The years 1001 to 1100 were those leading to the Norman Conquest in 1066.
The Domesday Survey is starting point for many historical accounts for many regions of the UK.
While the Domesday Survey is the most comprehensive account of the country at the time there is much interepretation
needed when quoting it. Many historians have attempted to translate and interprete the survey, The Hull Domesday Project
has a lot of background on this and others have attempted to create searchable databases to presumably extract information
on specific areas of the country and the leaders involved in these areas.
The Belchamps are a case-in-point in the intrepretation of Domesday. While the de Vere dynasty has been established for
this region, the "assignment" of lands to the London clergy also needs to be considered. Much of
the region was under control of the de Vere's Belchamp St. Pauls and
other regions were "owned" by London.
The history of Belchamp Walter with respect to this period of time didn't really start until the
12th century
when the Feudal nature introduced by the Normans shaped the country in general. Belchamp Walter saw the "holding"
of the region by a number of families, starting with the aquisition of the area by Geofery de Mandeville as a wedding
gift made by Aubrey de Vere in the marriage of his daughter Rohse.
domesdaybook.net
The nature of castles built in England:
"
There has been some debate as to the nature of the castle introduced after the Conquest, specifically whether it was
of the motte-and-bailey variety depicted (without its bailey) in the Bayeux Tapestry, or just a simple ring-work,
a ditch and earth bank. It has been plausibly argued that in the circumstances of the Conquest, when there was an urgent
need to build large numbers of fortifications as quickly and as cheaply as possible, ring-works were the answer.
Indeed, it has even been suggested that mottes were unknown in Europe before 1066. Far from being brought into England
from Normandy,
the motte-and-bailey design was evolved during the early years of the Conquest and then re-exported to Europe.
"
Andrew G. Lowerre says in his "Why here.... Not there?" paper "The Location of early Norman Castles IN in
the South Eastern Midlands:"
Andrew covers the period from Conquest to the death of William Rufus (1100).
"
To conclude, it is clear that monocausal explanations for the location of castles
– particularly explanations focused on ‘military-strategic’ issues – are over-simpified
and do not stand up to sustained scrutiny. In many cases, the castles built in the
south-eastern Midlands in the late eleventh century were symbols of their builders’
success, a means of advertising the power and authority they already had, rather
than tools used to acquire that power and authority. But it should not be forgotten
that while England was not engulfed in widespread warfare in the decade after
Hastings, it was not uniformly peaceful or stable. Historical hindsight shows that
the unrest of the first half decade of the Conqueror’s reign would largely fade in
the following fifteen years. At the time, however, the individuals choosing to build
castles could not have known that. Erecting a castle would have sent a signal to
surviving sokemen and minor thegns that William of Normandy’s followers were
there to stay. Fortress-building could have acted as a deterrent to further rebellion,
and the lack of evidence for serious resistance on the part of the English suggests
that it was effective. In the area where the counties of Bedford, Huntingdon, and
Northampton met, castle-building may well have been spurred on, at least in part,
by competition and rivalry among the neighbourhood’s major landholders, but there,
erecting castles was about muscle-flexing, one-upmanship, and vying for prestige,
not about unceasing armed conflict. ‘Military’ considerations did not trump all other
factors.
"
I kind of see Andrew's point in that castles seem to be located where there is some unrest that cannot
be "contained" by the clergy (Abbots at Bury St. Edmunds and Colne Prior). Castle Hedingham and Clare
are examples of this as the de Veres and the de Clares were both active in their allegiences to the monachy.
The de Veres were besiged twice in their castle and the de Clares were probably responsible for the
large number of castles in the Welsh Marches.
Returning to Belchamp Walter's history, the marriage between
Rohse de Vere and
a Baron of Bedford and the destruction of the castle there, illustrates the volatile environment at the
time.
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