The castle in England and Wales: an interpretative history, and: The medieval castle in England and Wales: a social and political history, and: The rise of the castle, and: The decline of the castle (review)

Reviews 137 Aristotelian position in defence of private property. Raphael demonstrates the superiority of his position in his narrative of the Utopian commonwealth. In discussing the second book, Baker-Smith rightly stresses the artificial nature of Utopia. It is a planned society, a deliberate solution to identified political and social problems. It lacks the authority of custom and rejects legitimacy based on it. It is a social and political experiment, really the first in early modern Europe, and marks as much a departure from conventional political theory as Machiavelli's Prince. So where does Baker-Smith stand on the meaning of Utopia! He reads the work as satire but takes a dialectical view that interpretation should not try to identify the author's intentions through one or other of the interlocutors. Reading the text well, in the spirit of humanist dialogue, is to view arguments from each side, as Cicero would say, in utramque partem. Baker-Smith has written an excellent introduction to Northern Humanism, to the world of Erasmus and More, and to the conventions governing the writing of Utopia. His familiarity with classical and sacred sources and authorities, and his attention to historical context make this an immensely readable work. It is not only the best introduction available, but the best book to appear on Utopia for many years. Damian Grace School of Social Work University of N e w South Wales Cathcart King, D. J., 77i«? castle in England and Wales: an interpretative history, London and Sydney, Croom Helm, 1988; pp. v, 210; 25 figures; R.R.P. AUS$32.95 [distributed in Australia by the L a w Book Company]; Pounds, N. J. G., The medieval castle in England and Wales: a social and political history, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. xvii, 357; 6 plates, 88 figures; R.R.P. AUS$49.95; Thompson, M . W., The rise of the castle, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991; pp. ix, 205; 117 figures; R.R.P. AUS$80.00; Idem, The decline of the castle, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987; pp. viii, 211; 114 figures; R.R.P. AUS$80.00. These four books published by Cathcart King, Pounds, and Thompson over the past five years achieve a great deal in elucidating the art and purpose of casUebuilding and castle-maintenance in the English context during the six centuries that separate the world of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror from the disabling of so many surviving castles in the aftermath to the Civil War. N o medievalist can afford to be ignorant of the castle phenomenon. Although the castle is a quintessential adjunct to aristocratic culture of the high and later Middle Ages, the ecclesiastical historian and the historian of culture 138 Reviews cannot be unaware of the potency of the episcopal castles or the association between casdes and religious houses, even the English universities. Castles are, as a minimum definition, fortified habitations, 'the defensible home of a member of the feudal nobility' (Pounds, p. 6) who 'normally owns or controls a large territory around it' (Thompson, Decline, p. 1). The relationship of the castle to the jurisdictional activities of a landholder or a royal custodian, and its intimate connection with the realities of peasant life in the agricultural or grazing areas around, make the castle a necessary focal point for many studies of social and economic life. Professor Pounds' magisterial study comes closest to addressing these wider issues associated with casties. As a distinguished historical geographer, he brings an essential sense of landscape and spatial relationships, in short a wider reality, to the subject. The medieval castle is a tour de force of sustained interpretative history, using a dazzling array of sources and secondary studies, but all embedded in half a century of dedication to 'scaling walls and measuring mottes' (p. xi). This is an affectionate book written in retirement, but it is far more than this. Pounds' combination of sheer inquisitiveness (a necessary but unfashionable attribute) with the breadth of vision needed for the posing of new, correct questions makes this finely crafted book a landmark in castie studies. Some of the wider issues are taken head-on by Pounds in stimulating essays...