Research Project!!!!!!!!!

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Topic: Research Project!!!!!!!!!

ACTrumpet
Member

posted 01-03-2001 03:21 PM

I have to do a research project on the architecture of castles. However, not just any castles, but the ones in the Iron Circle. I'm basing the whole thing on the castle Aberwyvern in the book Castle by David Macaulay. Because it is a combination of all the best strategical architecture built in all the Iron Circle castles. However, I still lack 2 sources. I have all the architectural information I need, but I need interesting tidbits of information that would make the paper interesting. For example: An English battle song, what breed horse did the English knights prefer to use, what did the Welsh use to compensate for the rough terrain in their battle tactics, things that would give the paper depth and not make my teacher feel she was reading architecture paper number 125. Any help would be most appreciated.

Philip Davis
unregistered

posted 01-04-2001 01:44 AM

This is from Life in a Medieval Castle by Tony McAleavy
Some of the trials involved in castlebuilding are evident in the correspondence between James (Master Mason James of St George) and the government in London in 1296. The building of Beaumaris Castle on Anglesey followed a Welsh rebellion on the island in September 1294. The king’s close friend Roger de Pulesdon, sheriff of Anglesey, was taken by the rebels and hanged. Edward reacted swiftly and vigorously to the uprising. Despite the fact that winter was setting in he ordered an immediate campaign to retake the island. By the spring of 1295 Anglesey had been recaptured and documents show that James was on the island in April of that year beginning work on the new castle. An existing settlement was destroyed and the Welsh inhabitants were moved to a new village twelve miles away.
Work at Beaumaris proceeded rapidly and in February 1296 James sent a written report to London. The letter shows how the royal mason needed to be a fine administrator and man-manager as well as a distinguished architect. It also gives some sense of the enormous scale of the Edwardian castle-building project:
Sirs, As our lord the king has commanded
us to let you have a clear picture of all aspects of the state of the works at Beaumaris, we write to inform you that the work we are doing is very costly and we need a great deal of money. You should know:
1. That we have kept on masons, stone cutters, quarrymen and minor workmen all through the winter, and are still employing them, for making mortar and breaking up stone for lime; we have had carts bringing stone to the site and bringing timber for erecting the buildings in which we are all now living inside the castle; we also have 1000 carpenters, smiths, plasterers and navvies, quite apart from a mounted garrison of ten men, twenty crossbow-men and 100 infantry.
2. That when this letter was written we were short of Ł500, for both the workmen and garrison. The men’s pay has been and still is very much in arrears, and we are having the greatest
difficulty in keeping them because they simply have nothing to live on.
3. That if our lord the king wants the work to~be finished as quickly as it should be, we could not make do with less than Ł250 a week throughout the season.
Master James went an to explain that some of the castle stood at 28 feet high and that even at its lowest point its walls were 20 feet high. He informed the government that work had begun on ten outer towers and four inner towers. Gateways were in place and each one was locked every night. He obviously took considerable pride in this achievement, declaring: ‘So much we have been able to do in spite of all the Welshmen.’ Master James appears to have had a fairly jaundiced view of his Welsh foe. The letter speculates on the possibility of renewed Welsh rebellion:
‘As to how things are in the land of Wales, we still cannot be any too sure. But, as you well know, Welshmen are Weishmen.’ The great architect justified his financial demands by listing his huge manpower requirements:
In case you should wonder where so much money could go in a week, we would have you know that we have needed — and shall continue to need — 400 masons, both cutters and layers, together with 2000 minor workmen, 100 carts, 60 wagons, and
30 boats bringing stone and sea-coal; 200 quarrymen; 30 smiths; and carpenters. All this takes no account of the garrison, nor of purchases of materials, of which there will have to be a great quantity.

The letter concludes dramatically:
‘P.S. For God’s sake be quick with the money; otherwise everything done up to now will have been of no avail.’ It seems that, despite this desperate plea, the government was not able to supply James with the money he requested. Instead of Ł250 a week, he received only Ł742 during the whole of the 1296 building season. Master James of St George did not live to see the completion of Beaumaris. The work continued for many years but his designs were never finished. Building at the castle finally came to an end in 1330, long after the death of its architect.

You can find plans of several of the great Edwardian castles at my website at http://www.castlesontheweb.com/members/philipdavis/Plans/intro.html and good photos of the castles at http://www.castlewales.com/home.html. My plans, in particular, are designed to be downloaded and then printed within projects such as yours. (ie don't use the browsers print button but download the image and place and rescale it within your document.)

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And the astronomyours beheldyne the constellacions of hys bryth by thare castle, and foundyn that he sholde bene wyse and curteyse, good of consaill

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