The point below which, socially, a building cannot be considered a castle is not one which confronts writers in England or France so much after the twelfth century. Earthwork enclosures and small mottes pose the question, but it does not much arise with stone buildings. Into the breach steps the idea of manor houses as separate buildings from castles, often of timber, and not well preserved until the fifteenth century. The commonest remains from the thirteenth century are the moats surrounding the courtyard of the building, but they overlap clearly with the similar moats from around the houses of assarting free men. Moated sites are also to be
Figure 94 Witches castle: view of the small hall-house from the north-west
Found in Ireland, mainly in the south-east, but they are not usually to be found at sites of the capita of manors (Barry, 1977, 175). Because of this, we are probably justified in equating them in Ireland with the moats of assarting freemen that are found in similar peripheral sites in England and elsewhere. They do not represent castles, or even manor houses, in Ireland. There are, however, stone castles which are clearly less elaborate than the ones discussed in the last chapter. They are castles which have left either a single stone building, the hall-houses, or else those which consist only of an enclosure.
World History
