The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer; Vol. 4, July-Dec 1884Various
History
The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer; Vol. 4, July-Dec 1884
Various
Archaeology -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Antiquities -- Periodicals
We gladly call attention to the valuable searches made by Mr. Bond among
original MS. authorities in the Public Records, especially the
instructive “Fabric Rolls.” The careful excavations which he has been
permitted to make have also led to important results, and, in short, we
have in his book the fruits of long and patient study on the spot,
combined with an unsparing and yet critical use of all available sources
of original information.
We must not omit to notice the excellent plans and illustrations, with
which the volume is liberally adorned, and which, by their great
clearness, are admirably adapted to their purpose.
_Mediæval Military Architecture in England._ 2 vols. By G. T. CLARK.
Wyman. 1884.
IT is with a feeling of real gratitude that we welcome this noble work.
The prolonged labours of “Castle Clark” have long been familiar to
antiquaries, and no archæological meeting at any spot that could boast a
castle has seemed complete without the presence of “the great master of
military architecture,” as Mr. Clark has been justly termed by Professor
Freeman: to whom, by the way, these volumes are dedicated, as having
been issued “at his suggestion.” It has long been a matter of natural
regret that the valuable results of Mr. Clark’s researches should have
been so widely scattered as to render them, for practical purposes,
inaccessible to the student. In these volumes they have now been
collected, gathered together from many quarters, such as the
“Transactions” of the national and local Archæological societies, the
_Builder_, and, not least, the scarce volume known as “Old London,” from
which Mr. Clark has been allowed to reproduce his important monograph on
the Tower.
The work begins with twelve introductory chapters, of which we may
select, as of special interest, that on “earthworks of the post-Roman
and English periods,” an obscure subject, on which Mr. Clark has here
collected much instructive information. Three chapters deal with “the
Castles of England and Wales at the latter part of the twelfth century,”
and we can only regret that a subsequent chapter has not been devoted to
the period of the Charter (1213-1223), when these fortresses played so
large and important a part in the struggle. These chapters are succeeded
by more than one hundred papers on various castles and works, not
confined to England alone, as could be gathered from the title, but
including many in Wales, Borthwick Tower in Scotland, and, beyond the
Channel, the typical strongholds of Arques and Coucy, together with the
famous Château-Gaillard. The plans and diagrams, so all-essential in a
work dealing with these subjects, are bestowed with no sparing hand, and
there are not a few illustrations of a less severe character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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