Late Medieval Castles is a companion to Anglo-Norman Castles (2003), a volume that brought together a series of historiographically significant articles on castles and castle-building in the period from the Norman Conquest to the early thirteenth century. The format and themes of the present collection are broadly comparable with the earlier book, but with the focus on those castles dating to the period c.1250–1500.

In the course of bringing Anglo-Norman Castles to publication the somewhat arbitrary cut-off date of c.1225 seemed unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. On a practical level, there were highly relevant articles that could not be included because the subject matter fell outside the chronological range of the volume. A more scholarly concern was the fact that a number of issues pertinent to castle-building in the eleventh and twelfth centuries could not be satisfactorily addressed without reference to subsequent developments in the thirteenth and fourteenth. Allied to this, a focus on Anglo-Norman building (no matter how justifiable in historical terms) does perhaps contribute, albeit unwittingly, to the erroneous idea that the eleventh and twelfth centuries are the most important centuries for castle-building, a time when the ‘true’ castle is to be found, and that the period that follows, particularly after 1300, is something of an anti-climax. The present volume should therefore be seen as a continuation of the broad themes discussed in the introduction to Anglo-Norman Castles, with the aim of pursuing them in a late medieval context.

In the years since 2003 there have been a number of important publications in the field of castle studies, and castles continue to be a source of controversy and to provoke debate. Despite the fact that the availability of some secondary material has been made easier through electronic access, I have been consistently reminded by academic colleagues that a compilation such as this is worthwhile, both for the student reader and those seeking a path into the specialist secondary literature. This author at least also believes that there is value in bringing together in one place a series of important contributions that have defined the subject and which also illustrate a diversity of approaches.

The final two centuries of the Middle Ages are conventionally considered a period in which castles and castle-building were in decline. The ‘Decline of the Castle’ and ‘Decline’ are the titles of chapters dealing with this period in books written by Allen Brown. In each case the contrast with what went before is strongly emphasised: the previous chapters are named ‘The Perfected Castle’ and ‘Apogee’. In the same vein, these final centuries after c.1300 have been described as ‘the period of decline in use but survival in fantasy’ in an authoritative account, significantly entitled The Decline of the Castle. Our view of this period is different. We consider that the castles of the later Middle Ages show a steady development, not a decline, and the main elements of that development can already be traced in buildings of the ‘Golden Age’.

Our themes, the symbols of the courtyard and the tower, are visible in the arrangements of 1283 at Caernarvon. The King's Gate of this castle was a novel and complex affair placed to divide the interior of the castle into two halves. The entrance passageway beyond the central polygonal chamber directed traffic at right angles westwards into a lower courtyard. This contained the principal hall and its services, and a series of accommodation lodges in mural towers. All this is a conventional arrangement: what is much odder is that this lower courtyard contained also the visual focus of the castle, the Eagle Tower, emphasised particularly from the outside by its greater size and by its termination in a triple crown of turrets, originally given additional importance by the placing of sculptures of eagles on its battlements. The purpose of this striking design is a strong statement of the fulfilment of the Dream of Macsen Wledig in the person of Edward I and his son, a statement whose propaganda must have been obvious to the defeated Welsh aristocrats. The symbolism of all this has been examined by Dr Arnold Taylor, who further identified the Eagle Tower as the intended residence of the king's Justiciar of Wales and first constable of the castle, Edward's loyal supporter Otto de Grandson, and his conclusions seem now to be accepted.