stone in the course of the twelfth century, to which belong the 'stern square towers' which still survive in Normandy and England, as well as the earliest examples of the more defensible round keeps and square keeps flanked with round towers. Whether of wood or stone, the donjon was a stern place, built for strength rather than for comfort, and bending the life of those within it to the imperious necessities of defence. Space was at a premium, windows were few and small,—sometimes only a single window and a single room to each story,—trap-doors and ladders often did the work of stairways, and from the wooden castles fires were usually excluded. Nevertheless the donjons were not, as was once supposed, mere "towers of refuge used only in time of war," but "were the permanent residences of the nobles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries."[1] Only toward the close of this period do the outer buildings develop, so as to give something of the room and convenience demanded by the rising standard of comfort; only in the thirteenth century do the more spacious castles without keeps begin to make their appearance.
It is significant of the progress made by the ducal authority in Normandy that by the time of William the Conqueror definite restrictions had been placed upon the creation of these strongholds of local power and resistance. Except with the duke's license no one could build a castle, or erect a fortress on a rock or an island,
- ↑ Armitage, Early Norman Castles of the British Isles, p. 359.
