Designed to dominate the surrounding area, to house powerful garrisons, offer sumptuous quarters for local nobility, & to discourage & repel enemy attacks, castles dominated England & Wales for more than half a millennium. Though some were built before 1066, the Norman Conquest left a lasting legacy in the form of fortifications ranging from small earthworks now barely discernible, to mighty & dominating stone fortresses. This book examines why castles were so essential to medieval warfare, their importance in domestic politics, & the day-to-day lives of those who lived & worked within them. It also shows how the development of new technologies affected their construction & design, & why they eventually fell into disrepair in the late Middle Ages. Beautifully illustrated with stunning photographs, this is the perfect guide for any castle enthusiast seeking to discover more about medieval fortifications & their inhabitants. ...

` The definitive book on the archaeology of Irish castles.`
- Terry Barry, Trinity College Dublin. The great age of Irish castle-building
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A spirited & thought-provoking history of the vast changes that transformed Europe during the 1, 000-year span of the Middle Ages The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire & the Reformation was a long & hugely transformative period-one not easily chronicled within the scope of a few hundred pages. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, & he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation. Tracking the entire sweep of the Middle Ages across Europe, Wickham focuses on important changes century by century, including such pivotal crises & moments as the fall of the western Roman Empire, Charlemagne`s reforms, the feudal revolution, the challenge of heresy, the destruction of the Byzantine Empire, the rebuilding of late medieval states, & the appalling devastation of the Black Death. He provides illuminating vignettes that underscore how shifting social, economic, & political circumstances affected individual lives & international events. Wickham offers both a new conception of Europe`s medieval period & a provocative revision of exactly how & why the Middle Ages matter. ...

A spirited & thought-provoking history of the vast changes that transformed Europe during the 1, 000-year span of the Middle Ages The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire & the Reformation was a long & hugely transformative period-one not easily chronicled within the scope of a few hundred pages. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, & he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation. Tracking the entire sweep of the Middle Ages across Europe, Wickham focuses on important changes century by century, including such pivotal crises & moments as the fall of the western Roman Empire, Charlemagne`s reforms, the feudal revolution, the challenge of heresy, the destruction of the Byzantine Empire, the rebuilding of late medieval states, & the appalling devastation of the Black Death. He provides illuminating vignettes that underscore how shifting social, economic, & political circumstances affected individual lives & international events. Wickham offers both a new conception of Europe`s medieval period & a provocative revision of exactly how & why the Middle Ages matter. ...

For centuries carved writings & artworks in churches lay largely unnoticed. So archaeologist Matthew Champion started a nationwide survey to gather the best examples. In this book he shines a spotlight on a forgotten world of ships, prayers for good fortune, satirical cartoons, charms, curses, windmills, word puzzles, architectural plans & heraldic designs. Drawing on examples from surviving medieval churches in Engl&, the author gives a voice to the secret graffiti artists: from the lord of the manor & the parish priest to the people who built the church itself. Here are strange medieval beasts, knights battling unseen dragons, ships sailing across lime-washed oceans & demons who stalk the walls. Latin prayers for the dead jostle with medieval curses, builders accounts & slanderous comments concerning a long-dead archdeacon. Strange & complex geometric designs, created to ward off the `evil eye` & thwart the works of the devil, share church pillars with the heraldic shields of England`s medieval nobility. ...

Neglected since the 1890s, the eight medieval regional maps of the Holy Land that are known to have existed are interesting, picturesque & mostly colourful. Many of the surviving copies & fragments are reproduced here for the first time, including three large maps that are among medieval Europe's finest cartographic monuments. Painstaking detective work on the manuscripts reveals much that is new: two maps lurking behind others drawn over them, a map changed into an erotic fantasy by a nineteenth-century forger, the origin of the mysterious grid pattern on some of the maps & much else. This beautifully produced large-format book is an important contribution to our understanding of medieval culture, early mapping & crusading Europe. ...

In the Medieval Period the English Channel was an especially perilous stretch of water. It had two distinct (and often conflicting) functions. It was a rich commercial seaway, on which the rising economy of the known world depended. At the same time it was a wide, lawless, political frontier between two belligerent monarchies, whose kings encouraged piracy as a cheap alternative to warfare, & enjoyed their own cut. Pirates prospered. They stole ships & cargoes, at sea or in port. They raided other ports & carried out long-lasting vendettas against other groups. They ransomed the richest of their captives, but tipped innumerable sailors overboard. This revealing new book explores medieval piracy as it waxed & waned. Dramatic life-stories are set against the better-known landmarks of history. While kings were ambivalent, foreign relations were imperilled, & although it was briefly quelled by Henry V, piracy was never defeated during this turbulent epoch. ...

Highly Commended in the Best Archaeological Book category of the 2008 British Archaeological Awards. Wall paintings are a unique art form, complementing, & yet distinctly separate from, other religious imagery in churches. Unlike carvings, or stained glass windows, their support was the structure itself, with the artist`s `canvas` the very stone & plaster of the church. They were also monumental, often larger than life-size images for public audiences. Notwithstanding their dissimilarity from other religious art, wall paintings were also an integral part of church interiors, enhancing devotional imagery & inspiring faith & commitment in their own right, & providing an artistic setting for the church`s sacred rituals & public ceremonies. This book brings together, often for the first time, many of the very best surviving examples of medieval church wall paintings. Using new technologies & many previously untried techniques, it allows us to visualize these images as the artists originally intended. The plates are accompanied by an authoritative & scholarly text, bringing the imagery & iconography of the medieval church vividly to life.ROGER ROSEWELL was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. A former journalist, he is a Director of a private European art foundation & the news editor of the online stained glass magazine, VIDIMUS. ...

Topographic coverage of mainland Spain at 1:50, 000 in the MTN50 (Mapa Topográfico Nacional) series from the Centro Nacional de Información Geografica, the country’s civilian survey organization. The maps have contours at 20m intervals, enhanced by relief shading, plus colouring and/or graphics to show different types of terrain, vegetation or land use. Boundaries of national parks & other protected areas are marked. In addition to all the usual information featured on topographic mapping at this scale, detailed presentation of the road & rail networks, rural tracks & paths, etc, the maps also show campsites & mountain refuges. On more recent editions some GRs, the official long-distance hiking routes, are also marked (although not as clearly as on hiking maps from other publishers). Each map covers 29.5x 18.5 km (with adjustments in the border or coastal areas). The maps have a 1-km UTM grid, plus margin ticks for latitude & longitude at 1` intervals. Map legend is in Spanish only.HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT 50K MAP: all the titles in CNIG’s 200K Provincial Road Maps series at 1:200, 000 are overprinted with the grid for the 1:50, 000 maps & can be used to see the area covered by each 50K title. TO SEE THE LIST OF TITLES IN THIS SERIES PLEASE CLICK ON THE SERIES LINK.PLEASE NOTE
- MAP TITLES: the grids shown on our website serve both the civilian & the military 1:50, 000 topographic series. Although the areas covered by maps in both series are identical (apart from some border or coastal sheets), occasionally map titles differ – only one title is shown on the grid, usually the military one. In Galicia, the Basque country & in the Catalan speaking areas the tendency now is to use local place names rather than the often better known Castilian ones. Where possible, both versions are included in our titles. Map titles listed on our website are based on information received by us at the time of publication, but sometimes maps arrive showing a completely different title! As long as the map number is as ordered, the correct map has been supplied.
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Topographic coverage of mainland Spain at 1:25, 000 published by the Centro Nacional de Información Geograficá, the country’s civilian survey organization. The maps have contours at 10m intervals & colouring and/or graphics to show different types of vegetation or land use. Boundaries of national parks & other protected areas are marked. In addition to all the usual information shown on topographic maps at this scale, detailed presentation of the road & rail networks, rural tracks & paths, etc, the maps also show campsites. The maps have a 1-km UTM grid, with margin ticks for latitude & longitude at 1` intervals. Map legend is in Spanish only.PLEASE NOTE: our grid for the whole of Spain is in preparation
- in the meantime, for areas other than those shown on the attached grid please use CNIG’s topographic survey at 1:50, 000 by searching for ‘SI00000832’. Each 25K map covers one quarter of the corresponding 50K map, with the numbering system: I = NW quarter, II = NE quarter, III = SW quarter & IV = SE quarter. CNIG maps in the Provincial Road Maps series at 1:200, 000 are overprinted with the grid for the 1:50, 000 survey & can be used to see the area covered by each 50K or 25K title in more detail. To see the list of titles in this series please click on the series grid
- for map numbers not yet listed on our website please contact us by email.

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