willelm

Updated: June 10, 2025

Still, we stick even here to the old root: for of course castle is only the diminutive castellum a scion of the same Roman stock, which, like so many other members of aristocratic families, 'came over with William the Conqueror. The word castel is never used, I believe, in any English document before the Conquest; but in the very year of William's invasion, the Chronicle tells us, 'Willelm earl came from Normandy into Pevensey, and wrought a castel at Hastings port. So, while in France itself the word has declined through chastel into château, we in England have kept it in comparative purity as castle.

Grant Allen - Science in Arcady