stus at "black Angers."
This lower position of castles, thus returned to in later times, seems
however to have been the usual position for the fortresses of the
earliest Norman time. Before the Scandinavian conquerors were fully
settled in the country, the great point was to occupy sites commanding
the sea and the navigable rivers; it was a sign of quite another state
of things when the lord of the soil perched himself on the crest of an
inland hill. Of the earlier type of fortress we have an example in the
castle of Eu, a name whose associations may seem to be wholly modern,
but which is, in truth, as the border fortress of Normandy towards
Flanders and the doubtful land of Ponthieu between them, one of the most
historic sites in the Duchy. Eu figures prominently in the wars of Rolf;
in its church William espoused his Flemish bride; in its castle he first
received his renowned English guest.[21] The church of William's day has
given way to a superb fabric of the thirteenth century, which needs only
towers, which are strangely lacking, to rank among the finest minsters
in Normandy. The castle where William and Harold met has given way to
that well-known building of the House of Guise which lived to become the
last home of lawful royalty in France. But the site still reminds one of
the days of Rolf rather than of the days of William. It can hardly be
said to command the town; it is itself commanded by higher ground
immediately above it; town, church, castle, all seem from the
surrounding hills to lie together in a hole. But it is admirably placed
for commanding the approaches from the sea and from the low, and in
Rolf's time no doubt marshy, ground lying between the town and the
water. In exact contrast to Eu, stands the noble hill-castle of Arques,
near Dieppe, the work of William's rebellious uncle and namesake, which
he had to win by the slow process of hunger from Norman rebels and
French auxiliaries.[22] The little town, with a church of later date,
but of striking outline, lies low, lower than Eu; but the castle soars
above it, crowning a peninsular height which forms the extremity of a
long range of higher ground. The steep slopes of the hill might have
seemed defence enough, but Count William did not deem his fortress
secure without cutting an enormous fosse immediately within its circuit,
so that any one who climbed the slope of the hill would find a deep gulf
between himself and the fortress, even if he were luck