T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 220

considerable size. There are no signs of outer works, or of inner defences. It is a mistake to limit the activities of the twelfth century builders to donjon-towers and shell-keeps. They were well accustomed to putting up more complex fortifications. To assert that the conception of a concentric castle had to be learnt from Byzantium, and imported laboriously into Europe just in time for the building of Chateau Gaillard is to fly in the face of all probability. The architect of the "early pointed" period, who from his own intelligence was performing in church-building wonders that have never been surpassed in any age or country, was probably capable of the calculation that two walls were stronger than one or three than two. Had he not been he could have looked at any earthwork, or at any Norman keep-and-bailey castle: he might even apply at the nearest monastery, and be told of the advantages of the triple wall praised by Lambert of Herschfeldt. The monks might even lend him a copy of the Vegetius that Geoffrey Plantagenet studied with such profit in his sieges. Multiple castles as a matter of fact were built in Europe at all periods, becoming stronger and stronger with improved arts of attack. At Friedeval (...) the twelfth century architect ran a light stone walling round the top of existing double earthworks: at Taillebourg he carved out ditches in soft rock across a promontory running out into the marshes of the Charente. At Chinon he did the same on a