The Rise of the Castle (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521088534)

Romanticised as ruins, treated as relics of forgotten military campaigns or as mere lessons in architectural history, the castles of England and Wales have too rarely been examined as places in which real people lived. Fresh both in style and approach and richly illustrated, Michael Thompson's book aims now to redress the balance. Examining the rise of the castle from its European origins in the tenth century to c.1400, the author devotes particular attention to the domestic accommodation - colourfully adorned but often cold and claustrophobic - that castles offered their aristocratic inhabitants. The book closes with the castle at its zenith, reviewing the extravagant outburst of self-conscious construction that took place in the fourteenth century as display and appearance came for the first time to play as important a part as function in determining building design.

Author: M. W. Thompson
ISBN-10: 0521088534
ISBN-13: 9780521088534
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 10/30/2008
Pages: 216
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.87lbs
Size: 9.69h x 7.44w x 0.46d