A type of residential and defensive building, a transition form between the hillfort and the concentric castle. It consisted of two elements: a mound (motte), often artificial, in the shape of a truncated cone on which a wooden or stone defensive structure was erected, most often of a tower-like character, and a fortified ward next to the hill (bailey). The first objects of this type appeared at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries, in Normandy and Anjou in France, then spread in the areas of the Holy Roman Empire, northern Italy, Denmark, Bohemia and Poland, and after Norman conquest were numerous in England, then Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Their great advantage was the ease of building with good defense capabilities.
