Dominion in the Landscape by Lucy Marten-Holden

Dominion in the Landscape

Early Norman Castles in Suffolk

Lucy Marten-Holden

Good essay which clarifies modern thought on the positioning and function of the early Norman castle. To quote "The post-Conquest castle site... was a complex mix of Anglo-Saxon precedent and Norman innovation, based upon a universally recognised model and used as a deliberate strategy of Lordship... The whole represents a deliberate construction of authority, but it is an authority based around the concept of dominion, not military domination." Marten-Holden is careful to limit her comments to her area of study - Suffolk but her conclusions can clearly be more widely attributed although with some reservations in the welsh marches where active warfare and military domination had a greater, but not exclusive, role in castle siting.

Published in History Today, April 2001, Volume 51.4, page(s) 46-52

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Last updated on Monday, January 22, 2007

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