Castle studies and the European medieval landscape: traditions, trends and future research directions

ABSTRACT

The decline of the ‘military paradigm’ in European castle studies is encouraging a host of new approaches that are emphasising the place of private fortification within the medieval landscape and the agency of lordship in its transformation. Yet research is dominated by regionally and nationally based approaches and wider perspectives are lacking. Scholarship that seeks to escape the constraints of national agendas and traditions is urgently needed. This paper establishes some starting points for the study of castles within their contemporary medieval landscapes on a pan-European basis, and addresses critically the notion that these settings embodied a common aristocratic ‘world view’. It is argued that future research should engage with the different political frameworks and structures of lordship through which the impact of authority on the landscape was manifested, as well as identifying areas of common experience. A number of emerging themes for future work are identified, including: the visual relationships between lordship sites and settings intended for leisure, pleasure and sensory impact; the imagery of élite landscapes in medieval romance literature; the contexts of castles within seascapes; the status of aristocratic landscapes as contested spaces; and the ecological signatures and impacts of castles.

KEYWORDS:

• Castle
• designed landscape
• Europe