By 1983, when David King's magnum opus Castellarium Anglicanum was published, castles studies was, in many ways, a completed subject. The castles was clearly defined as 'a fortified residence of a (feudal) lord'1. The thorny question of the origin of the castle had been solved early in the 20th century by Mrs Armitage and R. H. Round, and G. T. Clark's proposal of a saxon origin had been quashed under a Norman yolk. The classic story of the development of the castle as a military fortification had been described by A. H. Thompson and popularised by R. A. Brown.2 All that needed to be done was fill in the individual details of sites and wipe away the last remnants of the 19th centuries Liberals loathing of the private castle from the public memory.
In the wings of were a group of ‘young turks’, lead by Charles Coulson, about to challenge this orthodoxy. Coulson had published his seminal paper ‘Structural Symbolism in Medieval Castle Architecture’ in 1979 which challenged this military view. Gradually, with some marked opposition, some still ongoing, a paradigm shift has occurred. This perhaps best seen in the revisionist views of Brown's 'perfect specimen of the ... quadrangular castle' (Brown, 1989, p35) Bodiam Castle (Turner, 1986; Coulson, 1991; Taylor et al, 1996). Later castles are no longer seen as military residences, but as houses of men concerned with displays of their social status. Coulson's work (Coulson, 1979, 1982, 1994, 1995) has shown licences to crenellate were not permissions by a controlling royal authority designed to restrict military buildings but desirable, but by no means essential, royal acknowledgements of social status with approval to show this status by building in a noble style. The later castle was no longer a Saracen armoured personal carrier but a Roll-Royce car with a generals pennant (indeed many licences to crenellate were for second-hand Jag's).
More
recent work extends this view into earlier periods of the castles history.
Examination of the numerous small
mottes of the welsh marches can not justify earlier explanations of these
as 'watch towers' or 'pill boxes'. A manor rated at half a knight's services
clearly did not have the finances to mount a permanent watch and the actual
site of these mottes is rarely military, some are overlooked by still
strong Iron Age fortifications. The astonishing booklet 'The
Motte-and-Bailey Castles of the Welsh Border' by R. H. A. Merlen, which
proposes garrisons of a hundred or more in such mottes can be seen a last
desperate gasp of a dead idea. Here, in the welsh marches, it seems these
minor earthworks used small ‘symbolic’ mottes to assert lordship in an area
where even English, let alone Norman, rule were still open to active questioning.
Lucy Marten-Holden looked at Suffolk and came to the conclusion that castles
there represented "the concept of dominion, not military domination", this
view clearly had wider scope and others have expanded on this.
Other work has looked at the castle more as a place where the institution of lordship was embodied. The classic castle story had recognised the administrative aspect of the castle but placed it a minor third behind the military and residential roles, but examinations of White Tower of The
Tower of London (Impey and Parnell, 2000) and keep of Hedingham
Castle (Dixon and Marshall, 1992) show these buildings to be almost entirely court buildings, both in the judicial sense, but more importantly in the sense of retinue of a lord. The fourth floor of residential rooms at Hedingham is shown to be a fiction, the tower is fundamentally a ‘throne room’ for the de Vere earls of Oxford with an lower floor waiting room. The Tower is a complex of associated lesser and greater throne rooms and antechambers designed for display and prestige. The whole makes these not the towers of retreat and last resort that the relatively modern name of ‘keep’ implies, or the domestic quarters of the lord safe from the dubious retainers of Simpson’s discredited view of bastard feudalism, but a magna
turris of a magnate, a place were a lord shows his greatness and receives his due recognition, in highly symbolic ceremonies.
Much of the difficult of defining ‘the castle’ comes
from considering the castle as a building. The reality is the castle is an institution,
a social organisation, a multifaceted functional body concerned, primarily,
with government.3 In
the middle ages such government was personalised in the form of an individual
from a ruling elite. Government was the responsibility of a person who lived
and worked in a building which often, if not always, showed the elite status
of this person through a stylised architectural of militaristic form. The scope
of the area of government might be as small as a manor or as large as a shire
and the resulting buildings generally reflect this difference. 
As
medieval rule was heavily decentralised only very few buildings had a symbolic
status as centres of national government. The true modern successor to the
castle is the Parish Hall and the Shire Hall. The most prominent centre of
national government in the middle ages was the Palace
of Westminster. It should be well
noted that the modern Palace of Westminster retains the martial symbol of the
portcullis as its modern ‘logo’.
The
concept of symbolism needs to be clear to understand this paradigm shift. For
some, reluctant to accept the new revisionist thinking, a symbolic castle is
the same as a sham castle. It is not. A symbol is a powerful message, and often
difficult for people to accept as ‘unreal’. Money is a symbol. The overt message
that money symbolises is as a trustworthy representation of wealth. In most
social situations money actually represents power and the man who insists on
buying drinks in the pub is not being generous but attempting to hide his sense
of inadequacy behind a power display. In most situations a gun is a symbol.
The farmers shotgun used to put rabbit on the table may seem to be a purely
utilitarian tool and, it has been argued, that part of the meaning of the 2nd
amendment to the US constitution was about ensuring this simple activity was
available to all but it seems hard to believe that the National Rifle Association
is an organisation concerned with ensuring people have access to protein in
their diet. The firearm is rife with symbolic values of prowess and control.4 A
further example is the modern burglar alarm and CCTV camera, of which police
and government are so fond. Some of these are indeed sham, empty boxes made
to look like the ‘real’ thing but even the actual devices rely on symbolic
power for their effectiveness. What stops a criminal is fear of being caught;
the alarm and camera rely on their symbolic value to inspire this fear in the
criminal. Of course if the alarm and camera is always ignored it loses its
value (and in the case of many house and car alarms just becomes a nuisance).
What stops a criminal is not the sound of a bell but the association of this
sound with the prospect of capture. The alarm sends the symbolic message that
owner intends to prosecute the thief. What stopped the revolt of the hundreds
of thousands of peasants was not the presence of a few hundred castles and
few thousand knights but a complex set of beliefs and symbols which sent the
message that revolt would result in death and eternal damnation (another symbolic
construct). However, the rather more powerful symbol of money, in the form
of the Poll Tax, could inspire revolt.
The argument of the origin of the castle at the end of the 19th century was one between George Clark and followers who considered the motte to be a saxon invention and Mrs Armitage and others who ultimately successful demonstrated the motte to be a Norman introduction to British Isles.4 Much of this argument was about defining what was meant in contemporary historical documents and, in particular, the meaning of saxon term ‘burh’. Ultimately the burh in question is seen to be the communal defences of the anglo-saxons garrisoned by everyday saxon freemen under the system of burghal hideage.
However, archaeological work at Goltho in Lincolnshire and Sulgrave in Northamptonshire showed these castles to be built on the site of earlier high status saxon houses, clearly defended in the case of Goltho although at Sulgrave serious pre-Conquest defences were not identified. A burh came again to the fore as an origin for the castle. This was a burh of a different sort; the fortified hall of the saxon Thegn. This burh was well described by Ann Williams (Williams, 1992) along with her pointing out that the castle, as a fortified administrative centre, was a different type of local government from that of the Saxon. So when the the anglo-saxon chronicles complain about the new castles erected by the Normans this may well refer to new institutions rather than new buildings. The close association of the thegnal burh with the chapels which were to become parish churches should also be noted.
It seems likely, on the bases of the close proximity of parish churches, that many, and probably most, early castles do have origins as thegnal burhs. Putting aside for a moment the manner which these thegnal burhs were refurnished to represent the new administrative system, an examination of the castle distribution map shows a broad band of early castles along the line of the Danelaw boundary (Watling Street and the River Lee). This requires analysis but may reflect 9th to 11th century Saxon concerns with placing some form of military leadership and resources on a border territory.
For the Saxon thegn the symbol of his status was the burh-geat; the gatehouse. The innovation the Norman’s did bring to the architecture of the fortified lordly house was the donjon; the great tower. This tower had a variety of forms, the pure masonry tower, the wooden tower surmounting a mound of earth, or with a mound of earth piled up around it. This mound, called a motte, became a major feature of the Norman castle. Although a number of major castles had tall conical mottes most of the smaller castles have relatively lower, rather less cumbersome to use, mottes often little more than 2-3 meters in height.
The donjon did not displace the gatehouse as a symbol of
the lordly residence. Many lordly residences changed function to become administrative
centres, to become castles, without a donjon. 
Perhaps
the most notable is Exeter castle, where the gatehouse, with saxon architectural
features, remains as the prime feature. Numerous ringworks may represent fairly
simple strengthening of a pre-existing saxon thegnal burh although none of the
timber gatehouses remain to hint how the lordly status of these sites was displayed.
However, the donjon did, fore a while, become the prime symbol
of lordly status. A few attempts were made to combine these two traditions such
as a Richmond and Ludlow,
and possible elsewhere in timber, but these do not seem to have been successful.
The donjon, in its various forms, was the symbol of lordship of
the Normans.
Much is made of the supposed military value of the motte6 and the keep, but if the keep was of such value then why did the masters of military engineering, the Romans, never adopt such a feature and why was the keep so readily lost from later castles. Close critical examination of most castle sites shows they are rarely in prime military location although confusion between administrative convenience, such as being on the site of a major river crossing, can be confused with military tactical function. Of course, castles were involved in warfare, but for a variety of reasons, many psychological, warfare is given much more attention both by modern and medieval writers than actually reflects its real importance. Castles were strongly built high quality buildings and given an attacking armed force and a need to defend oneself the castle is the obvious building to garrison and fortify. In most situations the church is the only alternative strongly built building and on occasions, despite strong inhibitions, churches were fortified and garrisoned in the periods warfare. The fact that castles were, from time to time, besieged does not necessarily mean they were built to resist a siege. The frequent taking and retaking of castles in the welsh wars may well demonstrate how poorly designed castles were as fortifications.
Clearly castles were designed with some military features, mainly the ditch, curtain wall and wall-walk rather than towers (which most churches have) or other such features. The castle was the administrative centre of a local government that including the military role of government and that government was personified in individuals who saw themselves as belonging to an elite warrior group. So, whilst in practice most castles were not involved in warfare, the people who built and maintained castles were going to be socially and psychological influenced into considering them from a military view. On a more practical level, as both administrative centres where taxes were collected and as the houses of a wealthy elite the castle was a target for thieves (of all social classes) and rioters and deep ditches, high walls and strong doors did have a pure utilitarian function.
However
well designed a building is an institution requires people and management to
function and these non structural aspects of a buildings design do not survive
in the archaeological record. Norman military might was based on the knight,
a mobile warrior, and the main military function of the castle was
that of a supply base for a mobile unit, not that of a fixed fortification.
Garrisoning of castles as a fixed fortification did clearly occur but not systematically.
For every well reported siege there are as many barely mentioned, barely opposed,
occupations of castles. Instances of reports of castles taken by guile and
treachery may well actually represent attempts by both parties to suggest the
occupation of a ‘stronger’ building. A well lead motivated group can put up
a considerable defence in even unfortified buildings whilst a poorly lead demoralised
army may surrender a strong defensive position at an early opportunity7 and
such intangibles as ‘leadership’ would have been more important that the height
of walls or the sophistication of defences, although moral could be effected
by these things.
The military function of the castle has been markedly overemphasised both by contemporary and modern writers to the detriment of its other functions. There are great psychologically based attractions to warfare both for medieval and modern people and warfare is a powerful notion that attracts much attention (just consider the programmes on the History Channel). Castles were built to be seen as military buildings but close examination shows how unmilitary they often are. For example the finest motte and bailey in Leicestershire is Hallaton, unusually outside the village, so probably a pure, new build, Norman castle, placed to overlook the Leicestershire Way (now a footpath and minor lane but once the major local road). This is situated on a hillside with a deep gorge on one side and looks strongly defensive, However, close examination shows the bailey is tilted towards the road increasing the prominence of the castle. Purely military logic would have sited the castle slightly further up the hillside so that the castle maintained a good view but that attackers would not be able to see into the bailey to examine the strength of the garrison. Military logic would attempt to hide as much of the castle as possible but it is built to be as visible as possible.
Ultimately the donjon lost it’s position as the prime symbol of secular lordship, although it remains a symbol of church dominion in the crenellated church bell tower so common in England and Wales. The gatehouse tradition of lordship of the saxons was re-established by what was now an English aristocracy cut off from it father’s french roots, except for a french surname, and reunited with its mother’s saxon roots.
From what little that survives it seems the saxon gatehouse was a gate surmounted by a chamber, or even just a platform. The gate at Exeter may well have had a viewing platform which allowed a lord and his subject some direct contact, such as still occurs at Buckingham Palace on some royal occasions. Early references to loggia in castles may also refer to such viewing platforms. The plain chamber above the gate form of gatehouse continued to be built although the most notable examples are those of abbey’s and towns. The chamber had several functions, some were chapels, some meeting halls, some purely residential.
Later 13th and 14th century castles tended to use a somewhat different form of gatehouse; a twin drum tower form, with a gate in between two round towers. This is a form of gate design used by the Romans and it is probably that the adoption of this form of design had as much to do with a renewed interest in Roman imperial might as to do with improved military design. In the castle the chamber over the gate was usually residential and, most often, the residence of the permanent constable of the castle.
Gatehouse
design became more elaborate and recent work at Dunstanburgh
Castle (Ashbee,
2006) has shown how the massive gatehouse of Earl Thomas is situated to impress
visitors from the sea and is built, as were the great towers of Hedingham and
London, with false features designed to increase the apparent size of the building.
It is perhaps also at Dunstanburgh that another oft repeated ‘truth’ can be
put to rest.
In the ‘classic castle story’ the gatehouse develops as an increasing more elaborate defence of the weakest part of the castle. The gatehouse is not the weakest point of a castle. A gateway may be a weak point but even in the earliest fortifications this is where defensive strength is concentrated and the gatehouse rapidly becomes the strongest point of a castle. The weakest point of a castle defences is often the curtain wall. At Dunstanburgh, built for personal aggrandisement and political reason and sited in a very unstrategic location, the gatehouse is clearly the strength of the castle. Even if the, now lost, fishponds are considered as a defensive moat the west curtain wall is weak and the solitary small Lucy tower does little to strengthen it.
The increasingly elaborate defences of the gatehouse, with multiple doors, drawbridges, portcullises, murder holes, barbicans etc. rapidly become far in excess of what is needed from a military point of view, even if a garrison large enough to use all these features existed. The gatehouse at the episcopal castle of Devizes described by Leland (Chandler, 1993, p501) with seven or eight portcullises is clearly not a military structure but some symbolic statement. Charles Coulson has pointed out to me that Leland had a particular fascination with portcullises which were a symbol of the Tudor dynasty but there is no reason to doubt his description. The extremely complex gatehouse at Caernarfon Castle was never finished and the excess elaboration was clearly not needed and indeed the vast amount of space the planned gatehouse would have taken would have cramped the interior of the castle.
That the drive to build gatehouse was fuelled by concerns of fashion can be seen by the gatehouses of the 15th century. The gate is no longer bounded by round drum towers but by apparently octagonal towers. This style may first have appeared in the upper ward of Windsor
Castle as part of Edward III massive rebuilding and reconstruction of Windsor as a new Camelot, but certainly this work inspired much later work. (Brindle, 2006)
Much has been written about the decline of the castle, most notably by M. W. Thompson. The role of gunpowder in the decline of the castle is often mentioned but rarely properly understood. The personal military role of the lord of the manor had been diminishing from before the development of even early firearms, with scutage replacing direct service for many shire knights and their overlords. The expense of artillery lead to more centralised government for whom a money payment offered much more flexibility than personal service so that, increasingly, the lord of the manor was no longer a warrior and for whom military symbolism had less attraction. It can be seen from a study of later licences to crenellate that the crenellated house increasingly fell out of favour and the domestic house surrounded by a deer park became the height of aristocratic fashion. In effect the symbols of elite status moved away from those of the duties of government and military service and into those of the privileges of nobility. The castle declined because, in part, the economic effects of gunpowder on the structure and organisation of the military meant the nobility stopped being a warrior elite and became an office class. They lived in houses which stopped using martial symbols and started using symbols of imperialism and educational sophistication.
The
story of decline of the gatehouse reflect this. As a part of the main residence
the gatehouse becomes less military, less imposing and ultimately becomes a
porch, still rich with architectural features and some symbolic meaning but
a slight part of the house. As an entrance into a noble residence it is pushed
out to the edge of the surrounding park and becomes a park lodge. No longer
the residence of a constable of noble birth but the home to gamekeepers and
gardeners. Most of these lodges are rich with symbols of status, usually the
use of neo-classic architecture to suggest learning and nobility but occasionally
still with crenellations, such as the tiny Back Lodge of Attingham Park, Shropshire,
and even with machicolations, as at Radway
Tower, Edgehill, Warwickshire.
Warfare was not part of the history of most castles and a small part of the history of the others. Military considerations were not part of the raison d’etre for many castles and a small part for most of the rest. A very few castles were seriously military, such as Dover Castle, with substantially maintained garrisons of a size other than token. It was not the castle that allowed William the Conqueror to occupy and suppress England. The castles at York were readily overrun and burnt. What suppress the English was brutal burnt earth policy of destruction of crops, mills, grain and other such by a mobile army that resulted in mass starvation and death; the so called Harrying of the North. The castle allowed William and his successors to collect taxes.
However, medieval and modern fascination with warfare, arising from deep seated psychological reasons, has always lead to this small part of the castle story being dominate and, as the human psyche is unlikely to change soon, the castle will continue to be seen misleadingly as a military building. The castle was fundamentally an institution of government. Medieval government, like many more modern governments, used militarism and warfare as a method of control of the masses, rarely directly, more often as a distraction. The castle, rich with military symbolism, but lacking a real garrison, governed the people not by military force but by concepts of dominion. As in more modern times warfare was as much used to distract the people at home from their real problems than as an instrument of foreign or domestic policy and the ‘military’ castle, with its knightly inhabitant, had its role to play in this.
The variety of administration in the middle ages was considerable, manors were of different sizes ruled by people of vast different status from King to knight with complex systems of lordship and overlordship. Shires and boroughs added other layers of complexity, as did areas under Forest Law and the various Palatinates and the vast amount of land owned by the Church with its own legal and administrative systems. The details are obscure today and could be even then; disputes over land ownership and manorial tenure, some of which resulted in violence, were not uncommon. It should be no surprise that this great variation is reflected in the variation in castles. Combined with this is the multifunctional aspects of the castle as a residence, sometimes a residence only occupied by the full household intermittently and sometimes used as part of great political occasions when other great households had to be put up and entertained. The smallest manor houses seem to have only rarely gained the name castle, although these manor houses were administrative centres. Some high status manor houses also never seemed to bother with the full military symbolism and end up being called palaces or hunting lodges. The reasons for this are going to be complex, occasionally the reason will be purely economic. The cost of even sham fortifications clearly could be a factor. For every lord who asserted a questionable claim to a manor by building a ‘fortified’ building another would establish their claim by ‘flying below the radar’ until time made their claim unassailable. A royal centre of shire administration, such as Nottingham Castle, is clearly going to be dressed up with the full panoply of royal and military symbolism, although surely to reduce cost the mighty Nottingham served Derbyshire as well as Nottinghamshire and Derby’s own post-Conquest castle was soon abandoned and is now mainly forgotten.
Other
factors effecting the choice to dress the manor house with full or part military
symbolism may well be indiscernible. Clearly some clerical land owners felt
no inconsistency between their religious vows and martial display such as Roger
Bishop of Salisbury famous for Devizes castle. However, generally cleric owners
did not use martial display in their manor houses and palaces. The personal
psychological factors that lead many modern people to be be fascinated by war
and militarism were shared by medieval people and some individuals, depending
of the strength of their ego defences, would have felt greater psychological
need to build high walls, towers and gatehouses than other people. Tintagel
Castle, Cornwall, was built purely to associate Richard, Duke of Cornwall
with the Arthurian legends.
Although the castle is being redefined the process is far from complete. For the castle to be even partly defined several paradigms have to be much more clearly explored and explained. The paradigm of the sociopolitical environment has been much explored and simple concepts of feudalism, once a prime part of defining the castle, have been brushed away by serious scholarship over the last 2-3 decades. Studies of the castle have been extended into the wider physical environment and landscape. Better tools and databases allow fuller study of the physical building and archaeological remains.
The paradigm of the psychological environment has, however, generally been ignored and little sophisticated attempts has been made to understand the psychology of castle builders, castle users and castle non users. This is an area which many serious writers ignore and we are left with hunches from those not concerned by academic reputations to give a sense of the personal inner world of the people in and around castles. However, it is just this personal inner world which attracts us to the castle in the modern world and which has lead to such a poor understanding of the castle in the past. Until castle studies is willing to grasp the nettle and take the stings of psychology the castle will remain poorly understood and will continue to be abused as a symbol.
1 Brown writes ‘a fortified residence and a residential fortress’ (Brown, 1984, p7)
2 The ‘classic castle story’ was complete in 1912 when A. Hamilton Thompson had Military Architecture in England during the Middle Ages published. However ,Brown’s numerous books, many designed for the lay reader, such as The Architecture of Castles A Visual Guide published 1984 firmly established this ‘story’ as the orthodoxy.
3 The famous entry in the 1068 entry in the Laud Chronicle about William the Conqueror states that "he caused castles to be built, which were a sore burden to the poor, a hard man was the king'. What was the nature of that burden? Increased digging of ditches, increase surveillance by soldiers or increased taxes?
4 see also Coulson, 2003, p98-9
5 See J. H. Round’s ‘The Castles of the Conquest’ for an account of this debate notable by Round’s brutal frankness and downright rudeness. Ideas of Edwardian gentleman’s good manners are put to rest in this extraordinary diatribe which no modern editor would allow in a journal. Personal this frankness is refreshing amongst the more covert insults of modern authors but it should also be noted that a good number of academic have been driven to suicide in the past by such abusive articles. Round is, however, almost always right in this article.
6 In 1903 Round pointed out the very limited military value of the motte "Its summit could hold but a few defenders, and their missiles could at most reach the base of the mound itself." (Round, 1903, p335). Add to this that the arrows, like most military equipment, were expensive so actual stocks of ammunition would probably be quite small. The reality of true warfare is that generally the best defence is to 'run to the hills'. Fixed, unsupported, fortifications can and have worked as a military stratagem but this is actual very risky, since the chance to retreat is lost. (The best example I can think of is blockhouses built by the British in the Boar War.) Frontier fortifications (Hadrian's Wall, Henry VIII's device forts etc.) make more military sense since there are usual good communications which allow mutual support to be given and there remains a opportunity to retire.
7 In more modern times one can look at the grain silos of Stalingrad and the Maginot line.
Armitage, Ella S., 1912, Early Norman Castles of the British Isles (John
Murrey)
Ashbee, Jeremy, 2006, ‘Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and the Great Gatehouse of
Dunstanburgh Castle’ English Heritage Historical Review Vol.1 pp. 28-35
Ashley, Peter, 2002, Comings and Goings - Gatehouses and Lodges (Everyman in association with English Heritage)
Brindle, Steven, 2006 Sept 30, 'Edward III and the Upper Ward at Windsor - Plan, Function and Representation' paper read at Castle Studies Group autumn conference, The Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, London.
Brown, R. Allen, 1954, English Castles (Batsford) [The revised 3rd edition
of 1976 maintains the ‘classic castle story’]
Brown, R. Allen, 1984, The Architecture of Castles A Visual Guide (Batsford)
Brown, R. Allen, 1989, Castles from the Air (Cambridge University Press)
Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in
Tudor England (Sutton
Publishing)
Clark, G.T., 1884, Medieval military architecture in England (Wyman
and Sons) 2 vols.
Coulson, Charles, 1979, ‘Structural Symbolism in Medieval Castle Architecture’ Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vol.
132 pp. 73-90
Coulson, Charles, 1982, ‘Hierarchism in Conventual Crenellation’ Medieval Archaeology Vol.
26 pp. 69-100
Coulson, Charles, 1991 Aug, ‘Bodiam Castle: Truth and Tradition’ Fortress Vol10
p3-15
Coulson, Charles, 1992, 'Some Analysis of the Castle of Bodiam, East Sussex'
in C. Harper-Bill, and R. Harvey (eds), Medieval Knighthood Vol. 4
(Boydell Press) pp. 51-107
Coulson, Charles, 1994, ‘Freedom to Crenellate by Licence An Historigraphical
Revision’ Nottingham Medieval Studies Vol. 38 pp. 86-137
Coulson, Charles, 1995, ‘Battlements and the Bourgeoisie’ in Stephen Church (ed), Medieval
Knighthood Vol.
5 (Boydell Press)
Coulson, Charles, 2003, Castles in Medieval Society (Oxford University
Press)
Dixon, P. and Marshall P., 1992 Dec, 'The Great Tower at Hedingham Castle: A
Reassessment' Fortress Vol.18 pp. 23-42
Earles, Richard, 1990. ‘Royal Power and Castles in Norman England’ in The Ideals and Practices of Medieval Knighthood Vol.
3 (Boydell Press) pp. 49-78
Hill, D. and Rumble, A., 1994, The Defence of Wessex: the Burghal Hideage
and Anglo-Saxon fortifications (Manchester University Press)
Impey, E and Parnell, G., 2000, The Tower of London (London)
Kenyon, J.R., 1996, ‘Fluctuating Frontiers:Normanno-Welsh Castle Warfare c.1075
to 1240’ Chateau Gaillard Vol. 17 pp. 119-26
King, David James Cathcart, 1983, Castellarium Angilicanum (Kraus International)
2 vols
Marten-Holden, Lucy, 2001, ‘Dominion in the Landscape’ History Today Vol.
51.4 pp. 46-52
Merlen, R. H. A., 1987 (2edn), The Motte-and-Bailey Castles of the Welsh Border (Palmers
Press)
Round, J. H., 1903, ‘The Castles of the Conquest’ Archaeologia Vol.
58 pp. 313-340
Simpson, W.D., 1946, ‘“Bastard feudalism” and the later castles’ Antiquaries Journal Vol.
26 p145-71
Taylor, C.C., Everson, P. and Wilson-North, R., 1990 'Bodiam Castle, Sussex' Medieval Archaeology Vol34
p155-7
Thompson, A. Hamilton, 1912, Military Architecture in England during the Middle Ages (Oxford
University Press)
Thompson, M.W., 1987, The Decline of the Castle (Cambridge University
Press)
Turner, D.J., 1986, 'Bodiam, Sussex: True Castle or Old Soldier's Dream House'
in W. M. Ormrod, (ed), England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium (Boydell
Press) pp .267–77
Williams, A., 1992, ‘A Bell-House amd a Burh-Geat: Lordly Residences in England Before the Conquest’ in
C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (eds) Medieval Knighthood Vol. 4 (Boydell
Press) pp. 221-40