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1:10

Hello, I'm Dr. Alan Orjaniga and

1:12

welcome to Gone Medieval from History

1:14

Hit, the podcast that delves into

1:16

the greatest millennium in human history.

1:19

We uncovered the greatest mysteries, the

1:22

gobsmacking details and the latest groundbreaking

1:24

research from the Vikings to the

1:26

Normans, from Kings to Popes to

1:29

the Crusades. We delve

1:31

into the rebellions, plots and murders that

1:33

tell us who we really were

1:35

and how we got here. Castles.

1:42

For centuries, they have held fast across the

1:44

landscape of the British Isles. Like

1:48

beacons on a hill, they project power

1:50

in stone and wood. Any

1:53

mention of castles often conjures up images

1:55

of hulking masonry and arrow slits, battering

1:58

rams, Trebuchets and

2:01

red-hot barrels of tar. And

2:04

yet, whilst certainly military in character,

2:07

castles didn't just serve a

2:09

military purpose. They

2:11

became central to the life of society, functioning

2:14

as both fort and home to barons

2:16

and lords that needed protection. They

2:19

encouraged commerce, witnessed huge

2:22

displays of courtly largesse, and

2:25

hosted great tournaments and markets. Their

2:28

kitchens were alive with a hubbub of

2:30

lavish hospitality. Huge

2:32

fires, billows of steam from

2:34

bubbling pots, the cooking of

2:37

sumptuous feasts. Quite

2:39

simply, castles were an essential part

2:41

of medieval life in these lands.

2:45

But now, over a thousand years

2:47

later, the islands of Britain have

2:49

become littered with the ruins of

2:51

so many time-worn hill forts and

2:53

colossal stone fortresses. Where

2:56

did these quintessentially medieval strongholds come

2:58

from? And how were

3:00

they put to good use? I'm

3:03

Dr. Eleanor Janaga, and throughout

3:05

October, myself and Matt Lewis are taking

3:07

Gone Medieval on a journey across Britain

3:10

and Ireland to tell you the story

3:12

of castles. How they were

3:14

built, how they survived

3:16

assault, and what

3:18

they represented to the medieval peoples

3:20

that lived within and outside their

3:22

vast walls. Today

3:25

we start at the beginning, with

3:28

the rise of British castles. Let's

3:31

unpack the anatomy of a typical

3:33

medieval castle, discover how

3:35

the design of these huge structures arrived in

3:37

Britain from across the channel, and

3:40

along the way, we will encounter perhaps

3:42

the greatest castle England has ever seen.

3:47

But let's not rush ahead. This medieval

3:49

tale begins, as it often does,

3:51

with the Normans. The

4:00

year is 1066, but

4:02

it is later than you think. The

4:05

great battle waged by William the Conqueror and

4:08

Harold Godwinson for control of the kingdom is

4:10

two weeks past. The

4:12

rolling hills of Sussex and the green

4:14

shires of Kent now play host to

4:16

an army of Norman invaders who ravage

4:18

the countryside as they march towards London.

4:21

But the route that they take is rather

4:23

roundabout. Instead of

4:25

marching directly north, they advance up the coast

4:28

towards Dover. William,

4:31

intent on tightening his grip on his

4:33

newly won domains, wants to capture the port

4:35

and stamp his mark on a region that

4:37

was crucial to England's trade with the continent.

4:41

As his entourage draws up to the gates of the

4:43

town's wooden fort, its English

4:45

custodians are stricken with fear. They

4:48

have caught wind of the slaughter at Hastings,

4:50

and the subsequent damage William's army have done

4:53

to their country. Yet

4:55

while the fort's inhabitants prepare to

4:57

surrender unconditionally, the Normans

4:59

set it aflame, eager

5:01

to whet their growing appetite for ransack and

5:03

plunder. By

5:06

daybreak, just Cinder and Ash remain at the

5:08

fort that William had hoped to inherit. Out

5:12

of the embers, he seeks to raise a new

5:14

stronghold, a castle, which

5:17

he can use to remind the local population of

5:19

his power and prestige. According

5:21

to William Poitiers, he spends the

5:23

next eight days rebuilding and adding

5:25

new fortifications, hoping to leave an

5:28

impression on the town of Dover that might stand

5:30

the test of time. Over

5:35

the next ten years, this story is

5:37

replicated throughout England. From

5:40

the northern hinterlands of Durham to

5:42

the White Cliffs of Dover. From

5:44

the western marches of Ludlow to the fens

5:46

of East Anglia, castles,

5:49

inspired by the designs of the stonemasons

5:51

and builders in Normandy were erected in

5:53

their hundreds. Great

5:56

mounds of earth soaring timber palisades

5:58

and imposing stone towers became a

6:01

familiar sight for William's new English subjects,

6:03

an unmistakable expression of who now

6:06

ruled the kingdom. The

6:08

story of castles in Britain is one

6:10

inextricably linked with the Normans, who came

6:12

to these shores in 1066. Indeed,

6:16

castles are arguably the Norman's greatest export,

6:18

and perhaps the most indelible marker they

6:21

have left with us today. So

6:24

to explore the castle they built and

6:26

the masterpieces that their descendants built upon

6:28

William's initial fortress at Dover, I'm

6:31

joined by historian, best-selling author,

6:33

and all-around castle expert Mark

6:35

Morris. First

6:38

of all, Mark, thank you so much for

6:41

making time for us today on Gone Medieval. Not.

6:43

It's always a pleasure. I'm

6:45

very excited to have you here today because

6:48

in my opinion, you are the guy to

6:50

talk to about castles. And

6:52

as a result of that, I am going

6:54

to start you off with the classic nerdy

6:56

historian question. How do you

6:58

define a castle? It's

7:01

really difficult. It's a difficulty I

7:03

found way back when I wrote a book

7:05

on castles and they wanted a subtitle. And

7:08

there is kind of no decent

7:10

synonym because if you start to say,

7:12

well, it's a fortress, it's like, well, I know, a

7:14

castle is more than a fortress because people live in

7:16

it in a luxurious way. And

7:19

so you end up with something very bland like

7:21

buildings or something I think we ended up with.

7:23

So it's tricky. If you look it up

7:25

in the dictionary, I think they just, the OED do go with a

7:27

fortress, a stronghold. And

7:30

going back about 60 or

7:32

70 years, there was a famous English historian

7:34

of castles called R. Allen Brown. And

7:37

he said, no, no, no, no, a castle is much more than just

7:39

a fortress. It also has to be a palace,

7:42

a residence. And that was his kind of

7:44

one size fits all definition. And that sort

7:46

of when I read that book at university,

7:49

I thought, oh, yeah, that makes sense because you

7:51

get taken to a lot of fortresses that might

7:53

present as castles. But then you kind of think,

7:55

well, there's nowhere here for

7:57

the king to go to bed or there's nowhere here

8:00

for banqueting, or there's no sense of luxury

8:02

here. It's just canon and sort

8:04

of rims for squadies. And

8:06

equally, you can get taken to

8:09

basically sort of modern stately homes that

8:11

kind of have self designated

8:13

as castles. You think, well, this is

8:16

a bit of a sham castle, isn't

8:18

it? Because really, there's no sense of

8:20

this building taking the fight to anybody.

8:22

It's just got kind of crenellations added

8:24

on top for decoration. So Brown's

8:26

definition that you have to have in order to be

8:28

a castle, it has to be a fortress and a

8:31

stronghold, seems to work very

8:33

well. It's certainly in the last couple of

8:35

generations that academics

8:38

blast them, come along and said, if

8:40

that's your definition, then lots of

8:42

medieval castles don't

8:45

meet that requirement in that they're not

8:47

always built with defense

8:50

in mind. So it's very,

8:52

very difficult. I think the best thing to do

8:54

is just kind of, you know, it becomes sort

8:56

of self referential. And just say, if there's people

8:58

in the Middle Ages called it a castle, then

9:00

let's call it a castle. Let's go with that.

9:02

I think that that's absolutely fair. I mean, who

9:05

am I to tell them what a castle is

9:07

or is not? But okay, let's create a kind

9:09

of hierarchy of these different

9:11

meanings. So a fortress is just

9:13

kind of bare bones. This is

9:15

a building that exists for military

9:18

and defensive purposes. Yeah,

9:20

I mean, for the fourth part, and as

9:22

in French, just means it's strong, it's a

9:24

stronghold, it's a strong place, it's somewhere where

9:27

you hole up when the going gets tough.

9:29

So fortress is very straightforward, as is, you

9:31

know, palace or stately home or whatever you

9:33

choose to call it. Castle, though, has that

9:35

sort of like unique blend of the two.

9:37

It's kind of like we are creating here

9:39

a spectrum. And then on one hand, you've

9:41

got the fortress down the end that is

9:43

just doing military things. On the other hand,

9:45

you have a palace or a stately home

9:47

that is being a site for pleasure. And then

9:50

a castle is somewhere in

9:52

the middle. Is that fair as a rough and ready

9:54

estimate? Well, yeah, I think

9:56

that illustrates, well, one of the problems

9:58

that castle designs has faced is that

10:01

you're on the one hand building a residence

10:03

for one of the most powerful

10:06

people in whichever polity you're in. So whether it's

10:08

the king or the archbishop or a great earl

10:10

or someone who expects the

10:12

finer things in life, someone who's traveling with

10:14

a household of 50 or 100 or more

10:16

people, so it's got to be well lit,

10:18

well heated, it's got to be sumptuous, it's

10:21

got to be luxurious. On

10:23

the other hand, security says

10:25

these people need to be kept safe

10:27

in the event of foreign invasion or

10:29

the civil war or whatever. So

10:32

it has to be strong and

10:34

it has to be warlike. And there are

10:36

two quite contradictory briefs to an architect. If

10:38

you say I want it to be well

10:40

lit, for example, to take an obvious example,

10:42

you need big windows. If you want it

10:44

to be secure, you need tiny little arrow

10:46

slits. So the way that

10:49

castle designers reconcile these contradictory imperatives,

10:51

I think, is what makes those

10:53

buildings so very fascinating to study.

10:56

Absolutely, because they're doing so

10:59

much. I think especially when we

11:01

have buildings that survive from the

11:03

Middle Ages, oftentimes they are doing one

11:05

thing, you know, a cathedral is a

11:07

cathedral, even if, you know, occasionally you

11:09

get a Lincoln that is fortified. A

11:12

church is a church, but castles are

11:14

doing military duty,

11:16

they are doing pomp

11:18

and presentation, and then they're also

11:20

sometimes having a little church in there as

11:23

well. You know, you always have your chapel,

11:25

don't you? So they're quite interesting because they

11:27

contain multitudes. Yeah, I think

11:29

they're a good lens through which to view

11:31

the Middle Ages as a whole. And you kind

11:33

of get all walks of life there. And

11:35

yes, they are primarily aristocratic residences, but the aristocratic

11:38

households or, you know, their next networks draw

11:40

in other people as well. So

11:42

yeah, I think they're fascinating buildings. I

11:45

suppose moving on, what would you

11:47

say the main features of a castle

11:49

are? If you were going to describe

11:51

one to someone who's never seen or

11:53

heard of a castle before, what would

11:55

you say that they exhibit?

11:58

This is actually a question I could turn some. times to

12:00

school children. It's a good way of illustrating the

12:02

way we think about castles, because if you say,

12:05

okay, draw a castle or name five things you expect

12:07

to see at a castle, and I think this probably

12:09

works as well with adult audience as well. They

12:12

say, Oh, okay, I get it. So you start

12:14

them off and say a drawbridge. They go, Oh,

12:16

right, okay. So drawbridge will be one towers,

12:18

predilinations or battlements or ramparts, whatever

12:21

you call them, a

12:23

moat, perhaps arrow loops, crossbow loops, a

12:25

portcullis, you know, the great grill that

12:27

comes down across the entrance to stop

12:29

people getting in. So they rattle off all

12:32

these things that you see on castles in

12:34

film, castles in reality and castles when they're

12:36

made as models for you as children, play

12:38

castles, toy castles. Almost never

12:40

does any audience say, as you

12:43

already have chapel, chambers,

12:46

bedrooms, a great hall, a forge,

12:48

a smithy, a kitchen, you know,

12:50

so they always go for the

12:52

military accoutrements. Almost never

12:54

the domestic ones. And

12:57

yeah, not only are castles both

13:00

of those things, but 99.9% of

13:03

the time, you're only using those

13:05

domestic features, you're very, very seldom using

13:08

the arrow loops or using the, you

13:10

know, the dropping the portcullis. So

13:12

I'd go with those list of attributes

13:15

to describe a castle to

13:17

someone visiting from, you know, a distant planet.

13:19

What different types of castles

13:22

were there? Because, again, I think that

13:24

when we say castle, especially

13:26

here in the British context, we're

13:28

thinking of these grand Norman things.

13:30

But there's a lot of different

13:33

kinds of castle that could be a lot

13:36

less, I suppose, imposing.

13:38

Yeah, I think to some extent, I think the main

13:41

thing to emphasize is that they evolve across time. I'm

13:43

gonna end up sort of eating these words, I'm sure in

13:45

a minute. But by and large, I

13:48

think, from one era to

13:50

the next, there is a kind of common

13:52

or garden type of castle. And that evolves

13:54

as the centuries progress. You

13:56

specifically mentioned Britain, so I'm going to go I'm

13:58

going to run with that limit. implementation. And

14:01

in Britain, you have almost

14:03

nothing that can be described as a castle before

14:06

the Norman conquest of 1066. There

14:09

are three or four castles

14:11

built to generation immediately prior to the

14:13

conquest in England. But really,

14:16

it's a Norman phenomenon or a French phenomenon

14:18

that arrives with the Normans. And

14:22

the earliest kind of common type of castle

14:24

or the most common type of castle by

14:26

a very long chalk that the Normans introduced

14:28

is described by historians today as a Mott

14:30

and Bailey. A Mott being a very

14:33

large artificial mound of earth, which

14:37

gives you the advantage of height, on

14:39

top of which you build a tower. The

14:42

Bailey is a much larger

14:44

but shallower enclosure. So just slightly raised

14:46

with a sort of ditch and rampart

14:48

around it. And that is the place

14:50

where you put everything else. So your

14:52

great hall, your stables, your smithy, your

14:54

chapel, etc. And I

14:56

said a tower on top of the

14:58

Mott, the crucial thing to remember with

15:00

all these early castles is they are

15:02

almost exclusively made from earth and timber.

15:05

So you begin with wooden castles. I

15:07

remember really kind of struggling

15:10

to get my brain around that when I read

15:12

that first when I was an undergraduate because you're

15:14

so used to thinking castles being made of stone.

15:16

It almost beggars belief the notion that they could

15:18

have once been not

15:20

just kind of occasionally made of wood, but

15:22

in almost every circumstance made of wood. And

15:26

a helpful way to think of this is well, all

15:29

castles, actually start being

15:31

made of wood. So even somewhere like

15:33

Carnarvon Castle, in the first

15:35

instance, because especially if you're, as

15:37

most of the case, most of the time

15:39

is true, you're building them in hostile territory,

15:41

territory you've just conquered. And you're sort of

15:44

imposing your will on that area. You

15:46

don't start off by saying, we'll go

15:48

and get Master Roger the Mason and

15:50

get you know, 50 guys to start

15:52

chipping away at box because it's too

15:54

dangerous. You're in the first instance, creating

15:56

a military base, digging ditches and putting

15:58

up palisades. So it looks like a

16:00

modern building site. The first thing you do

16:02

is you put up a wooden fence to

16:04

keep people out. In this

16:06

case, a modern gate for your own safety,

16:09

don't go beyond this area without a hard hat, in

16:12

the Middle Ages to keep people out for your safety.

16:15

So you start off with walls made

16:17

of wood, towers made of wood, and

16:19

buildings made of wood. If that castle

16:22

then proves a favorite, if it proves

16:24

successful or necessary, or just

16:26

somewhere that you really want to invest

16:28

in for generations to come, then

16:30

you can start to think about tearing down those

16:33

wooden walls and replacing them with stone ones. But

16:35

that's going to cost you maybe 50 to 100

16:37

times as much in terms of money

16:40

and labor. So

16:42

even as say somewhere like Windsor Castle, which

16:44

you think there's like the biggest and most

16:46

palatial, one of the most palatial castles in

16:48

Britain, that began life as a wooden modern

16:50

Bailey during the reign of William the Conqueror

16:52

and almost any other castle you care to

16:54

mention, they all begin life made of earth

16:56

and timber. As time rolls on,

16:58

and you get into later centuries, they

17:01

will start replacing those wooden walls with

17:03

stone ones. It's good to hear

17:05

that because I think that that's generally what

17:07

I think of when I think of castles,

17:09

you know, as the making of

17:11

one because they are such huge buildings, they're on

17:14

such a monumental scale, and it takes so long.

17:16

That's sort of what I throw out as an explanation to

17:19

people. And one worries that

17:21

it's a bit of a myth and, you know, a

17:23

little too easy to say, oh, yeah, you start with

17:25

the wood and then eventually you end up with, you

17:28

know, something is stone and magnificent.

17:31

But I suppose there

17:33

has got to be a lot of modern

17:35

Bailey wooden things that we've lost

17:37

along the way when, you know, your

17:40

sortie doesn't exactly work out if you

17:42

are repelled. So we kind of tend

17:44

to see successful examples of that, no?

17:47

Yeah, I mean, there are no surviving wooden

17:49

ones that what you get what do survive

17:51

are the moths because it's very hard to

17:53

make and also pointless to try

17:56

and make, say, 20,000 tons of

17:58

soil and chalk and stone disappear. here.

18:00

So the mott survive in the

18:02

landscape, often covered with a

18:05

blanket of trees or completely

18:07

denuded of any wood or indeed stone.

18:09

Often the stone is robbed out if

18:11

there were stone buildings. So lots and lots

18:13

of mott survive where there are no

18:15

buildings or anything really beyond the earthworks.

18:19

It's sort of an arresting thought to think that

18:21

once upon a time, wooden ones were absolutely the

18:23

norm. One thing that I should, it occurred to

18:25

me while you were asking your question to emphasize

18:27

though is there's absolutely

18:29

no truth in the idea or

18:31

no mileage in the idea that

18:34

you start off initially with wooden

18:36

castles and then at some point,

18:38

some architect has a eureka moment

18:41

and goes, do you know what would make these

18:43

things stronger and less vulnerable to attack with fire?

18:46

Stone. So it's not like stone

18:48

is an evolution. There had always

18:50

been stone castles. My point is

18:52

that they're rarities. They initially are

18:55

the things that cost an absolute

18:57

fortune and you only invest

18:59

in them when you're really trying to make

19:01

an impression or you're absolutely convinced this needs

19:03

to be your main residence. It's

19:06

just nowadays, the only buildings we see surviving are

19:08

the stone ones. I suppose

19:10

this gives me another question for you,

19:12

which is you've mentioned briefly that

19:15

castles come out, especially in England, they

19:17

come out from a Norman context and

19:20

a French context. Why is

19:22

it that in the French lands, we have

19:24

a lot more castles at this point than

19:26

we do up here on the

19:28

British Isles? Good question. For me, all these

19:30

things are slightly mysterious. Why

19:33

all of a sudden did you get a decline

19:35

in slavery or why did you get the coming

19:37

of feudalism? Whatever. These big questions

19:39

about why I always find very daunting.

19:42

I'd mentioned the F word, feudalism.

19:44

That's the traditional explanation is that

19:46

society in the eighth,

19:48

ninth centuries on the continent was

19:50

arranged differently. The aristocracy wasn't

19:52

so heavily militarized and privatized.

19:58

What starts to happen is that breaks down. in

20:00

the course of the 10th century, is

20:02

powerful people. And indeed, people quite

20:04

low down the hierarchy.

20:07

People who are really just kind of, you

20:09

know, want to be powerful, but have strong

20:11

right arms and can attract gangs of followers,

20:14

they start investing heavily in their

20:16

own fortification. And so as

20:18

power starts to sort of disintegrate and become

20:20

invested in smaller landowners, then

20:23

they start to dig in and build castles. So

20:25

you see that happening towards the end of the

20:27

10th century, the easiest way to think of it

20:30

in terms of time is around the turn of

20:32

the first millennium, around the year 1000. And then

20:35

you see castles all over what

20:37

is modern France, Francia, being

20:39

built in vast numbers. The

20:41

proof of that the other way is that

20:43

in England, in the course of the 10th

20:45

century, public power is very strong. So

20:48

the kings of Wessex, who ultimately become the kings

20:50

of England in the course of the 10th century,

20:53

they have a complete monopoly of

20:56

fortification, they are building large kind

20:58

of communal fortifications called burrs or

21:00

burrs. And there is

21:02

really no scope for people however powerful below

21:05

the level of the king to build

21:07

their own private fortifications. And right down

21:09

to 1066, you can see that's the

21:11

way power operates in England. When,

21:13

for example, Edward the Confessor falls out

21:16

with the Godwin family, who are incredibly

21:18

powerful, they do not run to their

21:20

main estates and hole up in castles,

21:22

because they don't have them. They

21:25

flee abroad, and they raise fleets. And that

21:27

is the way their power is measured is

21:29

their ability to attract men and ships to

21:31

their banner. By contrast, if

21:33

you look at what's going on the other side

21:35

of the channel in Normandy, whenever politics breaks down,

21:38

which is very frequently, you

21:40

can see men instantly rushing to their

21:42

castle that they have built and holding

21:44

it against the Duke for months running

21:47

into years. So the proof

21:49

of the pudding is kind of in

21:51

the politics. Normandy prior to the conquest

21:53

is all about one damn siege after

21:55

another. England, although politics does occasionally lead

21:57

to standoffs, it never results in sieges.

22:00

because there are no buildings to beseech. Let's

22:03

then place ourselves

22:05

firmly in England. When

22:08

do we see the first castle

22:10

appear? Because to my recollection,

22:13

we have a reference to

22:15

a castle existing prior to

22:17

the Norman Conquest, according to

22:19

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, right? Where

22:21

there is a description of a fortification

22:24

of some type built by foreigners.

22:27

Yeah, the first reference, as far as I'm still aware,

22:29

this was true 20 years ago when I wrote a

22:31

book on this, as far as

22:33

I'm still aware, the earliest written use of

22:35

the word castle in English that has survived

22:38

is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1051. And

22:40

it says the foreigners built a castle

22:43

in Earl Swain's territory. And

22:45

the significant fact is they don't say a

22:47

bur or some other English word, they use

22:50

the foreign word castell, you see written in

22:52

English. And there is a sense

22:54

of this is a horrible foreign

22:56

invention, because it's associated from the very first

22:58

with it. I think the next part of

23:00

that sentence is something like, and they did

23:02

all the damage they could to the King's

23:04

men in that region. So there's a sense

23:06

from the first that they are intrusive kind

23:08

of weapons of domination. And you

23:10

start to see the course once you've got after the

23:13

Norman Conquest, those references

23:15

multiply by a huge factor. And

23:17

you get constant references to castles in the

23:19

sources. And again, they are associated with Norman

23:22

oppression. So they caused castles to be built

23:24

far and wide throughout the land, oppressing the

23:26

unhappy people, that sort of thing. So

23:29

it's very hard to pinpoint exactly the first we

23:31

could tell you, you know, the first written reference,

23:33

and we can point to, you know, I say

23:35

three or four early examples. But it's after the

23:37

conquest conquest is really the kind of the inception

23:40

point or something or the point where it all

23:42

kicks off. That is the point where

23:44

you go from having a number small enough

23:46

to count on the fingers of one hand

23:48

to a deluge hundreds being built up to

23:50

maybe five or 600 between 1066 and the

23:54

end of the 11th century. So castles

23:56

going up everywhere all across the country

23:58

as the Normans with their

24:00

power into place. So where,

24:02

just to take us back, where

24:05

was England's first castle built

24:07

then? You mentioned the reference in

24:10

1051 that it says they built a castle

24:12

in El Swain's territory, which is in Herefordshire.

24:15

It's possibly Richard's Castle, I think that's the

24:17

lightliest contender, which is somewhere I think on

24:19

those of the Herefordshire-Welch border. I've been there

24:21

once, this is a long time ago, and

24:23

it was covered in trees. I mean, there

24:26

are two or three built simultaneously in the

24:28

Welsh Marches by the French followers of Edward

24:30

the Confessor, because that's the way they were

24:32

used to doing things on the continent. So

24:35

there's another one at Ewis Harald, which

24:37

is also in Herefordshire. There's one

24:40

just to the north of London, or Clavering

24:42

Castle in Essex, I think that's the one.

24:44

So there are two or three, let's say,

24:46

competing for the honour of the first castle

24:48

in England. But nowadays,

24:51

they are very nondescript. They haven't grown

24:53

into big famous modern fortresses in the

24:55

way that the ones built after the

24:57

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27:12

though they're mushrooms. They're popping up

27:14

all over across England. What

27:18

is the reason for such

27:20

an incredible amount of building? You

27:22

know, obviously there's something in there where this is

27:25

the way that they rule. And so

27:27

they're coming from a culture where castles are

27:29

the norm, but it's more than that,

27:31

no? Yeah, I mean, I

27:33

think it's two things. One is this is just the typical

27:35

way that the French do lordship. Your lord

27:37

of this parcel of land, you build a

27:39

castle to enforce that lordship. It's just second

27:42

nature to the Normans. And two,

27:44

even more so than in Normandy, the

27:46

people that you are seeking to dominate

27:49

don't want you there. So you have

27:51

to build castles in great numbers because

27:53

your lordship is being resisted. So

27:56

I mean, you can see it in the case of

27:58

William the Conqueror itself. I mean, he starts off

28:01

planting castles. As soon as they're off the boat

28:03

on the Bayeux tapestry, it says, you know, here

28:05

they are at Hastings, building a castle. They're digging

28:07

in from the moment they are disembarked. But

28:09

wherever William goes in the years after

28:11

1066, well, as

28:13

I've said already, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1067 talks

28:16

about William's regents, William Fitzhosbourne and

28:18

Nodor of Bayeux building castles across

28:21

the country wherever they went. William

28:23

in 1068, he leads the first

28:25

of his kind of armed marches into the

28:28

Midlands and the North, and he plants castles

28:31

at places like Warwick,

28:33

Lincoln, York, Huntington, Cambridge,

28:36

Nottingham. This is the sort of the origins of all

28:38

these castles. I think I said earlier, you know, probably

28:40

600 by the time you get

28:42

to the end of the 11th century. But the

28:44

majority of them planted

28:46

it during the reign of William the Conqueror, because

28:49

that's the time when resistance for the conquest is

28:51

at its thickest. That's the time when

28:53

you need these castles the most. So

28:55

it's fairly kind of clear

28:58

cut, at least in my mind. This

29:00

military domination, it's enforcement of a new regime against the

29:02

people that don't want it there. And

29:05

when the Normans are planting all of

29:07

these castles, are they doing

29:09

it in areas that wouldn't have seen

29:11

any kind of fortifications or fortresses at

29:13

all? Or are they explicitly

29:15

going into areas where there had

29:17

been English seats of power or

29:20

places that I don't know, you would expect to

29:22

see military garrisons? I

29:25

think it's a bit of both. I

29:27

think it's just pure pragmatism. I mean, in

29:29

some cases, I mean, the royal ones I

29:31

mentioned earlier, you notice the places I mentioned

29:33

were towns or cities. So

29:35

where there are large concentrations of people, you

29:37

know, not large as we would think

29:40

of them now, London's probably about 20,000 people, maybe

29:43

not as much as that in 1066, but

29:45

you know, there's nowhere apart from London,

29:47

really, that's into five figures. But

29:50

even so, even if you've got, you know, three or 4,000

29:52

people in one particular area, then that's a good

29:55

place to plant a castle if you want to

29:57

control those people. So royal castles

29:59

tend to be... in towns and cities,

30:01

major power centres. But Norman lords who

30:03

are left at their own devices are

30:05

going to pick places where they can

30:07

control important route ways, whether they are

30:10

river routes or land routes. They're

30:12

not planted at sort of random. They are

30:14

planted with the eye always to the main

30:16

advantage of how can we best dominate this

30:19

area. That's why they're sort of on cliffs

30:21

above rivers or crossroads. They're

30:23

all about control. So you

30:25

find some of them in established

30:27

areas of lordship. You find other new

30:29

lordships carved out where there hadn't been

30:32

lordships before, you know, greenfield sites, essentially.

30:35

So huge variety in the places that

30:37

they're sighted. Is there a corresponding variety

30:39

in what these castles look like? Or

30:42

do we see a form of archetype

30:44

that is coming in along with the

30:47

Normans? I thought it was about time we got onto

30:49

this. So we talked about

30:51

Mott and Bailey's. That's the dominant type to

30:53

begin with. But what you

30:55

get in parallel with Mott and Bailey's. So

30:57

your Mott is your giant mound of earth,

31:00

which is not exactly

31:02

a doddle to build because you can't just build it

31:04

like a sandcastle. It will wash away. It has to

31:06

be consolidated. It's a piece of civil

31:08

engineering, if you like, but comparatively inexpensive

31:10

compared to the trouble of building a

31:13

stone tower. And the stone tower is

31:15

the other main type of building you

31:17

get, the great stone tower from

31:20

the very first. Most famous example being William

31:22

the Conqueror's Great Tower of London, the Tower

31:24

of London. Other examples going

31:26

up in the Conqueror's reign are places

31:29

like Culturester in Essex, or

31:31

Chepstow right on the Welsh border. Richmond

31:33

goes up a little bit later. The

31:35

Tower of London is probably the best one to conjure with

31:37

because it doesn't require anything in the way of introduction. Very,

31:40

very big square or

31:43

rectangular based stone boxes that

31:45

just scream kind of power and domination.

31:48

I mean, something like the Tower of

31:50

London. There had been churches

31:53

of that height in pre conquest

31:56

England, but no secular buildings

31:58

on that scale. You know, the Anglais Saxons

32:00

had built halls, it's an

32:03

exaggeration or an oversimplification to say,

32:05

think of Tolkien, because Tolkien was

32:07

a 20th century romantic take

32:09

on pre-conquest England. But if

32:11

you think of the way that King of

32:13

Rohan is presented in Tolkien, in a big

32:15

wooden hall, that's kind

32:18

of the way that the pre-conquest English

32:20

had done royal residences. Nothing on the

32:22

scale, certainly, of the Tower of London.

32:25

And then, of course, once that ball

32:27

has been set rolling by the royals,

32:30

anyone who's powerful wants a building like that.

32:32

So what you see to move us forward

32:34

a bit, what you see throughout the 12th

32:36

century is the

32:38

most powerful people in the country, the Earls,

32:40

the most powerful barons, they're saying, I want

32:43

a great tower as well. So

32:45

you have the second generation of castles

32:47

like, and this is where we

32:49

get into numbers, 20s, 30s, 40s,

32:51

Rochester, Portchester, we'll come on to

32:53

Dover, but lots and lots of

32:55

castles going up across the country, heading them in

32:58

Essex is another one, with sort of the Tower

33:00

of London as the kind of the father or

33:02

the grandfather, the prototype, if you like, that

33:05

way of expressing your power becomes

33:08

very, very desirable and mainstream by

33:10

the middle of the 12th century.

33:12

And anyone who's of any

33:14

consequence will want a tower of their own.

33:16

You notice I'm not using the word keep,

33:18

which is something I've trained myself to do

33:20

over the years, because typically until recently, and

33:22

a lot of the time still today, we'll

33:24

talk about keeps, which is a Tudor term.

33:26

It wasn't one used by medieval people at

33:29

the time, they just talked about great towers,

33:31

or if they're writing in French, d'Angen. But

33:34

the reason they called them keeps, by the way, the

33:36

Tudors is because by that stage, they didn't live in

33:38

them, and they just use them as kind of giant

33:41

closets. So it's where you kept stuff, you know, put

33:43

it in the keep. No

33:45

one was saying that at the time, they

33:47

were great towers. But that's the dominant architectural

33:49

form, if you're building in stone, if you

33:51

have the enormous wherewithal to do that, from

33:54

1066, right the way down to

33:56

the end of the 12th century in England, you will be

33:58

wanting to build a great tower. tower to

34:00

express your power and let's not

34:03

be avoid the kind of obvious

34:05

Freudian thing here your virility. I

34:07

mean, you know, there's

34:09

a reason that bishops want the longest names.

34:11

There's a reason that people men into the

34:13

modern age as well want a big tower

34:15

with their name on top and it has

34:17

to be the tallest in town. So

34:19

that's what they're doing in the 12th century. Look, you

34:21

said it, not me. So it's fine. If

34:24

I say it, it's problematic. You're allowed to

34:26

say it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well,

34:28

I've learned you here. Of course,

34:30

not just to talk about castles more

34:33

generally, but specifically to make you speak

34:35

about Dover Castle, because this

34:38

is one of those

34:40

big Norman monumental castles.

34:42

You know, I often say that if a

34:45

child closes their eyes and thinks about a

34:47

castle, Dover is sort of what would come

34:49

into their head. So

34:52

what would you say is

34:54

so interesting about Dover? Because I think

34:57

for me, one of the things

34:59

I love about it is it's very emblematic

35:01

of the wider story of English

35:03

castles, I would say. Yeah, I mean,

35:05

Dover requires a lot of unpacking, perhaps

35:07

just to start with the very basics.

35:09

So there was a castle of some

35:11

kind at Dover from the Norman conquest

35:14

onwards, because we know William

35:16

the Conqueror stopped at Dover on his route

35:18

march between Hastings and London. And we're told

35:20

that he spent seven days

35:22

adding the fortifications that it lacked,

35:25

which is kind of like, well,

35:27

we don't know. So it's one

35:29

of those very frustratingly obscure allusions

35:31

to early fortifications at Dover. They

35:33

have dug at Dover many times

35:35

done archaeological digs over the decades,

35:37

and they haven't found any trace

35:39

of an early castle there. The

35:41

problem being that Dover has

35:43

been overwritten so many times

35:45

built over from that day, well, not

35:47

just that day, right back to the

35:50

Roman lighthouse, which still stands there from

35:52

the Romans right through to the modern

35:54

age, there has been some form of

35:56

habitation at Dover, and

35:58

particularly in the modern age. say

36:00

from the late 18th century onwards, the

36:02

military had been there just digging things

36:04

up and throwing things away. So the

36:06

archaeology of the early castle is long

36:08

since gone. But

36:11

we do have written references to the castle being

36:13

there from 1066 down to the late 12th century.

36:17

But it clearly wasn't much cop, one, because there's

36:20

no trace of it. And two, because the

36:22

amounts of money being spent on it in

36:24

royal records are foodlingly small

36:26

sum, you know, £10,

36:28

£20 on patching up something which was almost

36:30

certainly made of timber. So that's the backstory

36:32

of Dover for its first 120, 130 years.

36:35

Then along comes Henry II, who's most famous

36:43

sort of today for his ill-timed rhetorical

36:45

apparently question, who will rid me of this

36:47

turbulent priest. So he's the guy who does

36:49

for Thomas Beckett. And he

36:53

decides he is going to build

36:55

a monumental castle at Dover in

36:58

the year 1180. And it

37:00

is a castle on a

37:02

scale to rival the Tower of London. It's

37:05

also the really the last of

37:07

its kind, because I said earlier that after

37:09

the Tower of London is built, then a

37:11

great tower becomes the way you do things.

37:15

And Dover really is the last of those

37:17

great towers. Very often I say it's sort

37:19

of similar in scale to the Tower of

37:21

London. Very often nowadays, it's the sort of

37:23

the Tower of London's body double, because

37:25

you can't shut down the Tower of London,

37:28

no matter how much money, how many

37:30

Hollywood dollars you wave, it's

37:32

too lucrative and important. But you can shut

37:35

down Dover Castle for a morning or so.

37:37

So very often you

37:39

kind of go, you know, here's Ambelline being executed

37:42

at the Tower of London. And I'm going, wait

37:44

a minute, that's Dover, you know, I'm

37:46

the 0.001% of the

37:48

audience that is tutting and saying that's not the Tower

37:50

of London. Anyway, I digress.

37:52

But that's the point is they are the

37:54

same species of building. And

37:56

I say Dover begins in 1180. The thing that's really

37:59

interesting, interesting and I expect we'll

38:01

drill down into this now, is why

38:04

Henry the second wanted to make

38:06

a statement of that scale up

38:09

there on the top of the white cliffs at Dover. Look,

38:12

Mark, don't do my job for me.

38:14

But yes, that is my next question.

38:16

Why here? Why Dover? What's the significance?

38:18

Well, it's, I'm glad you asked me

38:20

that. I

38:23

think traditionally, and

38:25

this is something that was said at

38:27

Dover itself until very recently. The explanation

38:29

would be obvious, because as everybody knows,

38:32

Dover is the closest point in

38:34

Britain to the continental mainland of

38:37

Europe. So that's

38:39

the place the ferries go across. Now that's

38:41

the shortest route, as was demonstrated by the

38:43

Romans. It's a

38:46

place you need to defend at all costs. And

38:48

that's the way Dover has behaved into

38:51

the sort of the early modern period and into the

38:53

modern period. That's why it was

38:55

so rebuilt in the 17th, 18th

38:57

and 19th centuries, because it was

38:59

always standing sentinel against any continental

39:01

threat. The

39:04

problem with that is if you go back to the

39:06

time Henry the second built it, there

39:08

isn't a continental threat at the

39:11

time, Henry got on very well

39:13

with the people on the other side

39:15

of the channel, who weren't the King of

39:17

France, the King of France, he didn't get on

39:19

well with it at all. But the King of

39:21

France didn't own the North French coastline. It was

39:23

owned by various people who

39:25

were notionally vassals, but not really people like

39:27

the Count of Beloine, the Count of Flanders,

39:30

a Duke of Brabant, all of whom were

39:32

sort of Team Henry. So he didn't have

39:34

to worry about a threat from across

39:36

the channel. Much more

39:38

obviously, Henry the second

39:40

was Duke of Normandy, and he was

39:42

the direct descendant of William the Conqueror.

39:45

So not only does he not

39:47

have to defend Dover, he never has to

39:50

go there, never bothers going there, because if he

39:52

were crossing the channel that way, he would end

39:54

up in someone else's territory. He wants to cross

39:56

the channel and end up in Normandy. So

39:58

when he goes to Normandy, and he wants

40:00

to end up somewhere like Ruhr or

40:03

Col or Dieppe or

40:05

whatever, he will cross typically from

40:07

somewhere like Portsmouth or

40:09

Shoreham in Sussex or even occasionally

40:11

go further west somewhere like Plymouth.

40:14

So there's no point of him

40:16

going to Dover. And although we

40:18

can't recover his itinerary in any

40:20

great detail, it's very hard to

40:23

locate Henry at Dover until the

40:25

building of Dover Castle. So to

40:28

go back to your structured question of

40:30

10 minutes ago, why build

40:32

this castle? The answer

40:34

seems to be Thomas Beckett. Again,

40:38

that requires some unpacking. Beckett

40:40

was famously an archbishop murdered

40:42

in his cathedral in

40:44

1170, December 1170, with some degree of royal

40:49

involvement, whatever it was, whatever Henry did or

40:51

didn't say, he's done in by royal knights,

40:54

probably acting on Henry's orders. So this scandalizes

40:56

all of Europe. And it's one of the

40:58

great sort of like, you know, things that

41:00

rock society, the fact that an archbishop could

41:02

be done to death in his own cathedral.

41:05

Henry thinks that he's going to be

41:07

deposed, and somehow or other, he scrapes

41:10

through. The point is that Beckett is

41:12

very quickly canonized. So

41:14

he's a saint from 1173.

41:17

And the place of his martyrdom, his cathedral

41:19

Canterbury, is in East Kent, about 15 miles

41:21

from Dover. So people

41:24

start coming to pray

41:26

at Beckett's shrine in

41:28

considerable numbers. He becomes

41:30

the most famous martyr in Europe. And

41:34

very powerful people start coming across the

41:36

channel. And very often, because if they're

41:38

praying for someone's recovery from some disease,

41:40

they will turn up at a moment's

41:43

notice. So it won't be kind of

41:45

a visit that they've planned for weeks

41:47

or months in advance. The

41:50

king will be told, oh, the

41:52

Duke of Brabant, or the Count of Flanders, is

41:54

coming to Canterbury, we've just said, and he's ready

41:57

to sail. He's at Wissant, waiting for a favorable

41:59

win. He's going to be there in 48 hours. And

42:02

Henry is ripped from his

42:04

normal itinerary and has to

42:06

race down to Kent in order to receive

42:09

these powerful people who are coming to pray

42:11

at Beckett Shrine. That happens

42:13

once in 1178. In

42:17

1179, the King of

42:19

France himself, Louis VII, his

42:22

son falls ill, the future Philip Augustus. Louis

42:25

VII says, I know I

42:27

will go to Canterbury and pray at the

42:29

shrine of my old friend, St. Thomas. Henry

42:33

is once again told this when he's somewhere

42:35

in the South Midlands and has to race

42:37

down to Dover where, lest

42:39

we forget, he doesn't have a castle or

42:42

at least a castle of any consequence. He's

42:44

got some tatty old, you know, decades

42:47

old wooden buildings. So

42:50

he cannot put anybody up in style. This is

42:52

the first time when Louis VII comes in 1179.

42:56

It's the first time a European king has come

42:58

to England, as far as we can tell. So

43:01

it is, if you like, and has been

43:03

well done, the first state visit in English

43:05

history. And what can Henry say?

43:09

Good that you brought your tents, Louis, because

43:11

I don't have anywhere for you to stay

43:13

in Dover. So he's repeatedly

43:16

embarrassed. He's

43:18

repeatedly embarrassed by the lack of

43:20

royal accommodation when people get off

43:22

the boat. Six months

43:25

after that embarrassment, he starts building

43:27

Dover Castle. So

43:29

Dover Castle, in the first instance, is

43:31

not, although it is a tremendously strong

43:33

building, it is not built to keep

43:35

people out. It's actually built to welcome

43:37

them in. And when

43:39

you go there now and you walk up

43:41

in that great tower, one of the striking

43:44

things about the stairs that lead you into

43:46

the interior are they are

43:48

very grand and processional, extremely

43:51

wide route of entry into

43:53

the castle. And the

43:55

rooms themselves are big, spacious, well-appointed

43:57

rooms because they are being for

44:00

visiting dignitaries, potentially foreign

44:03

rulers. But that to me

44:05

seems to be absolutely nail the explanation

44:07

of why Dover is built

44:10

on that palatial scale and why it's

44:12

built in that particular political context. It's

44:15

so interesting. I mean, one of the most

44:17

important works of architecture in England as a

44:19

flex. You just don't want

44:21

to be embarrassed when the King of

44:23

France shows up when you're already embarrassed

44:26

by the fact that you accidentally got your

44:28

archbishop murdered on purpose. You know,

44:30

images everything, you know, the way you project

44:32

power is everything. And so you cannot have

44:34

people repeatedly turning up and Henry saying, I

44:37

know you've had a long journey, but if

44:39

you're able to ride 15 miles,

44:41

I've got a sort of halfway

44:43

decent, pretty old, but it'll do.

44:46

I've got a castle in Canterbury you can stay

44:48

in. Because by that stage,

44:50

he's already within the

44:52

orbit of the Archbishop of

44:54

Canterbury, he's going to be put up in

44:57

style by the monks of Canterbury. So by

44:59

that stage, it's too late. Henry

45:01

needs to kind of welcome

45:03

people off the boat. And

45:06

on the one hand, he's offering

45:08

a kind of mere maxima culpa because

45:11

the chapel at Dover is dedicated to

45:13

St. Thomas Becket. So

45:15

on the one hand, he's going to say, Yeah, I see why

45:17

you're here. And totally,

45:20

you know, I'm on board with that.

45:22

I can't emphasize how much I regret

45:24

that now. But yeah, by all means,

45:26

go to Canterbury. And yet, the thing

45:28

he receives you in is this colossal

45:31

statement of royal power right on top of

45:33

the white cliffs. Everybody who's

45:35

coming from the continent by boat nowadays

45:38

still sees that building. And

45:40

generally tends to say my experience, I'll visit that

45:42

one day. But in the meantime, I'm going to

45:44

get on with my itinerary. But, but

45:47

at the time, you know, well, then that

45:49

castle was built, you're getting off the boat

45:51

there, and you are being overawed by the

45:53

sight of that magnificent stone tower. So

46:00

this is one of Henry II's

46:07

more impressive bits of building,

46:09

but the story of Dover

46:12

doesn't exactly

46:21

stop there. And you have work

46:24

going on pretty much continuously

46:26

throughout the 13th century. People

46:28

want new things, tastes change, it's hundreds

46:30

and hundreds of years in the medieval

46:33

period that we're talking about. So

46:35

does Dover kind of show us

46:38

an interesting evolution of how English

46:40

castles as a whole respond? Or

46:42

is it because it is so monumental

46:44

a special case? Yeah, well,

46:46

there's a very important change that happens

46:48

at Dover in the generation after Henry

46:51

II. So Henry II famously

46:53

had numerous sons, the two who

46:55

survived him, are Richard

46:57

the Lion Heart, who succeeds him in the

47:00

first instance, and then a decade later, the

47:02

youngest son, Bad King John. And

47:04

it's in John's reign from 1199 that

47:07

you see big changes of Dover, because

47:09

there is by this stage an invasion

47:11

threat from the King of France. The

47:13

King of France has expanded his power,

47:15

he's taken over that

47:18

North coastline along the French

47:20

coast, and is

47:22

poised to invade at various points in

47:24

John's reign, and indeed does invade in

47:26

the final year of John's reign. And

47:30

what you see John doing at Dover

47:32

is increasing the defences. So

47:35

Henry starts off with the Great Tower

47:37

and a set of walls around it.

47:40

What John does is he builds a

47:42

second set of walls around it. So

47:44

it's often said that Dover was the

47:47

first concentric castle in English history. Concentricity,

47:49

obviously from, you know, you know, this

47:51

from your geometry, just means you have

47:53

shapes within shapes, walls within walls, or

47:55

ditches within ditches, and of course, surrounded

47:57

by a moat or something else. So

48:00

your any attacker has multiple barriers to

48:02

overcome in order to get to the

48:04

heart of the castle. So

48:06

because it has two sets of walls, Dover

48:08

is often touted as the first concentric castle

48:10

in English history. What's, I

48:13

think, really interesting that happens at Dover

48:15

is when the French do

48:17

show up in the last few months

48:20

of John's reign and attack Dover Castle,

48:23

they do not succeed in taking it,

48:25

which means that really that

48:27

Dover saves John's dynasty for the rest

48:29

of forever. But they do

48:31

do very significant damage and they almost

48:33

get in the main gate. What happens

48:36

at Dover is that gate is blocked

48:38

off and they create a

48:40

new gatehouse on the south side of

48:42

the castle where the slope up to

48:44

the castle is at its steepest. And

48:47

that gatehouse is indicative of the

48:49

way castles are going once you

48:51

enter the 13th century. So you

48:53

have in the first place round

48:56

towers, which had until that point

48:58

been extremely rare after that point

49:00

become the new norm. And

49:03

the gatehouse at Dover is formed by two

49:05

round towers being pushed together. So you have

49:07

what's called a twin tower gatehouse. The gatehouse

49:09

in question, the Constable's Gate,

49:11

it's called, is just this most

49:14

magnificent brooding gatehouse. Well worth the

49:16

Google. And that is

49:18

kind of the way castles for the

49:20

next century or more evolve.

49:22

So I've said already that the

49:24

great tower at Dover, Henry II's

49:26

great tower, is really kind of

49:29

the last hurrah for

49:31

that age of great towers that Susser did

49:33

with the Norman Conquest. What you find after

49:35

that is that you really don't

49:38

find great towers being built. Instead, you have

49:40

these great loops of walls and

49:42

a lot of the power and prestige that

49:44

had been projected by the great tower is

49:46

now vested in the gatehouse itself. So

49:49

you're looking at places like, I am not sure, you know,

49:51

off the top of my head, someone like Chepstow Castle, which

49:53

is a very early one, or

49:55

Tunbridge Castle has a magnificent mid 13th

49:58

century gatehouse, the

50:00

castles were built with the thirst

50:02

in Wales, places like Haalek, really

50:05

big impressive gate house, Carnarvon, although

50:07

the towers aren't round there, Polycanal,

50:10

really, really big impressive gatehouses. So

50:12

that's the shift in castle design,

50:14

if you like, into the 13th

50:16

century is great towers fall out

50:18

of fashion, great twin-town gatehouses

50:21

come on stream. I

50:23

love that Dover is this tastemaker. I mean, that's

50:25

for me, there are lots of other things that

50:27

happened to Dover across the centuries, but you're getting

50:29

beyond the medieval period, which is my forte. I

50:32

mean, one of the things, for example, with Dover

50:34

that happens, which is, again,

50:36

part of the course, if castles

50:39

survive as fortresses this long, is

50:42

once you get into an age of real

50:44

proper ordinance, I'm not just talking about

50:46

the invention of gunpowder, because gunpowder to

50:49

begin with is largely not exactly kind

50:51

of, you know, whizbang fireworks, but it's

50:53

sort of anti personnel as a weapon,

50:56

you're not using guns in the first

50:58

instance is to try and blow holes

51:00

in masonry. By the time

51:02

you get to the late 15th century, and

51:04

you've got guns that are the size of

51:06

kind of Mons Meg, which

51:08

is now kept at Edinburgh Castle,

51:11

really big, long bombards, they

51:13

are, as their name suggests, used to

51:15

blast their way through stone

51:17

walls. Once you've got that, there

51:20

is no point in having really

51:23

tall towers, which

51:25

to us might seem thick, if you've

51:27

got you know, 1015 feet of stonework,

51:29

if that can be just taken down

51:31

in one shot. So when

51:33

you get into the early modern period, you'll

51:36

find that the towers of medieval castles are

51:38

leveled. And their

51:40

walls have massive amounts

51:42

of backfill, they have banks built up

51:44

behind them, so they don't collapse if

51:47

they are bombarded. And that

51:49

also gives you a platform behind the wall, the

51:51

great earthen embankment on which you put your own

51:53

cannon. So that that radically

51:56

transforms the appearance of medieval castles,

51:58

which had been all about tall

52:00

towers with flags and pennants flying.

52:03

All of a sudden they look squat and dumpy.

52:06

And so two really good examples of that in the

52:08

UK are Carlisle Castle, which

52:10

is transformed that way against

52:12

the hostile Scots immediately to

52:15

the north. And

52:17

Dover Castle, which is transformed in that

52:19

way in the, I think, 18th century.

52:22

So every time I'm down at Dover,

52:24

I'm having to remind people and say, it didn't

52:26

always look this squat and dumpy. These towers once

52:28

rose another 20 feet or so, and

52:31

it looked more camelotty. So

52:34

that's another way in which the architecture

52:36

has been modified across the centuries in

52:39

line with the kind of ever-changing

52:41

conversation between sort of attack

52:44

and defense. Mark,

52:46

I could talk to you about this

52:48

all day, more specifically about the degradations

52:50

of the early modern period and the

52:54

terrible things that it's done to medieval

52:56

things in general. But I'm gonna ask you

52:58

one final, very silly question that you're probably

53:00

not going to be able to answer. No.

53:04

What's your favorite castle? Ah, you

53:06

see, this, like any sort of bad

53:08

stand-up comedian, I always try and please

53:10

the audience in front of me. So

53:12

I sort of, anybody in from Carnarvon.

53:15

Yeah. But I do have my

53:17

favorites. I don't have one favorite. I do actually

53:19

really like Carnarvon Castle, not just because I wrote

53:21

a book about the man who built it, but

53:23

because it's just astonishing and

53:25

it's scale and grandeur. And it's kind of like

53:27

you travel to the sort of the outer limits

53:29

of the British Isles. You travel all the way

53:31

up to the North Welsh coast,

53:33

Northwest Welsh coast, and there it is. And

53:37

I feel like Samuel Johnson wrote about

53:39

Carnarvon, Samuel Johnson, the famous

53:41

18th century lexicalgrapher. He sort of said

53:43

in his diary, I didn't think such

53:45

things were possible. You know, he had

53:47

this sense of in the

53:49

18th century where they weren't really building much on that

53:51

kind of scale, to

53:53

suddenly realize that people you'd

53:56

stigmatized almost barbarians, medieval kings

53:59

could build. something so grand

54:02

and striking. So Carnarvon is a favorite.

54:04

Dover is a favorite. I have to

54:06

say, I don't live a million miles

54:08

from Dover, so I'm always there a

54:10

lot. There are little bijou

54:12

castles I like as well. Bodium down

54:14

in Sussex I'm very fond of precisely

54:16

because it reflects a

54:18

different type of castle builder. It reflects

54:20

a man who's a knight who desperately,

54:22

desperately wants to be in

54:24

the top echelon of power players, but can

54:27

only afford something which is really not quite

54:30

a Wendy house, but

54:32

it's really, really dinky. And

54:34

yet he takes great trouble

54:37

to make sure it gets called a castle. He

54:39

takes great trouble to get it licensed by the

54:41

king. And it has every single accoutrement

54:43

you could wish. It has the full

54:46

panoply of moat, drawbridge, portcullis, towers, et

54:48

cetera, because he wants it to look

54:50

as castle-y as possible. So, you know,

54:52

I've got many, many, many favorite castles.

54:54

I couldn't possibly choose one. Well,

54:56

you know, I'd love to end you on a Sophie's

54:58

choice with that, but Mark, thank you so much for

55:01

coming on. I appreciate your insights

55:03

so much. As I say, always a pleasure.

55:06

Thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from

55:08

History Hit, and thank you so much to

55:10

Mark once again for joining me. If

55:13

you are interested in learning a bit more about

55:15

Henry II and Thomas Beckett, which we talked

55:17

about in the show, you can

55:19

check out our past episodes on Beckett from July

55:21

this year, where Matt and I cover

55:24

everything from the bishop's rise to his

55:26

murder and his legacy. As

55:28

always, Matt Lewis will be back on the Gone Medieval

55:30

throne on Friday. Remember,

55:33

you can enjoy unlimited access to

55:35

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55:45

And we're offering 50% off your first three

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55:51

If you're going to miss me this week, there

55:53

are some fabulous films that I've made for you

55:56

to enjoy, including my recent series Meet

55:58

the Normans, where I saw the amazing... amazing

56:00

Falaise Castle, the birthplace of

56:02

William the Conqueror. Remember,

56:04

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