Ella Sophia Armitage

Ella Sophia Armitage (1841–1931) was an English historian and archaeologist. Educated in Manchester, she taught and wrote on history and later lived in Yorkshire. Her research on early castles overturned the belief that the earthwork mounds of Britain were Saxon fortifications, showing that the motte-and-bailey castle was introduced by the Normans. Her book The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles, published in 1912, became a landmark of medieval archaeology, and she was elected an honorary fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.