posted 02-15-2000 03:06 PM           

The direct line of William died out with the death of his 4th son Henry I (who only had illagitimate children) in 1135. There was then a civil war between Williams elder daughter's daughter Matilda and his younger daughter's son Stephen. This war ended when Matilda's son became Henry II in 1154 on the death of Stephen. Henry II was the first of the Plantagenet kings of England. However he was still Duke of Normandy and some consider him to be, therefore, a Norman king. His son John was the last English King to be Duke of Normandy so some consider the Norman reign to end with his death in 1216 although the Platagenet dynasty carried on until the death of Richard II in 1399. Therefore the reign of the Normans ended either with the accession of Henry II in 1154 or with the death of John in 1216. A possible third end of Norman rule would be when the various lords stopped speaking french and started using english as their everyday language. I'm not sure when this generally happened but it certainly didn't happen all at one time.

This affects the the generally accepted views as to the types of castles the Normans built.
Motte, motte and bailey, ringwork, ringwork and bailey earthwork castles were built in England from just before 1066. The first stone castles had rectangular hall keeps (Chepstow http://www.castlewales.com/chepstow.html and Richmond http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/castles/richmo.html ) and the classic Norman square tower soon followed (The White Tower http://www.hrp.org.uk/tol/indextol.htm in the Tower of London is the classic model finished around 1090). The earliest round keep tower is usually cited as New Buckenham http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/AndrewMuller/buckenhm.html built around 1150, but round towers don't become common until the end of the 1100's (and the square keep remains more common). This is the limit of castle types for the earlier 1154 date. However Henry II had many strong and inovative castles built including the irregular Keep castle at Orford http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mwcook/orford%20castle.html and the first concentric castle at Dover http://www.arts.richmond.edu/~wwest/Dover/dover.htm . Also enclosure castles, without a strong central keep, start to appear at the end of the 1100's, notably Framlingham http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mwcook/framlingham%20castle.html .

Please post again if you want me to explain some of the terms or for more information.

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posted 02-16-2000 04:54 AM           

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