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Castles: Their Construction and History
Concise, scholarly survey traces castle development from ancient roots in the Levant, thru Roman times & the Middle Ages. Nearly 200 photos & drawings illustrate moats, keeps, baileys etc. Covers Caernarvon Castle, Dover Castle, Hadrian's Wall, the Tower of London etc. 199 black-&-white illustrations.
Preface
The ancient fortresses of Babylon, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Asia Minor & Greece
Fortifications of Greece & Rome, 300 to 200 BC
Fortifications of the Levant, Rome & Western Europe, 200 to 30 BC
Fortifications of the Roman Empire
Byzantine fortifications from the 5th to the 10th century
Fortifications of Western Europe from the 5th to the 11th century
Rectangular keeps or donjons
Byzantine & Saracen fortifications of the 12th century
Transitional keeps of the 12th century
Fortifications & buildings of the bailey in the 11th & 12th centuries
Castles from about 1190 to 1270
Siege engines & siege operations of the Middle Ages
Edwardian & contemporary castles
Towns, fortified bridges & towers
Gatehouses & defences of the curtain during the 13th & 14th centuries
Development of the tower-house
16th-century forts
Index
Preface
The ancient fortresses of Babylon, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Asia Minor & Greece
Fortifications of Greece & Rome, 300 to 200 BC
Fortifications of the Levant, Rome & Western Europe, 200 to 30 BC
Fortifications of the Roman Empire
Byzantine fortifications from the 5th to the 10th century
Fortifications of Western Europe from the 5th to the 11th century
Rectangular keeps or donjons
Byzantine & Saracen fortifications of the 12th century
Transitional keeps of the 12th century
Fortifications & buildings of the bailey in the 11th & 12th centuries
Castles from about 1190 to 1270
Siege engines & siege operations of the Middle Ages
Edwardian & contemporary castles
Towns, fortified bridges & towers
Gatehouses & defences of the curtain during the 13th & 14th centuries
Development of the tower-house
16th-century forts
Index
255 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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222 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 30, 2015
It was informative and interesting. The illustrations were helpful. The book covers the history and fortification of castles from ancient times on through to the 16th century. It would have been better if there had been a glossary to define some of the terms.
July 6, 2010
This book is unique among castle books as it includes floor plans for many castles.
October 20, 2018
The rating of this book depends entirely on what you're hoping to get from it. To start out, this is a dry, humorless book by an academic expert written originally in 1939. That's not for everyone.
What I was hoping to get from it was a much better sense of castle and fortification design, especially about how those changed over time and across regions, to use for my fictional world building. So to me, this book was amazing!
The main strengths of the book are the illustrations and the detailed descriptions. I've never seen anything like these illustrations: there are many photographs from outside and inside the buildings, and some drawings of how certain building elements functioned or varied, but mostly what blew me away were the detailed floor plans and sections (side view cutaways). Toy doesn't just describe certain types of defenses in the abstract; he shows how they were actually employed, in all their messy complexity and irregularity, in diagrams of real castles. It gave me great insights on where doors and stairways and windows would be, all the various placements of machicolations, how inner and outer baileys functioned, the myriad ways to make approaches to the front door more dangerous, and what intermural rooms actually look like in terms of the outer footprint versus the inner rooms. And of course, where the best places are to put posterns and latrines.
Toy doesn't cover only what you might think of classic castles, but also forts, walled cities, and lone towers, as well as siege engines and defenses developed against them.
At first I worried that the book was so old, surely better scholarship had arisen in the meantime. But no, Toy was a world-renown expert and his work is still revered among castleologists. Toy personally examined, measured, and sketched every one of these castles and fortifications, and apparently his illustrations and analyses have not been improved upon yet. (Granted, there isn't much analyses; this is almost entirely descriptive.)
I would have liked to learn more about ancient and non-European fortifications, but this is still more than anything else I've seen. The book drags in the middle, where the descriptions of multiple similar castles feels repetitive. I also would have liked more big-picture theory, about why certain trends were taken up or abandoned, and what attack methods led to which defense methods. I also wanted more on how trade-offs are made between security and comfort, between defending against invasion while keeping lines open within the castle and between it and the city during peace. He did touch on these issues, but seemed to assume that much of that was made clear by his examples.
I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in castles and fortifications, especially if you enjoy visiting castles and ruins and trying to pick out the various architectural features. Most of the castles listed in this book are still standing, if in ruins, and although this book is not designed as a travel guide, it could be used as such. (Although if you're castle-hopping primarily in England, Toy's book "Castles of Great Britain" might be better suited to that; I haven't read it, but I read that many of the same illustrations are used there.)
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone writing historical fiction or fantasy fiction where you need to describe a real castle or make one up yourself, especially if you're going to stage an attack on one. There are shorter, more accessible books out there on "how to build a castle" (many aimed at children), but if you want realism, this is the book for you.
Note that this is the same book as Sidney Toy's 1939 "A History of Fortifications from 3000 BC to AD 1700," just a newer Dover reprint.
What I was hoping to get from it was a much better sense of castle and fortification design, especially about how those changed over time and across regions, to use for my fictional world building. So to me, this book was amazing!
The main strengths of the book are the illustrations and the detailed descriptions. I've never seen anything like these illustrations: there are many photographs from outside and inside the buildings, and some drawings of how certain building elements functioned or varied, but mostly what blew me away were the detailed floor plans and sections (side view cutaways). Toy doesn't just describe certain types of defenses in the abstract; he shows how they were actually employed, in all their messy complexity and irregularity, in diagrams of real castles. It gave me great insights on where doors and stairways and windows would be, all the various placements of machicolations, how inner and outer baileys functioned, the myriad ways to make approaches to the front door more dangerous, and what intermural rooms actually look like in terms of the outer footprint versus the inner rooms. And of course, where the best places are to put posterns and latrines.
Toy doesn't cover only what you might think of classic castles, but also forts, walled cities, and lone towers, as well as siege engines and defenses developed against them.
At first I worried that the book was so old, surely better scholarship had arisen in the meantime. But no, Toy was a world-renown expert and his work is still revered among castleologists. Toy personally examined, measured, and sketched every one of these castles and fortifications, and apparently his illustrations and analyses have not been improved upon yet. (Granted, there isn't much analyses; this is almost entirely descriptive.)
I would have liked to learn more about ancient and non-European fortifications, but this is still more than anything else I've seen. The book drags in the middle, where the descriptions of multiple similar castles feels repetitive. I also would have liked more big-picture theory, about why certain trends were taken up or abandoned, and what attack methods led to which defense methods. I also wanted more on how trade-offs are made between security and comfort, between defending against invasion while keeping lines open within the castle and between it and the city during peace. He did touch on these issues, but seemed to assume that much of that was made clear by his examples.
I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in castles and fortifications, especially if you enjoy visiting castles and ruins and trying to pick out the various architectural features. Most of the castles listed in this book are still standing, if in ruins, and although this book is not designed as a travel guide, it could be used as such. (Although if you're castle-hopping primarily in England, Toy's book "Castles of Great Britain" might be better suited to that; I haven't read it, but I read that many of the same illustrations are used there.)
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone writing historical fiction or fantasy fiction where you need to describe a real castle or make one up yourself, especially if you're going to stage an attack on one. There are shorter, more accessible books out there on "how to build a castle" (many aimed at children), but if you want realism, this is the book for you.
Note that this is the same book as Sidney Toy's 1939 "A History of Fortifications from 3000 BC to AD 1700," just a newer Dover reprint.
June 9, 2023
Not great, but not horrible.
Each chapter had a breakdown of what part of the castle was constructed during what century, what features were added, etc. Each chapter described anywhere from 1 to 5 (just throwing out numbers) different castles like a tour so it was really hard to keep up with and hold interest.
Each chapter had a breakdown of what part of the castle was constructed during what century, what features were added, etc. Each chapter described anywhere from 1 to 5 (just throwing out numbers) different castles like a tour so it was really hard to keep up with and hold interest.
August 23, 2018
When I was a child, I developed a strong interest in castles, likely through the literature I read and loved. Surprisingly, though I read a great deal about medieval military history and even doctrine [1], castles have seldom come to mind as being a subject of their own, even if a great many books deal with castles as a setting. So, I was pleased to take this book from my lengthy reading list of library books and take a look at it, especially given that it not only has a lot to say about castles but also contains almost 200 illustrations of the fortifications the author discusses in the text. As someone who enjoys thinking about castles from a variety of perspectives--as fortifications designed to protect its owner from a hostile world, as homes for lords and their families and retainers, as structures that give the illusion (but not the reality) of impregnability, castles have a lot to offer us as areas to study and research, and it was pleasing for me to look at this work, which had a lot to say about castles in the Middle Ages and before.
This book of a bit more than 200 pages is divided into seventeen chapters, making each chapter fairly short, especially when you take into account the large number of illustrations. After a preface, the book begins with a look at the ancient fortresses of the area from ancient Greece to Mesopotamia (1), which gives the general scope of the book, which focuses on Europe and the Middle East as a whole. After that the author looks at fortifications in Greece and Rome during the early Hellenistic period (2) and then in Rome, the Levant, and Western Europe during the period immediately before the establishment of the Roman Empire (3). There are discussions of the fortifications of the Roman empire (4), early and mid-Byzantine fortifications (5), and the fortifications of Western Europe during the early Middle Ages (6). After this there is a discussion on donjons or rectangular keeps (7), the Byzantine and Muslim fortifications of the crusader period (8), and the transitional keeps (9) and baileys of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (10). There are chapters on castles during the period from 1190 to 1270 (11), siege engines and operations of the Middle Ages (12), Edwardian castles (13), towns, fortified bridges, and towers (14), gatehouses and curtain defenses during the late Middle Ages (15), the development of the tower house (16), and sixteenth century forts (17).
What one gets out of this book more than anything--or at least what I got out of it--is an understanding of the tradeoffs that are involved when one builds castles. Ease and comfort for those living inside of a fortification may limit its use as a fortification--as is the case with the difference between square and polygon or round towers. A desire to economize materials may compromise the effectiveness of a defense on the level of town walls, and so on. It is likewise striking to me that many castles viewed as impregnable fell in alarmingly short times, sometimes due to stratagems or demoralization on the part of defenders, sometimes due to technologies that had made a certain fortification style obsolete, and often due to treachery or the ability on the part of attackers to climb up walls with ladders by stealth. We tend to think of castles as strong and easy to defend, but there are many castles that seemed strong that fell to their opponents and did not justify their cost, while a great many castles and their ruins still remain interesting and noteworthy tourist draws to this day, sometimes in very remote territories. And since people, myself included, still want to visit or even live in castles, it remains worthwhile to read about them.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
This book of a bit more than 200 pages is divided into seventeen chapters, making each chapter fairly short, especially when you take into account the large number of illustrations. After a preface, the book begins with a look at the ancient fortresses of the area from ancient Greece to Mesopotamia (1), which gives the general scope of the book, which focuses on Europe and the Middle East as a whole. After that the author looks at fortifications in Greece and Rome during the early Hellenistic period (2) and then in Rome, the Levant, and Western Europe during the period immediately before the establishment of the Roman Empire (3). There are discussions of the fortifications of the Roman empire (4), early and mid-Byzantine fortifications (5), and the fortifications of Western Europe during the early Middle Ages (6). After this there is a discussion on donjons or rectangular keeps (7), the Byzantine and Muslim fortifications of the crusader period (8), and the transitional keeps (9) and baileys of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (10). There are chapters on castles during the period from 1190 to 1270 (11), siege engines and operations of the Middle Ages (12), Edwardian castles (13), towns, fortified bridges, and towers (14), gatehouses and curtain defenses during the late Middle Ages (15), the development of the tower house (16), and sixteenth century forts (17).
What one gets out of this book more than anything--or at least what I got out of it--is an understanding of the tradeoffs that are involved when one builds castles. Ease and comfort for those living inside of a fortification may limit its use as a fortification--as is the case with the difference between square and polygon or round towers. A desire to economize materials may compromise the effectiveness of a defense on the level of town walls, and so on. It is likewise striking to me that many castles viewed as impregnable fell in alarmingly short times, sometimes due to stratagems or demoralization on the part of defenders, sometimes due to technologies that had made a certain fortification style obsolete, and often due to treachery or the ability on the part of attackers to climb up walls with ladders by stealth. We tend to think of castles as strong and easy to defend, but there are many castles that seemed strong that fell to their opponents and did not justify their cost, while a great many castles and their ruins still remain interesting and noteworthy tourist draws to this day, sometimes in very remote territories. And since people, myself included, still want to visit or even live in castles, it remains worthwhile to read about them.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
November 7, 2008
Fascinating work! No frills to the point of the how and the why of castle construction. From wooden to stone and the reasons why things changed as warfare did. Really a wonderful factual fascinating work with drawings and diagrams.
April 19, 2011
Research for historical novel set in the Crusades continues. . . .
A solid overview, but lacking in detail. A good starting point.
A solid overview, but lacking in detail. A good starting point.
December 31, 2020
Covering a period of time from Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages--but mainly focusing on the High Middle Ages--this book takes a look at the layout of castles--primarily the walls and defenses, but also some domestic arrangements--and explains them in a manner relevant to the layperson. It is by no means exhaustive, and seems to lean its focus more towards England, but it is certainly informative. It does not talk down to the reader, but it does present the text and definitions in a manner where the reader can easily understand the meaning. There are numerous helpful diagrams which do wonders for illustrating what is quite clearly and eloquently detailed in the text. However, the photos, taken mostly in the 1930s, are rather useless in the age of Google image searches. Nonetheless, this is an excellent book for anyone interested in castles, and I highly recommend it.
December 27, 2019
This is really good and affordable but is limited by the lack of a glossary. Also, while "construction" is in the subtitle it is really more about design. In almost no instance is construction actually discussed. Some of the diagrams make it appear massive amounts of stone are just suspended in air, which is clearly not the case. So how was it done? I am hoping Kaufmann, Kaufmann & Jurga's The Medieval Fortress will overcome some of these issues.
September 16, 2018
A bit dry, but the various illustrations and photographs are helpful.
July 31, 2013
Not exactly a gripping read, but danged fascinating to see the development of defenses and offensive weaponry spanning from 1600 BCE to 1600. I've been extremely fortunate to have lived around the Roman empire, and i regret that i didn't read this book earlier. Traveling backwards and forwards in time without the aid of helpful references gave me a disjointed understanding of what Toy so neatly unravels in these pages. I'm quite jealous of his scholarly purposefulness--what better way to support a wanderlust?
pass
March 3, 2015The value of the contents of this book are of secondary concern to me. I am interested in it mostly for the floor plans of castles and fortresses and how they might be adapted for use in RPGs. Right now I have too much competing for my attention, but I should come back to this sometime.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews