Eye Castle

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Eye Castle with the moth from the 11th century and the ruin from the Victorian period

Eye Castle is a moth with a superb, Victorian cultivation in the city Eye in the English county of Suffolk . The castle, which was built shortly after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, was looted and mostly destroyed in 1265. Sir Edward Kerrison had a stone house built in the Motte in 1844. It later fell into disrepair. The ruin subsequently became known as Kerrison's Folly .

history

11th to 13th centuries

Wilhelm Malet , who fell in battle against Hereward the Wake in 1071 , had Eye Castle built as a moth during the reign of William the Conqueror . The Malet family also controlled the surrounding Honor of Eye , a large group of properties around the castle, and Eye Park. The moth is 49 meters in diameter and 12 meters high. The outer bailey is about 122 meters by 76 meters. Notably, Eye Castle is one of only two castles recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a source of income for their owners. The income resulted from a market in the outer bailey. The market in the castle competed with that in Hoxne , which was under the Bishop of Norwich .

Eye Castle in the city of Eye

William Malet's son, Robert , was expelled, and after his death in the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106, Eye Castle was confiscated by Henry I and remained a royal palace for a time. Heinrich gave the castle to his dearest nephew, Stephan, in 1113 . Stephan succeeded Heinrich to the English throne in 1135 and first gave the Honor of Eye to one of his lieutenants, Wilhelm von Ypres , as a fief , and later to Hervey Brito , his son-in-law. Then, in the 1140s, Stephan transferred the land to his second son, Wilhelm . Wilhelm was then still a minor and it happened that the lands were administered by Stephans loyal royal governor Wilhelm Martel until he came of age . In the meantime, a civil war had broken out between Stephan and Empress Matilda , known as " The Anarchy " and lasting from 1138 to 1154. Most of the fighting took place in East Anglia , where the powerful Bigod family under Hugh Bigod tried to expand their independence and influence. Eye Castle did not play a major role in this war because, with the exception of a few skirmishes in the area, most of the fighting was fought west of it.

After Henry II came to power in 1154, he tried to re-establish royal influence in the region. In part as a result of the Civil War, Hugh Bigod dominated East Anglia in the late 12th century. He held the title of Earl of Norfolk and owned four major castles in the area, Framlingham Castle , Bungay Castle , Walton Castle and Thetford Castle . As part of these attempts, Heinrich confiscated the Bigod castles in 1157. Although Heinrich had earlier promises to protect him, he still viewed Stephen's son Wilhelm as a potential claimant to the throne, and so the king also confiscated Eye Castle at that time. Wilhelm died in 1159 and allowed Heinrich to keep Eye Castle, which subsequently legitimized his approach.

Hugh Bigod joined the revolt of Henry's Sons in 1173. He attacked Eye Castle that same year. Although the attack failed, the castle had to be rebuilt. Two square towers were built on the north side of the inner bailey at the end of the 12th century, possibly at the same time as Framlingham Castle. The castle was protected according to the Castle Guard System , with local lands being given to low nobility as a fief and they had to provide knights and soldiers to defend the castle.

The castle was attacked and sacked in 1265 during the Barons' Second War. It was then largely abandoned.

14th to 21st century

Eye Castle above the city of Eye

In the 14th century, Eye Castle was largely in ruins, although parts of it were operated as a prison. Despite the ruinous condition of the castle, the surrounding properties, which used to be part of the “Castle Guard System”, handed over their duties to the owners of Eye Castle for many years, now converted into money. A windmill was built on top of the Motte between 1561 and 1562. At the beginning of the 17th century, like many other medieval deer parks, the Eye park was divided into fields.

In the 1830s a workhouse and school were built in the outer bailey. In 1844 the owner at the time, Sir Edward Kerrison, had a later windmill, which had been built on the Motte, demolished and replaced with a house. Kerrison had the house built for his orderly officer , who had saved his life at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 . The house resembled a “shell keep” ( stone dwelling tower on a medieval moth), was built of flint and had apartments built into the walls on the south and west sides. The building crumbled into ruins when it was damaged by a strong storm in 1965 and continued to collapse that same year. Today it is sometimes called "Kerrison's Folly ". The earthworks and some stone fragments of the original castle are still preserved today, and the property has been listed as a Scheduled Monument and Grade I Historic Building.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Adrian Pettifer: English Castles: a Guide by Counties . Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2002, ISBN 978-0-85115-782-5 , p. 233.
  2. ^ Norman Scarfe: Suffolk in the Middle Ages . Boydell Press, Woodbridge 1996, ISBN 978-1-84383-068-9 , p. 151.
  3. ↑ Rosemary Hoppitt: Hunting Suffolk's Parks: Towards a Reliable Chronology of Imparkment . In: Robert Liddiard (editor): The Medieval Park: New Perspectives . Windgather Press, Bollington 2007, ISBN 978-1-905119-16-5 , p. 163.
  4. ^ JC Wall: Ancient Earthworks in William Page (editor): The Victoria History of Suffolk . Volume 1. University of London, London 1911, p. 596.
  5. ↑ Oliver Hamilton Creighton: Castles and Landscapes: Power, Community and Fortification in Medieval England . Equinox, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-904768-67-8 , pp. 94 & 165.
  6. ^ A b Ralph Henry Carless Davis: King Stephen . Longman, London 1977, ISBN 0-582-48727-7 , p. 7.
  7. ^ A b Edmund King: King Stephen . Yale University Press, New Haven 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-11223-8 , p. 13.
  8. ↑ Edmund King: King Stephen . Yale University Press, New Haven 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-11223-8 , pp. 129 + 138.
  9. ^ A b Vivien Brown: Eye Priory Cartulary and Charters, Part 2 . Boydell Press, Woodbridge 1994, ISBN 978-0-85115-347-6 , p. 28.
  10. ↑ Ralph Henry Carless Davis: King Stephen . Longman, London 1977, ISBN 0-582-48727-7 , pp. 84-85.
  11. ↑ Edmund King: King Stephen . Yale University Press, New Haven 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-11223-8 , p. 220.
  12. ^ A b c R. Allen Brown: English Castles . Batsford, London 1962, p. 191.
  13. ^ WL Warren: Henry II . Yale University Press, New Haven 2000, ISBN 978-0-300-08474-0 , p. 67.
  14. ^ WL Warren: Henry II . Yale University Press, New Haven 2000, ISBN 978-0-300-08474-0 , p. 235.
  15. ↑ John R. Kenyon: Medieval Fortifications . Continuum, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-8264-7886-3 , p. 73.
  16. ^ DJ Cathcart King: The Castle in England and Wales: An Interpretative History . Routledge, London 1991, ISBN 0-415-00350-4 , p. 16.
  17. ↑ a b c d e Suffolk HER EYE 016 . Heritage Gateway, accessed April 24, 2015.
  18. ^ DJ Cathcart King: The Castle in England and Wales: An Interpretative History . Routledge, London 1991, ISBN 0-415-00350-4 , p. 18.
  19. ↑ a b c d Eye Castle, List No. 1316598 . ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Historic England. Retrieved April 24, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / list.english-heritage.org.uk
  20. ↑ Rosemary Hoppitt: Hunting Suffolk's Parks: Towards a Reliable Chronology of Imparkment . In: Robert Liddiard (editor): The Medieval Park: New Perspectives . Windgather Press, Bollington 2007, ISBN 978-1-905119-16-5 , p. 162.
  21. ^ Eye Castle . Gatehouse Gazetteer, accessed April 24, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Eye Castle  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 19 ′ 12.7 "  N , 1 ° 9 ′ 1.1"  E