Casemate 76

Britain's Mediaeval Castles:

Lisa E Hull. HB, 218pp. Many b/w photographs. ISBN 0.275.98414.1. £28.99.
Published by Praeger, 2006.

Heaven (and John Kenyon) alone know how many books have been written on this subject. Can another one have anything new to offer? To the dedicated amateur, or the initiate, this one most certainly has. The American author has spent twenty years researching in the UK.

Armed with Britain's Medieval Castles, the reader can learn all they might want to know about castles and be able to make intelligent deductions about the nature, fabric and siting of them.
Hull explains in a lucid and attractive style how castles functioned outside the military role, but she does not neglect their offensive and defensive tasks. Two important sections - the Introduction and the final chapter - elaborate on what the castle actually was. The place of the castle in the Feudal Age, and its changing role as feudalism declined, are examined, as is the castle in the Age of Artillery.

I have learnt much from this book; it is a very easy read without losing for a moment its intellectual rigour. The index, bibliography and glossary are all one would expect. Some photographs are rather dark, and plans to illustrate differing types of castle would have been useful, but while the book is expensive, it does deliver what it sets out to.

Gil Dowdall-Brown.