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KEEP (corresponding to the French don...

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

French See also:donjon)  ,.in See also:architecture the inmost and strongest See also:part of a See also:medieval See also:castle, answering to the citadel of See also:modern times . The arrangement is said to have originated with Gundulf, See also:bishop of See also:Rochester (d . 1ro8), architect of the See also:White See also:Tower . The See also: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 See also:wall or in a See also:pillar . The most celebrated keeps of Norman times in See also:England are the White Tower in See also:London, those at Rochester See also:Arundel and See also:Newcastle, Castle Hedingham, &c . When the keep was circular, as at Conisborough and See also:Windsor, it was called a " See also: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 See also:languages . The earliest meaning (c. r000) appears to have been to See also:lay hold of, to seize, from which its See also:common uses of to guard, observe, retain See also:possession of, have See also: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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