The Bailey

The top of the motte was a rather constricted space, and the timber tower could not house all the people who needed protection, so a second trench and embankment were dug around or beside the motte to enclose a yard called the bailey (also called a “ward” in England). Palisades (walls of upright timbers) on the crest of these embankments added to their strength and effectiveness. Inside the bailey, timber and turf buildings sheltered men, animals, and supplies. By the twelfth century the number of buildings inside the walls increased and might include a great hall, a chapel, a chamber block and additional sleeping quarters, a kitchen, barns and stables, storerooms, and—since the settlement had to be self-sufficient—a well or some provision for water, a smithy for repairing weapons, a mill to grind the grain, and an oven to bake the daily bread. Although to us the castle with its many buildings and inhabitants may seem like a village, it functions differently. City walls were built as a collective defensive system; the castle was the property and home of an individual family and the place where the lord held court and administered the surrounding territory.