278 Mediceval Military Architecture. stated in the Saxon Chronicle that when, in 896, Alfred stranded the Danish ships in the Essex Lea, the Danes left them, traversed England, passed the winter at Quatbridge on the Severn, and there threw up a work. Three of the four original texts are thus rendered. The fourth makes them rest at " Brygce," or Bridge, on the Severn. Florence of Worcester supports Quatbridge, and men- tions the work or fortress. " Brygce," in the Chronicle, is thought to be an interpolation, both where appended to Quat, and where it stands alone, it being probable that the Severn was not bridged at that time. There are at present two parishes into the names of which Quat enters on the left bank of the river, below Bridgenorth, Quat and Quatford, and upon the river is Danesford. Quat is regarded by Eyton as a corruption of the British " Coed," a wood, the whole district having been a forest. In the same Chronicle it is recorded that -^thelflaeda, the great lady of the Mercians, a mighty burgh-builder in her day, and called by Henry of Huntingdon "Terror virgo virorum," built, in 912, a burgh at Bricge, to which Florence adds, " on the western bank of Severn." Bricge could scarcely be Bridgenorth, which is not even mentioned in Domesday. We ought, however, to find near the river, about Bridgenorth, earthworks thrown up by the Danes and by ^thelflseda, and it will be seen that there remain at the least three distinct works, any one or all of which may be of the ninth or tenth centuries. These are Oldbury, Quatford Castle, and Quatford. Bridgenorth is not mentioned in Domesday. The Norman castle did not then exist, and there is no reason, strong and tempting as is the site, for supposing that it was occupied either by the Danes or by /Ethelflaeda. Mr. Eyton is of opinion that the site of the later town and castle is included within a certain two hides of land which in the survey constituted the demesne lands of the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, within his great manor of Morville. Quatford, not Quatbridge, is mentioned in that record in conjunction with Ardin- tone. " Ibi," that is in Ardintone, " Molendinum de iij oris et nova domus et burgum Quatford dictum nil reddens," "there is a mill worth three ounces (5s. per annum), and a new house, and the borough called Quatford, paying nothing." In 1085, therefore, it may be accepted that the earl had a new house at Quatford, where, indeed, it is known that at the request of his second wife Adelais, and in acknowledgment of her escape from shipwreck, he founded, about 1086, a collegiate church. The foundation charter of this alludes to the mount nigh to the bridge; the latter, probably an appendage to the new house, the former possibly part of the older earthwork of what is now known as Quatford Castle. Earl Roger was succeeded in his English Honour and estates by his second son Earl Hugh, who was slain in Wales in 1098, and left the succession open to his elder brother, Robert de Belesme, who had already inherited his father's estates in Normandy, and was Count of Ponthieu in right of his wife. Robert, who thus became Earl of Shrewsbury, though a cruel tyrant, was a man of great ability
