The Usborne Book of Castles by Lesley Sims (2002)

So I go through the exhibits at the Medieval Congress at Western Michigan, one of the few things that the university is known for internationally, and do I pick up one of the many wonderful scholarly works on the Middle Ages? No, I pick up a kid's book on castles. One of those complex, highly illustrated kid's books that explains a topic by breaking it down into parts and explaining those parts with some text, lots of drawings, photos, plans, side-bars, etc. This one even offers links off of an internet site for the book for more things to look at, and provides downloadable pictures for kids to put into reports. I liked the illustrations from medieval manuscripts, stained glass and other art of the times.

I am fascinated by castles and cathedrals, these large architectural structures built in an age that seems quite primitive to me, but obviously there were many skilled minds and hands back then. This book looks at castles from the early wood castles to the stone and brick ones, mostly from AD950 to 1500. Castles lost their purpose when warfare and political and social structures changed. Many were abandoned and were dismantled or became ruins. There were a couple of more periods in history where castles were built, including romantic castles of the 19th century. Though we have a lot of mansions still being built today, I don't know if any recent architecture could be considered a castle.

Though I know quite a bit about castles and the  lives within - from the many mostly fiction books I have read (all those fantasy books set in alternate medieval times), movies (Lord of the Rings comes to mind), and castles I have visited, this book pulled things together for me and filled in various gaps.  So here are some of the things I learned: I hadn't thought of the layout of rooms in castles and that in the beginning the living space was not very comfortable, but at some point they started focusing more on comfort. I didn't realize the great hall also functioned as a dorm or that when lords moved from castle to castle, they moved everything including furniture and most of the staff. I don't think I ever thought about what it entailed to feed a whole castle full of people. The hierarchy of people (and even birds of prey they were allowed to use for hunting) was neatly delineated, like steward- bailiff - reeve. I got an explanation of why there is a fence between jousters (so the knight knocked off his horse would not be trampled.) Before tournaments were developed they had melees, a free for all with lots of injuries and deaths. I didn't realize there were different types of horses in those days. I liked that the book mentioned castles in Japan and the Middle East too.

I learned some new terms and the origin of words like heraldry, undermine, holiday, villain. I had somehow missed out on terms like fletchers, who fixed feathers to arrows. (I always wondered where they got so many arrows in movies, like Legolas in Lord of the Rings, when he said he had killed huge numbers.) I didn't know falcons lived in mews.

I kept wondering throughout the book how the castles and life described fit into Latvian history. I was taught about the early wooden castles, and know the Latvian countryside is strewn with castles. The book points to only one in Latvia - Rigas pils (built 1340, rebuilt 1515). This is currently the residence of the president of Latvia. Some of the castles in Latvia are ruins, but others still function. My favorite castle in Cesvaine was built in the 1890's as a hunting lodge, so that fits in with the romantic castles built in a later age. I couldn't resist and just looked up Latvian castles and found a map of medieval castles in Latvia.They had identified 17 standing castles, 52 ruins, and 39 places where castles had stood. I have visited at least 10 of these. I would also like to see a Latvian version of the hierarchies of people. I am not ashamed to admit I like kids books.