Stone towers appeared early in the Loire River valley. The massive
ruin at Langeais, recently dated 992, was once a broad tower with four
corner turrets. Today it stands in the park of a fifteenth-century chateau.
Not far off, at Loches, the tower is the earliest surviving great tower to
combine within its walls a hall, the lord’s chamber, and a chapel. Recent
analysis of the wood used in the original building has dated this tower
between 1012 and 1035. Meanwhile, in England, as we have seen, during
the first years after the Norman invasion, William and his men depended
on hastily built earth and timber defenses but replaced the
wooden castles with stone as soon as the earth had compacted. Masonry
required good stone quarries and quarry men, powerful ox teams to transport
the material, and skilled stonemasons to construct the walls and
vaults. Stone castles became a heavy burden on the people (Documents
13–19).
World History
