochester had either in the Conqueror's day.
