docbobdocs

  ...bishop Gundulf, seeing as he was in masonry work the greatest and the ablest, might from his own means build a stone castle for [the king] at Rochester...                Textus Roffensis   Written by a monk of the Priory of St Andrew the Apostle in Rochester, probably decades after the negotiations it describes, the praise of his bishop could be overdone. However, Gundulf's reputation was based on more hearsay and legend.  He may, or may not, have been the architect of the Tower of London and Colchester Castle, but the evidence of his construction of monastic and defensive buildings in Kent is more convincing. THE TWO TOWERS Predating Gundulf's ecclesiastic structures were a couple of tall stone towers. While they don't match the squat, massif  footprints of contemporary castle keeps like Chepstow or Colchester, they were stand-alone fortified buildings. Gundulf's Tower at Rochester had walls 6 feet thick enclosing a groun...

  William fitz Osbern was a close companion of William the Conqueror. He owed his position at the Duke of Normandy's right hand to his skill and loyalty as a soldier. But he was also quick-witted. Fitz Osbern made the jokes, defusing awkward situations among tense fighting men. The Chronicle of Battel Abbey  mentions a couple of occasions where he saved his leader from looking ridiculous. These occurred in the immediate lead up to the Battle of Hastings, when emotions were already at a high pitch. On the landing of the fleet:        "The soldiers leaped joyfully upon English ground at intervals along the shore. It happened as the duke left his ship, that he fell upon his face, making his nose somewhat bloody on the beach, and grasping the earth with his outstretched hands. Many of the bystanders feared the consequences of so unlucky a presage and stood whispering together. But the duke's sewer [household steward and food taster], William Fitz-Osbert, a man ...