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Motte-and-bailey castles were immensely popular for nearly 200 years. The Normans were huge advocates of this type of castle design and motte-and-baileys were a decisive factor in the Normans successful conquest of the British Isles.
Despite the simple and relatively rough design, motte-and-baileys had excellent defensive capabilities. Attackers soon found out that the keep on top of the motte was surprisingly hard to capture as the height of the motte and the ditch surrounding it gave defenders a significant defensive advantage.
Moreover, Norman designers found that the wider the ditch was dug, the deeper and steeper the sides of the scarp could be, making life even more difficult for the attackers.
Sometimes, the ditches were filled with water by damming or diverting nearby streams – as here – forming water-filled moats.
The biggest advantage of the Motte and Bailey design was how extremely cheap and easy to build it was. Designers could use an existing mound or hill for foundations which could save significant construction time.
Construction didn’t require any special materials, and the work could usually be carried out by unskilled men. This meant that a motte-and-bailey castle could be built relatively quickly using local manpower and earth and timber alone as building materials. This allowed the Normans to quickly consolidate their power, then move on and conquer the next region.
As a marker of their success, almost 1,000 motte-and-bailey castles were built in England, Wales, and Scotland.
By the end of the 11th century, motte-and-bailey castles made entirely out of earth and timber began to fall from favour because timber is flammable and tends to easily rot.