Casemate 76

Castles in Medieval Society: Fortresses in England, France and Ireland in the Central Middle Ages:

Charles Coulson. PB, 441pp. ISBN 0.19.927363.4. £22.50.
Published by Oxford University Press, 2004.

Charles Coulson writes of his work, '..a book long in gestation'. Thirty years long in fact, and the results are developed in this thought-provoking volume. They can be seen as his strongly held belief that earlier scholars of castles concentrated too much on the military functions of the castle to the exclusion of the administrative, cultural and social activities. Coulson is a man of robust opinions, stated with great clarity, and doubtless academic hackles were raised, (as he anticipates in his introduction), particularly over what he terms 'chronological leaps and modern analogies'. In general, he handles the 'fortification' historians roughly, but fairly. Much of what Coulson proposed was ground-breaking for the time, and the effect is to be seen in the work of the current generation of castle scholars such as Creighton, Johnson and Wheatley which has given a new (and welcome) impetus to castellology.

Coulson sees castles as the visible embodiment of the owner's wealth, power and authority, (whether king or nobleman), and since the majority of castles never saw action, they remained as the centres of largely tranquil domains. They functioned as seats of the local executive authority in terms of financial control, courts of justice and of course homes. At the same time it would be incorrect to assume that castles had no military role. There are numerous examples of castles built for strategic purposes - the Five Sons of Carcassonne for example. This is a book not to be missed by anyone who wishes to broaden his understanding of the medieval castle, and on the way, to be challenged, provoked and entertained as well as instructed.

Gil Dowdall-Brown.