The "custom of the castle" imposes strange ordeals on knights and ladies seeking hospitality - daunting, mostly evil challenges that travelers must obey or even defend. This seemingly fantastic motif, first conceived by Chretien de Troyes in the twelfth century and widely imitat…
"Behind the Castle Gate brings castles alive as well as the people who lived in, worked on and modified them. Combining ground-breaking scholarship with fascinating narratives this book will be read avidly by all with an interest in castles."--Jacket
In this engaging book Matthew Johnson looks 'behind the castle gate' to discover the truth about castles in England at the end of the Middle Ages. Traditional studies have seen castles as compromises between the needs of comfort and of defence, and as statements of wealth or pow…
