Month: November 2016

 

The next lecture in the programme will be by Dr Audrey Thorstad talking about Interaction, daily life, and socialising spaces in early Tudor castles on 10th December. This will be held in the Swarthmore Institute.

Dr Thorstad kindly sent the following abstract and the photograph of Cowdray Castle:-

‘Castles have long been understood as elite military structures. However, recent approaches to castle studies have demonstrated that historical documents and archaeological remains depict a much more complex narrative for those living, working, and visiting a castle site during the Middle Ages and early modern periods. This paper will explore how people – from the lord and his family to members of the household and guests – moved around and used space in English castles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. My approach takes into account sources that have not previously been used together in order to explore the layout and chamber arrangements in an age when castles were supposedly in decline. By dismantling the idea of the decline paradigm often used to describe castles after the fourteenth century, this paper will argue that castles were in fact still heavily used by the nobility well into the sixteenth century.’