 The technique was imported by the Normans into the Molise, where it was used extensively in the raising of castles in a short time.Gaulish masons are even known to have brought the technique from Merovingian Francia to Anglo-Saxon England during the 7th and 8th centuries and employed it in church architecture.The "opus gallicum" served not only as an infrastructural base, but also a superstructural binding element designed to strengthen the masonry.