HIST 398
SYLLABUS
WEEKLY DISCUSSION MATERIALS

Week 4

THE CASTLE AS A HOUSE

Tuesday:

Secrets of the Castles: list of all 6 episodes
https:/www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL72jhKwankOiwI5zt6lC3eQtsQDxOaN_g

Readings:

Gies and Gies, Life, Chap. 3 (pp. 57-74)

Holmes, pp. 18, 82 (mid-page)-87, 178 (last paragraph) -191

Week 4 paper topic:

The year is 1300. You are an elderly lady or lord, living in a castle in Wales. Describe three of your castle’s most inconvenient or uncomfortable features.

Discussion topic:
What is the difference between comfort and luxury?
Give 3 examples from medieval castles that illustrate this distinction.

Dirleton Castle, East Lothian (Scotland):
Exterior (13th cent.); another view
Moat, bridge, and batter of external walls
Reconstruction of medieval appearance of Dirleton Castle
Plan
Courtyard, from roof
Storerooms below 14th-cent. Great Hall
Bakehouse
Kitchen fireplace
Draw well (water was drawn from ground floor and also floor above)
13th-century Hall (interior); another view; detail of window embrasures; fireplace; vault; exterior
Lord’s chamber?
Latrine
Ramparts, with dome of 13th-century Hall ; slide for rolling stones from ramparts
Spiral staircase
Arrow slit (interior)
Prison stair; prison; reconstruction of prison and pit
Upper floor (ruins)
Sixteenth-century dovecote  (exterior); interior ; reconstruction, showing potence
14th-century Great Hall;  Buffet in 14th-century Great Hall

Gravensteen Castle (1180), Ghent (Belgium):
Aerial photo
Plan
Exterior
Entrance
Chapel; another view
Lower hall; detail of fireplace
Undercroft; another view
Ramparts
Latrine;  wooden shutters

Maciejowski Bible (c. 1250):
Constructing the Tower of Babel
A family meal
David watches Bathseba bathe
David in bed with Bathsheba

Great halls:
Chepstow Castle, Monmouthshire (hall in Great Tower, begun 1067): façade and interior; and new hall block exterior (1270-1300) and interior
Castle Hedingham, Essex (c. 1140)
Remains of great hall of Winchester Palace, Southwark, with vaulted undercroft (c. 1220, with rose window c. 1320); reconstruction of hall and undercroft; ruins of the kitchen, 1828; Hollar sketch of the palace c1638
Caerphilly Castle, Glamorgan (begun 1268; hall remodeled 1320s): exterior (on right); interior
Penshurst Place, Kent (late 14th cent.)

Wall paintings:
Wall paintings, 13th cent., St. Agatha’s Church, Easby, Yorkshire: Adam and Eve expelled from Eden
Wall painting, 13th cent., All Saints’ Church, Burton Dassett, Warwickshire: 3 Magi (detail)
Wall paintings, c. 1200, Hornslet Church, Denmark: Battle scene, and another battle scene
Decorated wall, c. 1175, Hvorslev Church, Denmark

Other details:
Garderobe, Peveril Castle, Derbyshire, and town wall garderobes, Conwy, Wales
Well house with donkey treadmill, Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight
Kitchen, Windsor Castle, Berkshire (late 15th cent.), in 1819), and in a recent photo (after repair of roof following 1992 fire),
and in a painting by Alexander Creswell of the restored kitchen after the fire of 1992
Tiled floor, Westminster Abbey chapter house