Great Medieval Castles of Britain

For more than three hundred years, castle building was a major preoccupation of the monarchs and barons of medieval Britain, and the great strongholds which they created are one of the most enduring and characteristic features of our modern landscape and heritage. Several hundred remain to be seen to-day; some ruined, some heavily restored, many still looking much as they did when first built as an essential part of the military and political framework of medieval society. Before the Norman Conquest there was no native tradition of castle building and the first keeps, which now form the heart of such fortresses as the Tower of London or Ludlow Castle, were built by the invaders to consolidate their hold on a newly-conquered land. By the thirteenth century, new ideas in fortification were coming from the Near East, and castle design developed into a fine art with the keep giving way to elaborate curtain walls with massive towers and gatehouses. In Britain, these ideas were still being assimilated when a fresh round of conquests - Edward I's campaigns to subdue the Welsh- gave a renewed impetus to castle building and resulted in some of the finest examples of medieval military architecture to be seen anywhere in Europe. -- from dust jacket.