posted 03-12-2003 05:24 AM            

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I didn't know there were five destinct types.
Good question. I'd love to know what they are if you find out.

Erik

posted 03-12-2003 02:10 PM            

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hi

I don't think have an answer to your question. But I like the question how many castletypes there are.

A book of mine distincts 3 main castletypes with in total 13 subcastletypes for the territory of the holy roman empire of Germany in the middle ages.

The three maintypes are:

1. 'Flachlandburgen' (castles of the lowlands) with four subtypes: 'Insel', 'Ebene', 'Wasserburg' and 'Hügel'.

2. 'Höhenburgen (mountain castles) with 6 subtypes: 'berg', 'sporn', 'kamm', 'ecke', 'rand' and 'hang'

3. 'Felsenburgen' (cave castles) with 3 subtypes: 'Felsturm', 'Höhle' and 'band'

(sorry I don't have the time to translate and explain the subcastletypenames)

The book is:

Burgen und Wohntürme des deutschen Mittelalters (2 volumes) by Friedrich Wilhelm Krahe. It is published by the Thorbecke Verlag from Stuttgart. ISBN 3-7995-0104-5

It is a great book for laymen in the castellogica. For others it isn't that great, because than it is too much: seen that, done that, been there. But it is nice to have as an reference book for moments like this

posted 03-13-2003 04:31 AM            

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ipflo: I also have that book by F.W. Krahe. It contains lots of good drawings and plans, but in my opinion is too much focused on statistics (so many castles with a main tower, so many with two courts, etc) and in some cases refers to authors and books with a more than doubtful reputation.

It is only one of many possible approaches to classify castles after their architectural appearance. Others would be the status of teir owners, their strategical position, the state they're in today, etc.

posted 03-13-2003 01:25 PM            

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I agree that book contains many statistics, but I think that is a one of the strong points of the book. Not many castle books use statistics, so I found it very clarifying such a different point of view than I normally know from castle books.

Merlin, you probably also have the other book of Krahe: Burgen des deutschen Mittelalters Grundriss-Lexikon from the Weidlich Verlag (ISBN 3-8035-1372-3)( http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/302-1903083-5525624 ), so not you definitely should try to obtain it. In my opinion it is a really splendid book. Burgen und Wohntürme is a nice to have, but this book is (in my opinion) a must have for a castle lover. It contains plans of about 4.000 castles. It is a great book, although the lexicon misses some castles.

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