<P> The motte - and - bailey castle is a particularly northern European phenomenon, most numerous in Normandy and Britain, but also seen in Denmark, Germany, Southern Italy and occasionally beyond . European castles first emerged in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes and local territories became threatened by the Magyars and the Norse . Against this background, various explanations have been put forward to explain the origins and spread of the motte - and - bailey design across northern Europe; there is often a tension among the academic community between explanations that stress military and social reasons for the rise of this design . One suggestion is that these castles were built particularly in order to protect against external attack--the Angevins, it is argued, began to build them to protect against the Viking raids, and the design spread to deal with the attacks along the Slav and Hungarian frontiers . Another argument is that, given the links between this style of castle and the Normans, who were of Viking descent, it was in fact originally a Viking design, transported to Normandy and Angers . The motte - and - bailey castle was certainly effective against assault, although as historian André Debord suggests, the historical and archaeological record of the military operation of motte - and - bailey castles remains relatively limited . </P> <P> An alternative approach focuses on the links between this form of castle and what can be termed a feudal mode of society . The spread of motte - and - bailey castles was usually closely tied to the creation of local fiefdoms and feudal landowners, and areas without this method of governance rarely built these castles . Yet another theory suggests that the design emerged as a result of the pressures of space on ringworks, and that the earliest motte - and - baileys were converted ringworks . Finally, there may be a link between the local geography and the building of motte - and - bailey castles, which are usually built on low - lying areas, in many cases subject to regular flooding . Regardless of the reasons behind the initial popularity of the motte - and - bailey design, however, there is widespread agreement that the castles were first widely adopted in Normandy and Angevin territory in the 10th and 11th centuries . </P> <P> The earliest purely documentary evidence for motte - and - bailey castles in Normandy and Angers comes from between 1020 and 1040, but a combination of documentary and archaeological evidence pushes the date for the first motte and bailey castle, at Vincy, back to 979 . The castles were built by the more powerful lords of Anjou in the late 10th and 11th centuries, in particular Fulk III and his son, Geoffrey II, who built a great number of them between 987 and 1060 . Many of these earliest castles would have appeared quite crude and rustic by later standards, belying the power and prestige of their builders . William the Conqueror, as the Duke of Normandy, is believed to have adopted the motte - and - bailey design from neighbouring Anjou . Duke William went on to prohibit the building of castles without his consent through the Consuetudines et Justicie, with his legal definition of castles centring on the classic motte - and - bailey features of ditching, banking and palisading . </P> <P> By the 11th century, castles were built throughout the Holy Roman Empire, which then spanned central Europe . They now typically took the form of an enclosure on a hilltop, or, on lower ground, a tall, free - standing tower (German Bergfried .) The largest castles, known in German as Hohenburgen, had well - defined inner and outer courts, but no mottes . The motte - and - bailey design began to spread into Alsace and the northern Alps from France during the first half of the 11th century, spreading further into Bohemia and Austria in the subsequent years . This form of castle was closely associated with the colonisation of newly cultivated areas within the Empire, as new lords were granted lands by the emperor and built castles close to the local gród, or town . Motte - and - bailey castle building substantially enhanced the prestige of local nobles, and it has been suggested that their early adoption was because they were a cheaper way of imitating the still more prestigious hohenburgen, but this is usually regarded as unlikely . In many cases, bergfrieds were converted into motte and bailey designs by burying existing castle towers within the mounds . </P>

When was the first motte and bailey castle built