y at Slymbridge in Gloucestershire had, some years back at least,
a moat round it. Some traces of a moat were not long ago still to be
seen at the Bishop's court-house at Wookey in Somerset. Is it possible
that this unsavoury ditch really marks out the home precinct of the
father of kings? Can it be that Tancred lived within it, perhaps in a
wooden house, defended by a palisade and by such a ditch? We do not like
the guess, but we have no better, and it really is not so absurd as it
sounds. We must remember that, in Tancred's day, at least in Tancred's
youth, the existence of stone castles is a little problematical. It is
certain that there are few or none left of so early a date; but Normandy
has seen so many seasons of the destruction of castles that it is rash
to say positively that there never were any. In Tancred's day and later
we often hear of the "_domus defensabilis_," as distinguished from the
castle. And, as the famous one at Brionne, which so long defied the arms
of Duke William, is defined as "_aula lapidea_,"[40] it seems implied
that a "_domus defensabilis_" might be only "_lignea_." To be sure the
stone house at Brionne had in the river Rille a ready-made moat in every
way better than the ditch that we have stumbled on at Hauteville. In
England, at the same time, we should have been perfectly satisfied with
a wooden "aula" as the dwelling place of a powerful thegn, but then we
should have looked for it on something of a mound, like the home of
Wiggod at Wallingford. Certainly, a frightfully stinking ditch of no
great width, compassing a square field, is a poor find after the hopes
with which we set out. But, in the absence of all help from books or
men, it is all that we have to offer. We should be glad if anybody would
tell us of something better; but this is all we could make out for
ourselves. The name is hardly a greater difficulty on this lower site
than on the higher ground of the _chateau_. It may be then--we hope it
is not so, but it may be--that it was within this ditch that Humphrey
and Drogo and William of the Iron Arm were so carefully brought up by
their good stepmother, that it was here that the Wiscard played his
first childish tricks, with the yet smaller Roger as a willing younger
brother. Tancred's estate, we are told, was not large enough to feed his
two batches of children; that was the reason why they went to seek
their fortunes so far off. If they had stayed at home, the estate might