After much deliberation with the knights with him and the captain of the mercenaries, it was agreed in the first instance to attempt to attack the place by filling up a portion of the moat and ascending by scaling ladders.  Huge screens of wood were made, and these were placed on wagons; the wagons themselves were filled with bags of earth, and a large number of men getting beneath them shoved the ponderous machines forward to the edge of the moat.  The bags of stones and earth were then thrown in, and the wagons pushed backward to obtain a fresh supply.  This operation was of course an exceedingly slow one, a whole day being occupied with each trip of the wagons.  They were not unmolested in their advance, for, from the walls, mangonels and other machines hurled great stones down upon the wooden screens, succeeding sometimes, in spite of their thickness, in crashing through them, killing many of the men beneath.  The experiment was also tried of throwing balls of Greek fire down upon the wood; but as this was green and freshly felled it would not take fire, but the flames dropping through, with much boiling pitch and other materials, did grievously burn and scald the soldiers working below it.  Upon both sides every device was tried.  The crossbowmen among the mercenaries kept up a fire upon the walls to hinder the defenders from interfering with the operations, while the archers above shot steadily, and killed many of those who ventured within range of their bows.

After ten days’ labor a portion of the moat some twenty yards in length was filled with bags of earth, and all was ready for the assault.  The besiegers had prepared great numbers of strong ladders, and these were brought up under shelter of the screens.  Then, all being ready, the trumpets sounded for the assault, and the troops moved forward in a close body, covering themselves with their shields so that no man’s head or body was visible, each protecting the one before him with his shield held over him.  Thus the body presented the appearance of a great scale-covered animal.  In many respects, indeed, the warfare of those days was changed in no way from that of the time of the Romans.  In the twelve hundred years which had elapsed between the siege of Jerusalem and the days of the Crusades there had been but little change in arms or armor, and the operations which Titus undertook for the reduction of the Jewish stronghold differed but little from those which a Norman baron employed in besieging his neighbor’s castle.

Within Evesham Castle all was contentment and merriment during these days.  The garrison had no fear whatever of being unable to repel the assault when it should be delivered.  Huge stones had been collected in numbers on the walls, caldrons of pitch, beneath which fires kept simmering, stood there in readiness.  Long poles with hooks with which to seize the ladders and cut them down were laid there; and all that precaution and science could do was prepared.