a fortified retreat where they might shut
themselves up after an expedition, repel the vengeance of their foes,
and resist the authorities who attempted to maintain order in the
country.

Others followed the example of the barons. The townsfolk fortified their
towns, monks their monasteries; and even within the town-walls many
houses had their towers and gates and barriers in order to keep back
troublesome visitors.

Here is a description of a French castle in the fourteenth century:--

"First imagine to yourself a superb position, a steep mountain,
bristling with rocks, furrowed with ravines and precipices; upon the
declivity is the castle. The small houses which surround it set off its
grandeur; the river seems to turn aside with respect; it forms a large
semicircle at its feet. This castle must be seen when, at sunrise, the
outward galleries glimmer with the armour of the sentinels, and the
towers are shown all brilliant with their large new gratings. Those high
buildings must be seen, which fill those who defend them with courage,
and with fear those who should be tempted to attack them.

"The door presents itself covered with heads of boars or wolves, flanked
with turrets and crowned with a high guard-house. Enter, there are three
inclosures, three moats, three drawbridges to pass. You find yourself in
a large square court, where are cisterns, and on the right and left the
stables, hen-houses, pigeon-houses, coach-houses; the cellars, vaults,
and prisons are below; above are the dwelling-apartments; above these
are the magazines, larders, or salting-rooms, and arsenals. All the
roofs are bordered with machicolations, parapets, guard-walks, and
sentry-boxes. In the middle of the court is the donjon, which contains
the archives and the treasure. It is deeply moated all round, and can
only be entered by a bridge, almost always raised. Although the walls,
like those of the castle, are six feet thick, it is surrounded up to
half its height with a chemise, or second wall, of large cut stones.
This castle has just been rebuilt. There is something light, fresh,
laughing about it, not possessed by the heavy massive castles of the
last century."

One would scarcely expect to hear a castle described as "light, fresh,
laughing"; yet so a fourteenth-century castle seemed to eyes accustomed
to the gloomy, stern, and massive structures of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. In these no beauty or display of art was attempted.