Battle Castles: 500 Years of Knights and Siege Warfare

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Author: Dan Snow

Number of Pages: 336

A sumptuous, action-packed pan-European history, Battle Castles brings to life mighty medieval fortifications and the epic sieges they resisted: clashes that defied the limits of military technology, turned empires to dust, and transformed mortals into legends. Castles and their ruins still dominate the landscape and our imaginations, and are a constant reminder to us today of a time when violence, or the threat of it, was the norm. Dan Snow explores in turn the world’s greatest castles: Dover Castle, ‘the Key to England’ and King John’s first line of defence against the French; Chateau Gaillard, Richard I’s fortress in Normandy (the only chink in whose armaments was through the latrines); Castillo de Gibalfaro, the last vanguard of Moorish rule in Southern Spain; Malbork Castle, headquarters of the evangelical and entrepreneurial Teutonic Knights in Poland; Edward I’s network of castles in Wales, with its heart at Conwy; and Krak des Chevaliers in Syria – an astounding feat of engineering by the Crusaders. Each castle’s story is dramatically recounted – the building techniques, day-to-day life and, the weapons used in its attack and defence. Spanning across the globe, and using the latest CGI reconstructions, Dan Snow gets to the very heart of the bloodshed and battles of the greatest fortresses of the Middle Ages.