Key study Different levels of fortification on the English Scottish border In the Middle Ages the English Scottish border zone suffered frequent invasions and rival kings encouraged local clan groups to raid across it. By the C13th, raiding in these debatable lands was endemic. The exploits of the closely knit reiver families (so significant that they gave us the word bereave ) are well known from songs and stories. At times their action provoked military action in reprisal. Insecurity meant that fortifications were constructed at many different levels. These provide valuable insights into not only the technology and the use of fortifications but also the relative amounts of social power. Elsdon Motte and Bailey Castle (Norman) Woodhouses Bastle House (Early Modern)
Smailholm Tower House (Early Modern)
Keep of Etal Baronial Medieval Castle (Medieval)
Hermitage Warden s Medieval Castle (Medieval) Keep of Norham Royal Castle (Medieval)
Motte and bailey Elsdon motte and bailey was one of thousands of earth and timber castles built after the Norman invasions. They were largely created by Norman warlords to provide protection from their new Saxon subjects and also to provide a place of safety during raids by other warlords. Their height prevented the use of cavalry whilst banks and palisades provided cover for small numbers of archers to deter attackers. They could not stand protracted sieges. The creation of castles such as Elsdon provides an example of mobilization, since the local peasantry were forced to build the castle and this acknowledged the power of their new overlord. Woodhouses bastle and Smailholm peel provide two variations on local fortifications during the reiver period. Woodhouses is effectively a fortified farmhouse where the landowner could herd valuable cattle and retreat to the upper rooms behind 1 metre thick walls and a door which could not be attacked with a battering ram. The peel tower also provided a secure bolt hole for the family of richer landowners or merchants. In both cases defenders could fire from behind arrow loops or crenellations but the main tactic was to stay inside and hope that the raiders moved on and did not have time to start lighting fires. They were really designed to hold out for a few hours until a rescue party arrived. However, the vertical peel design also made a statement about the importance of the owners and similar buildings continued to be built well after raiding ceased in the C17th AD. Stone castles Hermitage Castle was built in Liddesdale to dominate what has been called the bloodiest valley in Britain. Raiding by Scottish reivers threatened to provoke war with England, so to control Liddesdale and prevent war with England a Royal Warden was appointed and Hermitage was built first in wood then in stone. The earthworks are ruined but the main building survives. It contains a prison tower and its strong vertical walls would require siege equipment to overcome them. Arrow loops provide both protection and a good field of fire for archers as did the later gun-ports for musketeers. Hermitage
would have had wooden fighting platforms around the upper walls from which fire could be directed at attackers approaching the walls. A tiny garrison could hold off raiding parties. Ford or Etal is an example of the castle of a noble or major landowner. It provided both status and protection. Key defensive features include a high, vertical keep, crenellations and a heavily fortified entrance. It was too strong for raiders, could hold out against rival nobles and before the advent of cannon, might even hope to be by-passed by armies. However, where an army did attack, it was too small to hold out. Etal was swiftly captured by a Scottish royal army in 1513. State-level fortifications Defensive borders are a common feature of states. The royal castle of Norham stands on a natural strongpoint high above the River Tweed and formed part of a chain of fortresses defending the northern borders of England against Scottish invasion. The scale of the defences and size of the bailey indicate that it was designed to house a large garrison and hold off an army. This contrasts with the many smaller castles in the area which were designed for protection against raiding. Norham repeatedly did its job, only falling to James IV s artillery in 1513, days before the decisive battle of Flodden. Berwick-upon-Tweed provides an example of a fortified town and a revolution in defensive architecture. The taxes of the town were valuable to monarchs and its merchants had royal garrisons to protect them. This did not prevent Berwick changing hands many times between England and Scotland until Elizabeth I s defences made it impregnable. The vertical walls of castles were obsolete by the C16th due to artillery. The solution can be seen in the earth bank protecting the lower vertical wall of the town. The space between was a killing zone with defenders able to fire from protected positions above and alongside the walls. Walled towns with restricted gates enabled rulers to control the inhabitants and to dominate the surrounding area. Fortified buildings were important for holding territory and providing shelter during sieges but medieval decisive battles were fought in open country. James IV s invading Scottish army was destroyed in hand to hand combat close to Norham and Etal at Flodden in1513. Key study Elite houses and attached specialists at Copan Dating from around AD 800, a stone built room (110b) with a stone bench along one wall was discovered in an elite residential area of the city. Room 110b had no windows and could only be accessed from another workshop (110a). The room had been buried quickly by an earthquake, leaving artefacts where they had been used. Ceramic vessels on the bench contained tools. Some were wrapped in a leather quiver rather like a chef s knife holder. Tools included antler drills which would have been used with sand and water to perforate bone and antler (p. 182). They also drilled the teeth of nobles so that prestigious jade inserts could be set in the teeth. Obsidian blades were used for cutting material. Although obsidian is as strong as surgical steel, it is very brittle so the blades would have been glued into wooden or antler handles for support. Evidence of their use came from a flat cutting stone scored from the action of blades and saws. The workshop was littered with exotic raw materials and with incomplete artefacts. One outstanding find was a star gorget made from conch shell similar to examples worn by statues of the Bacabs the gods who held up the sky. Obsidian
itself was believed to have been produced by lightning strikes and was therefore sacred. This prestige item was probably made for a high-status person, possibly the owner of the elite residence in whose compound the workshop stood. Adjoining workshops had produced textiles including feather headresses and other artefacts of shell or greenstone. Who were the specialists? So who were these craftsmen and what was their status? As in most early societies the very existence of craft specialists indicates an economic surplus that can support people who are not engaged in food production. The fertile Copan Valley provided huge quantities of maize and other crops. In the essentially closed economic system of the Maya, these resources were not used for large-scale trade, but rather to enhance the prestige of the elite by allowing them to support an ever-growing number of retainers. Many of these people would have been close relatives, members of the elites themselves. These people could not be expected to carry out menial tasks but seem to have become specialists including scribes and priests. They also included craftsmen who produced jade jewellery, featherwork and other exotic items for their lord and relative. Archaeologists call this attached specialism as their output was devoted to their master rather than being sold or exchanged. Attached craft production of prestige items enabled the elite to control output and therefore the rarity and value of items (Hirth 2010). Confirmation of these ideas came from underneath the floor of the workshop itself where several skeletons were discovered in stone cists. One of these bore the telltale signs of elite status. The Maya used cranial deformation to distinguish elite children. This left them with a high-domed head and flat forehead. The elite position of craftsmen is corroborated by a burial behind a staircase in an elaborately decorated chamber at the heart of the acropolis. The floor of the tomb was littered with decomposed pieces of bark codices the books of the Maya rich grave goods and the sacrificed body of a young slave. It was clearly a royal burial but whose was it? The ages at death of the kings of the time did not match the skeleton. Ceramics in the tomb provided clues. Some of them were clearly associated with painting. Indeed one carried a human portrait of a man wearing a special monkey headdress and with scribes brushes in his mouth. He represented the patron god of scribes. The body was probably a son of the C7th AD King Smoke-Imix, a royal scribe whose duty was to paint the books containing the history and mythology of his dynasty, and who performed a vital role in sustaining his family s power and status. In another link the facade of the houses of the Bacabs includes figures of scribes holding conch ink pots (Schele and Miller 1986). Copan and stratification The radically different size of residential buildings and the nature of associated finds at Copan provides clear evidence of a stratified society. Willey (1979) identified a five-level typology which has been widely used and developed elsewhere. Type 1 buildings were simple dwellings and often made from wattle and daub. These predominated in rural areas. Types 4 and 5 were complexes set around a series of linked courtyards. They were frequently built with ashlar (p. 258) masonry and featured carvings and hieroglyphics on their walls. Abrams (1994) reached similar conclusions using cluster analysis based on energetics. This involves calculating the volumes of materials used in a building and then multiplying by the time to build them. This gives approximate labour costs. By
analysing the distribution of buildings with different labour costs, Abrams (1994) quantified the levels in the hierarchy. Around 85% of all buildings at Copan were single-storey family units, essentially the homes of the farmers and labourers; 10% were middle-status stone dwellings, usually built around a courtyard; 5% were the substantial compounds of the elite families; a final 1% were the palaces of the rulers. The House of the Bacabs is part of the Les Sepulturas area just outside the centre of Copan. It can be identified as an elite resdential area by the number of Type 4 buildings, finds of prestige goods and the causeway linking it to the ceremonial centre 1km away. Within Les Sepulturas the largest Type 4 complex is structure 9N-82. This is a compound of around fifty buildings organised around seven linked courtyards. The House of the Bacabs is the dominant building in the complex and features carvings of life-sized warriors on the walls and a large hieroglyphic bench. Most archaeologists have interpreted the occupant as the head of an elite lineage and linked by kinship to many of those living in the linked buildings housing (Webster 1989).