Online Encyclopedia

KEEP (corresponding to the French don...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 714 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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KEEP (corresponding to the

French donjon)  ,.in architecture the inmost and strongest
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part of a
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medieval castle, answering to the citadel of
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modern times . The arrangement is said to have originated with Gundulf, bishop of Rochester (d . 1ro8), architect of the White Tower . The Norman keep is generally a very massive square tower . There is generally a well in a medieval keep, ingeniously concealed in the thickness of a wall or in a pillar . The most celebrated keeps of Norman times in England are the White Tower in
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London, those at Rochester Arundel and Newcastle, Castle Hedingham, &c . When the keep was circular, as at Conisborough and Windsor, it was called a " shell-keep " (see CASTLE) . The verb " to keep," from which the noun with its particular meaning here treated was formed, appears in O.E. as cepan, of which the derivation is unknown; no words related to it are found in cognate
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languages . The earliest meaning (c. r000) appears to have been to
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lay hold of, to seize, from which its
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common uses of to guard, observe, retain possession of, have
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developed .

End of Article: KEEP (corresponding to the French donjon)
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LAURA KEENE (c. 1820-1873)
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ROBERT PORTER KEEP (1844-1904)

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