Medieval Castle Quotes

I believe the red stone was kept under lock and key in the dungeon far below Aldene Castle. I know that in 1507, when the Eldest visited Aldene, he was concerned about something dangerous that was held in Aldene’s dungeon.

There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war--a radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to it, move joyfully over the surface, having the most delightful meetings with other men, happy, not because they are masculine, but because they are alive. Before the show breaks up she would like to drop the august title of the Eternal Woman, and go there as her transitory self.

Perhaps the palms had been whispering warnings in the sultry breeze.

Like the castle in its corner In a medieval game I foresee terrible trouble And I stay here just the same.

We sent whalesong into interstellar space because the creatures that sing these songs are superlative beings that fill us with awe, terror, and affection. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched them into our mythologies and iconography. Their bones frame the archways of medieval castles. They’re so compelling that we imagine aliens might find them interesting — or perhaps understand their otherworldly, ethereal song.

The convent of the sacred order of the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster had once been a dank and dark medieval castle but was now, after a lick of paint and a few throw pillows, a dank and dark convent.

A bit of fantasy can be good for ones heart

Sometimes the dolls of the Hopi Indians of New Mexico have heads which represent, schematically, a medieval castle. I shall try to enter that castle. There are no doors; the ramparts have the thickness of a thousand centuries. It is not in ruins, as you might think.

…like the horse in the old ballads, which Romanticism found in the medieval castle and left in the streets of our own century. The Romanticists rode the poor best until he was so nearly dead that he finally lay down in the gutter, where the realists found him, his flesh eaten away by sores and worms, and, out of pity, carried him away to their books.

Knowing this was the same man from last night now clad again in his hunky knightly armor was a strange aphrodisiac. Yeah, a hot look, no denying.

She was no longer a coward, forcing bravery from herself—she was brave. “You’re not going to kill me,” she said, and with swift impatience, she jabbed her elbow in his gut.

To construct a metaphor, Protestant theology is the castle in which we safely live: patristic and medieval theology is a dark forest surrounding the castle into which we may occasionally venture.

This is a smashing place, isn't it? But I must say it scares me a bit. Do you suppose one dares to ask for tea?' 'I expect so, though heaven knows how. Perhaps you blow a peal on a slughorn, or beat on your shield with your sword -- or, I'll tell you what, if you look around you'll find a long embroidered tassel, and if you pull it you'll hear a bell clanging hollowly in some dark corridor a million miles away, and then some bent old servitor will come shuffling in--' 'There's a telephone by the bed,' said Timothy. 'Good heavens, so there is. How disappointing.

He dragged his lips up the soft skin of her neck and gently nipped her ear lobe, sipping on the soft flesh. Her hands splayed against his chest. Expecting a shove, his senses careened when her fingers fisted his surcoat. Their ragged breath overloud in the forest, he eased his face away, nose rubbing against her jaw on his retreat, and sought her eyes. Hers darkened and—Lord help him—held no censure, only interest. He stepped back.

Back in the age of empires, pharaohs built pyramids and kings constructed castles, enshrining their divine right to rule. In the medieval era, monasteries and cathedrals loomed large across Europe, reflecting the power of the Church. With the emergence of the nation-state in the eighteenth century, capitols and courthouses took center stage in urban plans and skylines. By the twentieth century and the age of corporations, skyscrapers towered above everything—monuments to the barons and banks that built them. Today, silicon campuses designed by celebrity architects claim the spotlight. Power has now been harnessed in the physical world by those who invented our virtual ones.

Anchoring the country's southwest is Finland's former capital, Turku. This striking seafaring city stretches along the broad Aurajoki from its Gothic cathedral to its medieval castle and vibrant harbour. Turku challenges Helsinki's cultural pre-eminence with cutting-edge galleries, museums and restaurants, and music festivals that electrify the summer air.

Ah, cariad, finally I have you to myself, with a bed behind me, and what do I do?

Castles designed not for a medieval siege but for life. A privileged life, that was.

And while I was going to meet the flowers and sculptures of Montreux, I smelled Lord Byron’s ink sweating an amazing darkness out from the medieval body of Chillon Castle From the poem - Along the Shore

There is no period in history when it would have been better to be alive than today. People who fantasise about a romantic past imagine themselves living in Pharaoh’s court, Caesar’s palace, Plato’s athenaeum, a medieval knight’s manor, a king’s castle, a queen’s château, an emperor’s citadel, a cardinal’s cathedral. But the cold, hard reality is that 99.99 per cent of all the people who ever lived existed in what we would today consider squalid poverty.

Neofeudalism: Much as warlords seized land in the Norman Conquest and levied rent on subject populations (starting with the Domesday Book, the great land census of England and Wales ordered by William the Conqueror), so today’s financialized mode of warfare uses debt leverage and foreclosure to pry away land, natural resources and economic infrastructure. The commons are privatized by bondholders and bankers, gaining control of government and shifting taxes onto labor and small-scale industry. Household accounts, corporate balance sheets and public budgets are earmarked increasingly to pay real estate rent, monopoly rent, interest and financial fees, and to bear the taxes shifted off rentier wealth. The rentier oligarchy makes itself into a hereditary aristocracy lording it over the population at large from gated communities that are the modern counterpart to medieval castles with their moats and parapets.

Not in San Salvador, he thinks, where the shanty slums press against gleaming high-rises like the thatched huts of medieval peasants pressed against castle walls. Except these castle walls are patrolled by private security guards wielding automatic rifles and machine pistols. And at night, the guards venture out from the castle walls and ride through the villages ...and slaughter the peasants, leaving their bodies at crossroads and in the middle of village squares, and rape and kill women and execute children in front of their parents.  So the survivors will know their place.  It’s a killing ground, Art thinks.  El Salvador.  The Savior, my ass.

MARY: Renaissance, not medieval. Most of the castle was built during the sixteenth century, although I believe its foundations date from the fourteenth. CATHERINE: And our readers will care why? MARY: You may not care for accuracy, but I do—and Carmilla will, when she reads this book. CATHERINE: If I ever get the damn thing written, with all these interruptions!

I have sieged many a castle in my day, m'lady, but my attack on your keep will be the sweetest of all." She giggled as I kissed every inch of her face. "Oh, we're doing medieval now? Okay, I can do that. I've been to a Renaissance Faire. Avast ye varlet! No quarter!" "That was piratical, dearling, but we'll go with it if you like. Lower your gangplanks and prepare to be boarded!" -Dane and Megan (Stag Party)

In the Medieval poem, we are surrounded by Winter, but I always imagined the Green Chapel and the castle of Lord and Lady Bercilak in all seasons. I was quite convinced (and still am) that Gawain did not return to Camelot immediately after his initiatory encounter with the Green Knight. That's where 'The Green Knight's Apprentice' began, I think, in my imaginings of what Gawain would learn and experience after his initiation was complete

Renaissance painters saw everything from one perspective, photographically, "realistically," but medieval painters looked at a scene from several different perspectives at once. A medieval picture looked at with this in mind becomes very exciting indeed. It is as if the artist is everywhere at once: the castle is tiny as if seen from afar; the men on its battlements huge as if encountered face to face; this lake is seen from that distance and that tree from this.

Paradisiacal Åland is best explored by bicycle – you’ll appreciate its understated attractions all the more if you’ve used pedal power to reach them. Bridges and ferries link many of its 6000 islands, and well-signposted routes take you off ‘main roads’ down winding lanes and forestry tracks. En route you can pick wild strawberries, wander castle ruins, sunbathe on a slab of red granite, visit a medieval church, quench your thirst at a cider orchard, or climb a lookout tower to gaze at the glittering sea

The castle is situated at the terminus of a long and upward-winding mountain road. It presents a somewhat forbidding aspect to the world, for there is little about it to suggest gaiety or warmth or any of those qualities that might assure a wayfarer of welcome. Rather, this vast edifice of stone exudes an austerity, cold and repellent, a hint of ancient mysteries long buried, an effluvium of medieval dankness and decay. At night, and most particularly on nights when the moon is slim or cloud-enshrouded, it is a heavy blot upon the horizon, a shadow only, without feature save for its many-turreted outline; and should the moon be temporarily released from her cloudy confinement, her fugitive rays lend scant comfort, for they but serve to throw the castle into sudden, startling chiaroscuro, its windows fleetingly assuming the appearance of sightless though all-seeing orbs, its portcullis becoming for an instant a gaping mouth, its entire form striking the physical and the mental eye as would the sight of a giant skull.

Although his honor demanded he immediately leave Juliana, he couldn’t, for the queen visited. He couldn’t seek an annulment, for the king demanded he retain Juliana’s lands. He would remain her husband, and even if he moved his official residence to Barton-hale and she stayed at Lofts, he would still have to meet with her at Christmastide and Easter, at harvest accounting and at Midsummer…what pleasure he would find in the touch of her hand! What agony he would endure while away from her. So it was a painful reprieve, but a reprieve nonetheless.

The construction of castle arbours, monastic cloister gardens and Byzantine courtyards with trees and flowers attested to Western interest in the natural world. Paradise remained synonymous with perfect environments. In Anglo-Saxon, 'paradise' translated as 'meadow' or 'pasture'. Notions of a classical Golden Age, local legends, religion and romantic poetry all perpetuated the concept of nature as a refuge from society. For the nobility, nature signified a retreat for aesthetic pleasure and a venue for spiritual uplift. However, for the average medieval peasant, the organic world meant livestock rearing and crop production.

Such is the lot of the knight that even though my patrimony were ample and adequate for my support, nevertheless here are the disturbances which give me no quiet. We live in fields, forests, and fortresses. Those by whose labors we exist are poverty-stricken peasants, to whom we lease our fields, vineyards, pastures, and woods. The return is exceedingly sparse in proportion to the labor expended. Nevertheless the utmost effort is put forth that it may be bountiful and plentiful, for we must be diligent stewards. I must attach myself to some prince in the hope of protection. Otherwise every one will look upon me as fair plunder. But even if I do make such an attachment hope is beclouded by danger and daily anxiety. If I go away from home I am in peril lest I fall in with those who are at war or feud with my overlord, no matter who he is, and for that reason fall upon me and carry me away. If fortune is adverse, the half of my estates will be forfeit as ransom. Where I looked for protection I was ensnared. We cannot go unarmed beyond to yokes of land. On that account, we must have a large equipage of horses, arms, and followers, and all at great expense. We cannot visit a neighboring village or go hunting or fishing save in iron. Then there are frequently quarrels between our retainers and others, and scarcely a day passes but some squabble is referred to us which we must compose as discreetly as possible, for if I push my claim to uncompromisingly war arises, but if I am too yielding I am immediately the subject of extortion. One concession unlooses a clamor of demands. And among whom does all this take place? Not among strangers, my friend, but among neighbors, relatives, and those of the same household, even brothers. These are our rural delights, our peace and tranquility. The castle, whether on plain or mountain, must be not fair but firm, surrounded by moat and wall, narrow within, crowded with stalls for the cattle, and arsenals for guns, pitch, and powder. Then there are dogs and their dung, a sweet savor I assure you. The horsemen come and go, among them robbers, thieves, and bandits. Our doors are open to practically all comers, either because we do not know who they are or do not make too diligent inquiry. One hears the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs, the shouts of men working in the fields, the squeaks or barrows and wagons, yes, and even the howling of wolves from nearby woods. The day is full of thought for the morrow, constant disturbance, continual storms. The fields must be ploughed and spaded, the vines tended, trees planted, meadows irrigated. There is harrowing, sowing, fertilizing, reaping, threshing: harvest and vintage. If the harvest fails in any year, then follow dire poverty, unrest, and turbulence.

Little Brother, an aspiring painter, saved up all his money and went to France, to surround himself with beauty and inspiration. He lived on the cheap, painted every day, visited museums, traveled to picturesque locations, bravely spoke to everyone he met, and showed his work to anyone who would look at it. One afternoon, Little Brother struck up a conversation in a café with a group of charming young people, who turned out to be some species of fancy aristocrats. The charming young aristocrats took a liking to Little Brother and invited him to a party that weekend in a castle in the Loire Valley. They promised Little Brother that this was going to be the most fabulous party of the year. It would be attended by the rich, by the famous, and by several crowned heads of Europe. Best of all, it was to be a masquerade ball, where nobody skimped on the costumes. It was not to be missed. Dress up, they said, and join us! Excited, Little Brother worked all week on a costume that he was certain would be a showstopper. He scoured Paris for materials and held back neither on the details nor the audacity of his creation. Then he rented a car and drove to the castle, three hours from Paris. He changed into his costume in the car and ascended the castle steps. He gave his name to the butler, who found him on the guest list and politely welcomed him in. Little Brother entered the ballroom, head held high. Upon which he immediately realized his mistake. This was indeed a costume party—his new friends had not misled him there—but he had missed one detail in translation: This was a themed costume party. The theme was “a medieval court.” And Little Brother was dressed as a lobster. All around him, the wealthiest and most beautiful people of Europe were attired in gilded finery and elaborate period gowns, draped in heirloom jewels, sparkling with elegance as they waltzed to a fine orchestra. Little Brother, on the other hand, was wearing a red leotard, red tights, red ballet slippers, and giant red foam claws. Also, his face was painted red. This is the part of the story where I must tell you that Little Brother was over six feet tall and quite skinny—but with the long waving antennae on his head, he appeared even taller. He was also, of course, the only American in the room. He stood at the top of the steps for one long, ghastly moment. He almost ran away in shame. Running away in shame seemed like the most dignified response to the situation. But he didn’t run. Somehow, he found his resolve. He’d come this far, after all. He’d worked tremendously hard to make this costume, and he was proud of it. He took a deep breath and walked onto the dance floor. He reported later that it was only his experience as an aspiring artist that gave him the courage and the license to be so vulnerable and absurd. Something in life had already taught him to just put it out there, whatever “it” is. That costume was what he had made, after all, so that’s what he was bringing to the party. It was the best he had. It was all he had. So he decided to trust in himself, to trust in his costume, to trust in the circumstances. As he moved into the crowd of aristocrats, a silence fell. The dancing stopped. The orchestra stuttered to a stop. The other guests gathered around Little Brother. Finally, someone asked him what on earth he was. Little Brother bowed deeply and announced, “I am the court lobster.” Then: laughter. Not ridicule—just joy. They loved him. They loved his sweetness, his weirdness, his giant red claws, his skinny ass in his bright spandex tights. He was the trickster among them, and so he made the party. Little Brother even ended up dancing that night with the Queen of Belgium. This is how you must do it, people.

At the outset of his career circumstances seemed to authorize the most sanguine of these expectations. For at twenty-seven, after two years of advanced theology and philosophy, young Father Grandier received his reward for so many long semesters of diligence and good behavior. By the Company of Jesus, in whose gift it lay, he was presented to the important living of Saint-Pierre du Marché at Loudun. At the same time, and thanks to the same benefactors, he was made a canon of the collegial church of the Holy Cross. His foot was on the ladder; all he now had to do was to climb. Loudun, as its new parson rode slowly toward his destination, revealed itself as a little city on a hill, dominated by two tall towers—the spire of St. Peter’s and the medieval keep of the great castle. As a symbol, as a sociological hieroglyph, Loudun’s skyline was somewhat out of date. That spire still threw its Gothic shadow across the town; but a good part of the townspeople

Her departure left no traces but were speedily repaired by the coming of spring. The sun growing warmer, and the close season putting an end to the Marquess's hunting, it was now Odo's chief pleasure to carry his books to the walled garden between the castle and the southern face of the cliff. This small enclosure, probably a survival of medieval horticulture, had along the upper ledge of its wall a grass walk commanding the flow of the stream, and an angle turret that turned one slit to the valley, the other to the garden lying below like a tranquil well of scent and brightness: its box trees clipped to the shape of peacocks and lions, its clove pinks and simples set in a border of thrift, and a pear tree basking on its sunny wall. These pleasant spaces, which Odo had to himself save when the canonesses walked there to recite their rosary, he peopled with the knights and ladies of the novelle, and the fantastic beings of Pulci's epic: there walked the Fay Morgana, Regulus the loyal knight, the giant Morgante, Trajan the just Emperor and the proud figure of King Conrad; so that, escaping thither from the after-dinner dullness of the tapestry parlour, the boy seemed to pass from the most oppressive solitude to a world of warmth and fellowship.

I went up to my room, showered, and paged through a copy of the medieval legend Parsifal I had recently bought. People often read books to search for themselves and find someone who agrees with them. And, right now, the nature of Parsifal agreed with me a lot more than the nature of the scorpion. As I interpreted the legend, it’s the story of a sheltered mother’s boy who meets some knights and decides he wants to be just like them. So he goes off into the world, has a series of adventures, and progresses from legendary fool to legendary knight. The country, at the time, has become a wasteland because the grail king (who guards the holy grail) has been wounded. And it just so happens that Parsifal is led to the grail castle, where he sees the king in terrible pain. As a compassionate human being, he wants to ask, “What is wrong?” And, according to legend, if someone pure of heart asks that question of the king, he will be healed and the blight on the land will be lifted. However, Parsifal does not know this. And as a knight he has been trained to observe a strict code of conduct, which includes the rule of never asking questions or speaking unless he is addressed first. So he goes to bed without talking to the king. In the morning, he wakes to discover that the grail castle has disappeared. He has blown his chance to save king and country by obeying his training instead of his heart. Unlike the scorpion, Parsifal had a choice. He just made the wrong one. When

Will she survive it? I told his lordship she would. I didn’t want to give him an excuse not to help her. Methinks that if he suspected she was near death, he would turn her out.” “I don’t know. Methinks it depends on her will to live. If she doesn’t want life, she’ll die.” Haldana sighed. “I’ll stay with her and watch over her. Please, direct the girls to take over my duties.” “Yea. ‘Tis already done.” Ulric narrowed his eyes in heavy contemplation, drawing back the coverlet at the girl’s bruised throat. His frown deepened. It looked as if she’d been strangled. “M’lord has put her in my charge until she awakens. He wishes to speak to her then.” “Methinks that m’lord is more frightened of her being here because she is a woman and a woman of his class.” “Yea, methought it also. He didn’t think much of me saying she was a beauty.” In truth, Ulric only saw the line of the lady’s slender body outlined by the coverlet and the fullness of her lips, but he’d mainly called her beautiful just to aggravate his lordship. He let go of the coverlet, letting the old material fall once more to cover the noblewoman’s neck. He moved his fingers to stroke the wiry hairs of his mustache. “Wouldn’t it be nice if she was sent here to melt the curse from his lordship’s heart?” Haldana sighed, wistful. “Yea, even the curse from this castle. Then the Monster of Lakeshire would leave us be once and fer all.” “You are a romantic dreamer, dear girl.” Ulric kissed Haldana briefly on her forehead and turned to leave. “Let me know at once when she awakens.” “Yea, Ulric, I will.” Haldana let her girlish giggle echo in the chamber as he shut the door. From outside the chamber, he heard her say, “Poor child. You don’t know what you have gotten yerself into coming here.

A maiden? Out here? And scented with festering carcasses?” Vladamir searched the forest that surrounded his castle. The hum of insects was quite clear on the morning air, and he noticed that the red bristled pigs grazing just beyond his walls were undisturbed. Nor could he detect movement within the barren limbs of the trees. Finally satisfied that the girl was alone, he turned his attention back to Ulric. He refused to show any interest in the maiden. “Wake her and send her on her way.” He kept his voice passionless and made no effort to help the woman. “If she is dead, burn her, for I won’t tolerate that wretched smell in my bailey.” “Should we not try to find out who she is first? Mayhap there are those who search fer her even now. Would you deny her kinsmen a proper burial?” Ulric protested quietly. “Do as I command!” Vladamir insisted in a low growl. Even as he did so, he saw the knights that manned the wall look over the girl with curious stares. He heard their whispering as it drifted down, though he couldn’t make out their hasty words. He didn’t need to. The woman was more than likely a Saxon wench and they would wish to know whom, for none in the manor were missing. If she was dead, there was nothing he could do for her. He didn’t need this headache. His life was stressed enough.

Think about medieval times, Danny, like when this castle was built. People were constantly seeing ghosts, having visions—they thought Christ was sitting with them at the dinner table, they thought angels and devils were flying around. We don't see those things anymore. Why? Was all that stuff happening before and then it stopped? Unlikely. Was everyone nuts in medieval times? Doubtful. But their imaginations were more active. Their inner lives were rich and weird.

On the other hand, they were alone in the dark, and that had her thinking of kissing and other possibilities, which she swore she was going to ignore this very minute! "What a delightful scent I smell," he said, drawing closer, his stride shorter now, his voice seductive, playful, and very interested. She would not let him get her all excited again, not let him melt her with his touches and then leave again. "I hear your breathing, lassie, and your heart beating out of bonds. The lass isn't stealing the laird's wine, is she?"... He laughed, his voice dark and sexy. "You are not in charge of this castle, You are a pirate. What should I do with a pirate who is stealing the laird's wine, eh? When he is my best friend?"... "I believe I've found the lassie I want to keep for my own."... "Why is the door locked?" Julia asked. "We are negotiating terms of surrender," Grant hollered back. "I'm no releasing my captive maiden until we get this right."... She never thought she would mate her next wolf like this -- in a Highland castle's wine cellar with a hot alpha wolf wearing a kilt and nothing else, while she wore a medieval wench's gown and nothing underneath.

The building is rather like a medieval Castle and was established in the Sixth Century and soon afterwards, as the Moslem armies advanced Westwards from the Arabian Peninsula, somebody had the prescience to build a small Mosque in its courtyard to guard against it being burned or demolished. At the time of the Crusades it was the turn of the Monastery to protect the Mosque, and so it has been down the ages, each House of God extending its shelter to the other as opposing armies came and went.

In fact, it’s almost big enough to cross time zones. The lab is amidships and takes up nearly half the available space. In front of it and behind it there are weapons stations where two gunners can stand back to back and look out to either side of the vehicle through slit windows like the embrasures in a medieval castle. Each of these stations can be sealed off from the lab by a bulkhead door. Further aft, there’s something like an engine room. Forward, there are crew quarters, with a dozen wall-mounted cot beds and two chemical toilets, the kitchen space, and then the cockpit, which has a pedestal gun of the same calibre as the Humvee’s and about as many controls as a passenger jet. Justineau

It’s not the Mistletoe Knight that these knights are coming for. It’s the girl. Lady Jaclyn.” “The girl?” Blaise echoed. “She is rumored to be the fairest in the land. Most of these men have come in hopes of winning the land, not for the castle, but for the woman.

One display of particular interest to Gary featured a medieval castle and associated miniature soldiers used for a game called The Siege of Bodenburg. At the time, traditional board wargamers and miniatures battle players were still two distinct audiences. Wargame publishers, such as Avalon Hill, hadn’t thought to use miniatures in its battle simulations, instead relying on hex maps and cardboard counters. Bodenburg seemed to have an appeal for diverse factions of gamers, and it sparked Gary’s interest in miniatures gaming in the medieval setting, an interest that would inevitably lead to his greatest creation. Not

Windsor Castle seemed to Luis from without an intimidating pile, an excrescence of centuries of wealth heaped up on a core of medieval brutality.

Saint Bernard’s death and the century after, one looks upon two different worlds, though we call both medieval. The aspect of the countryside had changed from half-wild to a cultivation not unlike that of today. Castles guarded the fields. Town and villages emerged under exalted Gothic spires. Commerce was controlled by bankers and regulated by guilds. Universities flourished; scholars wrote their profundities; poets and novelists, their imaginations. The High Middle Ages had created that European civilization that was to become our own.

To construct a metaphor, Protestant theology is the castle in which we safely live: patristic and medieval theology is a dark forest surrounding the castle into which we may occasionally venture

Round Peveril Castle – English Heritage Norman Knight AD 950–1204 – Christopher Gravett English Medieval Knight 1200–1300 – Christopher Gravett English Medieval Knight 1300–1400 – Christopher Gravett The Scottish and Welsh Wars 1250–1400 – Christopher Rothero Lewes and Evesham 1264–65 – Richard Brooks

Let us once and for all get rid of the archaic and patriarchal notion that the universe operates like some kind of medieval castle in which there is a hierarchical chain of command extending from the King all the way down to the Serf.

slope of a valley. There is something satisfyingly eerie about a landfall – any landfall. The growing coast ahead, no matter how exhaustively charted it is, or how old and familiar its history and internal topography, looks so imaginary from this sea distance. Watching it come slowly alive, inseparable from its broken reflection in the water, you feel that you’re making it up as you go along. It’s not real. On a green hill above the town you see a fine, brand-new medieval castle – turrets, towers, keeps, drawbridges, the lot. Like a novelist toying with an invented landscape on the page, you think, that won’t wash; and, obedient to the thought, the handsome castle rubs itself out and in its place there comes up a stolid clump of gasholders or the cooling towers of a power station.

The castle’s predecessor, the Roman villa, had been unfortified, depending on Roman law and the Roman legions for its ramparts. After the Empire’s collapse, the medieval society that emerged was a set of disjointed and clashing parts subject to no central or effective secular authority.

IN 1066, WILLIAM OF NORMANDY CROSSED THE CHANNEL FROM FRANCE TO INVADE ENGLAND. ONCE HE BECAME KING, WILLIAM STARTED BUILDING CASTLES ALL OVER ENGLAND. CHEPSTOW WAS THE VERY FIRST CASTLE HE BUILT. IT WAS IN AN IMPORTANT SPOT. THE CASTLE GUARDED THE MAIN RIVER CROSSING FROM ENGLAND INTO WALES. HUNDREDS OF YEARS EARLIER, THE ROMANS HAD A FORT IN THE SAME PLACE. WILLIAM USED BRICKS FROM THE ROMAN FORT IN THE MAIN ARCHWAY OF HIS CASTLE. IT IS THE OLDEST MEDIEVAL CASTLE IN GREAT BRITAIN. IT CONTAINS WHAT IS PROBABLY THE OLDEST MEDIEVAL TOILET!

It was as if a medieval castle and a Southern-belle, antebellum mansion had a baby and it had been delivered into the world by a gothic wedding-cake decorator.

discovered the land in their travels over the seas to the countries of the north.

In an old-fashioned medieval community, when my neighbour was in need, I helped build his hut and guard his sheep, without expecting any payment in return. When I was in need, my neighbour returned the favour. At the same time, the local potentate might have drafted all of us villagers to construct his castle without paying us a penny. In exchange, we counted on him to defend us against brigands and barbarians. Village life involved many transactions but few payments.

She flapped her hands, anxious energy coursing through her. “How can you be so calm?” He got to his feet, unfolding with an easy grace. He held out a hand, his dark eyes focused solemnly on hers. “Come with me.” “For what?” “That’s part of the lesson.” Was it her imagination, or did a twinkle of humor stir in those eyes? “Center yourself, and grab onto the here and now.” That made no sense—what was he now, Sir Medieval Zen Master? But she slipped her hand into his strong, calloused one. He hauled her up until she bumped into his chest. With a finger under her chin, he tilted her face until she looked in his eyes. “Listen to the world around you. Hear the birds? Hear the small animals scurrying? You are in this moment, this moment only, and sometimes that’s all you can do, all you can be.” His finger pulled away, brushing against her skin, and he tapped her nose, stepping away.

She needed a distraction. “Was that your mother?” The splashing stopped. “Are you going to converse while I bathe?” “Why not?” “Feels rather unseemly.” She laughed, picturing him sitting there, shocked and indignant. “We’re supposed to be married, right?” “You have a point, however I would rather not discuss her right now.” “I think you’re evading me.” “Mayhap. Is it working?

Gazing out of the window, the gravel path roared as it was crushed into submission under the wheels of the car that was taking me towards a menacing looking medieval castle with two huge and terrifying turrets that seemingly reached out towards me. I imagined that I was the gravel and the wheels of the car were the social care system.

Their gowns and masks look lovely.” “Not as lovely as yours,” Jorgen said without hesitating. Her heart seemed to fly out of her chest and soar around the arched ceiling of the ballroom of Thornbeck Castle. Jorgen Hartman, rescuer of damsels in peril, might . . . perhaps . . . love her. But

With the mask covering half her face, she could think anything and no one would know. She felt almost as if she were someone else, someone bolder, someone who could be flirtatious and carefree. Tomorrow she could go back to being sensible, to understanding that no matter how strong and noble and kind and good Jorgen was, he was still a forester and not the person her uncle—or she—would ever choose for her to marry. But for tonight, inside this formidable castle and this beautiful, palatial ballroom, she could think outrageous thoughts and imagine the impossible.

She’d been dreaming about being trapped in a gloomy, dark, half-ruined castle where there lived a beastly lord so hideous and animal-like that no one would go near him.

I used to become very restless. I was continually thinking of the life I would lead. I wanted to know what life had in store for me. I was particularly restless at some moments. You know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a small waterfall there; it fell from a height on the mountain, such a tiny thread, almost perpendicular—foaming, white and splashing. Though it fell from a great height it didn’t seem so high; it was the third of a mile away, but it only looked about fifty paces. I used to like listening to the sound of it at night. At such moments I was sometimes overcome with great restlessness; sometimes too at midday I wandered on the mountains, and stood alone halfway up a mountain surrounded by great ancient resinous pine trees; on the crest of the rock an old medieval castle in ruins; our little village far, far below, scarcely visible; bright sunshine, blue sky, and the terrible stillness. At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that in walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours. I dreamed of some great town like Naples, full of palaces, noise, roar, life. And I dreamed of all sorts of things, indeed. But afterwards I fancied one might find a wealth of life even in prison.

Indeed Everley was famous in Somerset, famous even in England, among the people who knew of such things, for its serene loveliness. It had none of the grandeur of a palace, or of the great medieval castles—it was only two stories—yet it had a beauty all its own.

could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top. And I saw worse tortures, too—things I don’t want to describe. The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. I could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking. Elysium. In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to

Turks, like Russians and Israelites, seem to want you to see the things that show you how they have got on since Atatürk, or since the Bolshevik revolution, or since they took over Palestine. But how people have got on is actually only interesting to the country which has got on. What foreign visitors care about are the things that were there before they began to get on. I dare say foreigners in England really only want to see Stonehenge, and Roman walls and villas, and the field under which Silchester lies buried, and Norman castles and churches, and the ruins of medieval abbeys, and don't care a bit about Sheffield and Birmingham, or our model farms and new towns and universities and schools and dams and aerodromes and things.

When once men began to enter into feudal relationships, it is not hard to see how the custom would spread. The great landholder who wanted an army of vassals to fight for him against barbarian invaders and against his rivals, or to throng his castle on court days, divided his land in numerous fiefs among men who lacked estates and who were willing and able to fight. They were, perhaps, not nobles to begin with, but their new estates soon made them nobles. The peaceful bishop or abbot, who had many church estates under his care, granted part of them to some powerful warrior who would defend the rest. The owner of only one or two villas, who was not strong enough to stand alone with his handful of peasants against the storm of invasion or the cupidity of some great neighbor with a large band of vassals, would be forced to become the vassal of the lord who otherwise might take his land from him entirely, or else the vassal of some other lord who would protect him from that lord. But the spread of feudalism did not stop there. The owner of only one or two villas might deem it advisable to become the vassal of more than one lord, and thus get some more land, especially if there were two or more great men who were in a position to protect or to injure him, and if he could find time to render feudal service to both or to all, and if they were not hostile to one another. Still more likely was the man who owned a number of estates scattered here and there to become the vassal for one of them to one lord and for another manor the vassal of another lord in its vicinity. Moreover, lords who already had vassals under them entered into the feudal relationship with each other. Lord A, who could count on the service of a few vassals, would himself become the vassal of a much greater lord, B, and agree upon certain occasions to provide B with ten warriors. Or this great lord, B, having at his disposal vast estates sufficient to support several hundred knights, instead of trying to find all those men himself, would infeudate his land in two or three large parcels to two or three men on condition that each of them supply him with a number of knights. Thus they would each receive a large fief and then would subinfeudate a large part of it, as a modern bank pays its depositors four per cent interest and then loans out part of its deposits at a higher rate. Their vassals would be his subvassals, and he would be the overlord of their men. In some parts of Europe, notably France, land was subinfeudated in this way several times, so that as many as seven or eight persons might be owing and receiving feudal service and payments from a single manor. It would be hard, indeed, to say who owned the land in such a case; all had rights in it.

The chief extant monument of feudalism is the stone castle.

As the castle suggests, war was the natural state of the feudal world. Ambitious lords, especially as population increased and land became scarce, waged war upon one another. Younger sons tried to win new fiefs by the sword, since they could not hope to inherit them, and often fought against their fathers or older brothers. Lords perhaps fought more often against their own vassals, or rather against men whom they claimed as their vassals, than they did with other lords. Vassals were ever quarreling with their lords over the conditions of their vassalage and the services which they were bound to render. In many cases men were unwilling vassals whose fathers had been defeated in war and forced to acknowledge the victor as lord; such men naturally would revolt at the first good opportunity. The whole situation was one of disorderly rivalry where every one was trying to increase his power at the expense of others. There were, however, some mitigating features about feudal warfare. We must remember for one thing that war had been incessant before feudalism and that it has not ceased yet. Then feudal warfare was in the main conducted on a small scale; it was local or neighborhood war and the numbers of men engaged were never very large nor the number killed very great. Their armor protected the knights fairly well, and they were more often captured, imprisoned, and ransomed than they were slain. One reads of bitter strife between lord and vassal or father and son drawn out over many years, and finds both contestants as hale and hearty at the end as they had been at the beginning. The peasants, whose crops were destroyed and homes burned, and who had neither armor nor the prospect of large ransom to protect their lives, were the ones to suffer most from these neighborhood wars and from the ravages of robber knights who got their living largely by plundering raids.

Vassal and lord alike belonged to the noble class and passed their lives in the same round of warlike occupations and amusements. To their life is given the name “chivalry,” derived from the Romance word for “horse” and denoting the life of cavaliers or knights. The earliest literature of feudal times extols physical hardihood and bravery, condones brigandage, and shows war brutally waged as almost the only ideal of the early chevalier. Later history indicates that it too often continued to be his practice. But this military aristocrat in time developed, or rather had constructed for him by the Church and the poetical romancers, a set of social ideals of which our present- day use of the term “chivalry” is a reminiscence. The medieval clergy insisted that the true knight should be a manly Christian, should respect and defend the Church, should fight against heathen and heretics, and should protect the needy and those in distress. The minstrels and romancers, who sometimes found the lords away and only the ladies at home when they visited the castles, depicted the true knight as an accomplished gentleman and perfect lover.

(To give an idea of monetary values, the usual daily wage of a skilled craftsman in the thirteenth century was about 4½ pence—there were 12 pence in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound.)

Each morning when the sun came up the song birds would awaken the king. After a royal breakfast he would spend a few hours walking through the colorful woods watching the birds and listening to their songs. He would stroll past the blue stream and greet the happy people of his kingdom. After watching the beavers and otters play he would head back to his castle smiling from ear to ear. When King Daniel was happy everyone in the kingdom was happy.

Long ago in the wooded hills of northern Europe. there was a tiny kingdom called Color Wood. It was one of the most beautiful places in all of the world. The trees in the country side were gifted with colors that no other forest in the world possessed. There were purple trees, orange trees, bright blue trees, red trees and yellow trees.

Early one spring morning as the king was taking his walk through his beautiful forest the wind started to pick up and it started to rain. The birds began to flutter and chirp loudly and the trees started to sway in the wind. King Daniel decided to return to his castle until the weather got better. As time passed the weather got worse. The winds got stronger and the rain got heavier. Bolts of lightning crackled in the sky followed by booming claps of thunder.

The Las Vegas Arena looked as much like one of the hotels on the strip as it did a sports building. The facade appeared to be an ornate castle. Tourists might mistake it for Medieval Times if it weren't for one glaring difference. A big neon sign sat at the entrance to the parking lot, waiting to light up and welcome fans to the "Coolest Spot in the Desert.

Feudal Anarchy This period was characterized by what’s now called ‘feudal anarchy’, a situation where real power lay not with kings but with local lords. Because kings had not effectively centralized power yet, and the concept of nations was still vague, if you had a castle and a private army there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop you. There was private justice and war against all—generally speaking not the best time to be alive, and much more violent than the later medieval period by which time a local lord couldn’t just hang anyone who annoyed him.

But he took another deep hit on the joint and it sent him back to twelve, being twelve; a precocious kid, waking up each morning fully expecting a twelve hours until nuclear apocalypse announcement, that old, cheesy, end-of-the-world scenario. Round that time he had thought a lot about extreme decisions, about the future and its deadlines. Even then it had struck him that he was unlikely to spend those last twelve hours fucking Alice the fifteen-year-old baby-sitter next door, telling people that he loved them, converting to orthodox Judaism, or doing all the things he wanted and all the things he never dared. It always seemed more likely to him, much more likely, that he would just return to his room and calmly finish constructing Lego Medieval Castle. What else could you do? What other choice could you be certain about? Because choices need time, the fullness of time, time being the horizontal axis of morality—you make a decision and then you wait and see, wait and see.

If the Poles described the Ukrainian insurgents as savages, and the Jews saw them as “worse than the Germans,” from their own point of view they were martyrs of a just and holy cause, the liberation of their land from foreign oppression: the goal justified the means, including massacres, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Many of them died in battle, were executed by the NKVD, or spent long years in gulags. Others fled to the West, where they formed the nationalist hard core of the Ukrainian diaspora. Vilified by the communists as fascist collaborators, they emerged from obscurity and were celebrated as the harbingers of the nation after Ukrainian independence in 1991, especially in Western Ukraine. Two decades later, as a newly resurgent Russia sought to reassert its influence on Ukraine, the UPA again came to symbolize the country’s historical struggle against its mighty eastern neighbor: in 2016 the black-and-red banner of the insurgent army was again fluttering from the remnants of the medieval Polish castle overlooking Buczacz. History was back to its old tricks. UPA flag on top of the castle in Buczacz, 2016.

But where do these ideas come from? They are all derived from the writings of the Middle Ages—not works of academic theology, which generally were critical of such highly visual and dramatic approaches, but the popular religious literature of the age, which took pleasure in a powerful narrative of Satan’s being outmanoeuvred and outwitted by Christ.[615] According to these popular atonement theories, Satan had rightful possession over sinful human beings. God was unable to wrest humanity from Satan’s grasp by any legitimate means. Yet what if Satan were to overstep his legitimate authority, and claim the life of a sinless person—such as Jesus Christ, who, as God incarnate, was devoid of sin? The great mystery plays of the Middle Ages—such as the cycle performed at York in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—dramatised the way in which a wily and canny God tricked Satan into overstepping his rights, and thus forfeiting them all. An arrogant Satan received his comeuppance, to howls of approval from the assembled townspeople. A central theme of this great popular approach to atonement was the “Harrowing of Hell”—a dramatic depiction of the risen Christ battering the gates of hell, and setting free all who were imprisoned within its realm.[616] All of humanity were thus liberated by the death and resurrection of Christ. In Narnia, Edmund is the first to be saved by Aslan; the remainder are restored to life later, as Aslan breathes on the stone statues in the Witch’s castle. Lewis’s narrative in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe contains all the main themes of this medieval atonement drama: Satan having rights over sinful humanity; God outwitting Satan because of the sinlessness of Christ; and the breaking down of the gates of Hell, leading to the liberation of its prisoners. The imagery is derived from the great medieval popular religious writings which Lewis so admired and enjoyed.

There was nothing churchy about this place. Where was the pulpit, the cross, the other religious accoutrements? This was nothing but a big empty room that didn’t even have chairs. When he thought of a revival, he thought of a brightly lighted place with seats for everybody, probably a PA system for the preacher so people in the back could hear him. When he looked at this place, he thought of a hoedown—except for the candelabra, which reminded him of a medieval castle, something from a Vincent Price movie. He wished he hadn’t thought about Vincent Price.

You are my wife. You fulfill my every dream. Nothing you do can send me away. Even if you’d been raped, I would not abandon you.” Recalling her mission, she said, “But you must. The king—” “Does very well without me.” “The queen—” “Will come to see me if she desires.” “England—” “Can sink below the waves. As long as I’m with you, I won’t care.

Because I write women’s history I rarely have the luxury of a full and fair biography to study. Until about 1960 there were very few histories written about women at all, and often I am faced with a blank or—worse—with an unfair condemnation of the woman. Tracing Elizabeth of York’s life was often speculation, and sometimes I found myself simply rebelling against the picture that the medieval chroniclers tried to force on the real woman; those who spoke of her “truly wonderful obedience.” Clearly, we cannot believe that she was only the passive pawn of Tudor ambition, a baby-making machine who chose a married motto of “Humble and penitent” when she had been raised by a rebel, was a princess of royal blood, and her own motto before marriage was “Sans removyr” which means (surely defiantly?) “unmoving” or “unchanging.” A young woman of eighteen, who has witnessed her father driven from the throne and restored, her mother give birth in prison, her brother disappear from his own castle, who has engaged in an adulterous love affair with the king while betrothed to his enemy, and who claims the defiant motto “unchanging” is not anyone’s pawn!

As the days wore on, there was less and less of Aliya left in her. She couldn’t remember what Alex’s eyes had looked like, or how her father laughed at off-color jokes, or what the head of surgery said to her the first time she walked into the operating room. It was all gone. Her new reality was the castle, Earton, and these strange people that she had to build a life with.

Princess Anna was never more than a few steps away from him. He was beginning to feel like a besieged castle. The man should be the arrow, and the woman should be the target. Here, however, it seemed that the target was flying around trying to run into the arrow. There was something wrong about it.

Do you know my father as little as that? We will take your castle, but I would not do it with you and the boy in it.

This is a smashing place, isn't it? But I must say it scares me a bit. Do you suppose one dares to ask for some tea?' 'I expect so, though heavens knows how. Perhaps you blow a peal on a slughorn, or beat on your shield with your sword -- or, I'll tell you what, if you look around you'll find a long embroidered tassel, and if you pull it you'll hear a bell clanging hollowly in some dark corridor a million miles away, and then some bent old servitor will come shuffling in--' 'There's a telephone by the bed,' said Timothy. 'Good heavens, so there is. How disappointing.' - Airs Above the Ground

To them, fae basically meant anyone who was vaguely magical who hadn’t gone to the right school, with the High Fae being the creatures referenced in medieval literature who dwelled in their own castles with a proper feudal set-up and an inexplicable need to marry virtuous Christian knights.

In 2002, a joint federal, state, and local investigation was launched called Operation Ice Palace, which targeted The Castle, a head shop housed in a cavernous corrugated metal warehouse shaped like a medieval fort complete with a moat and a drawbridge.

The castle, being medieval, might also be dilapidated, and dilapidations were surely cheap. She wouldn't in the least mind a few of them, because you didn't pay for dilapidations which were already there; on the contrary—by reducing the price your had to pay, they really paid you. (Chapter 1)

The castle, being medieval, might also be dilapidated, and dilapidations were surely cheap. She wouldn't in the least mind a few of the, because you didn't pay for dilapidations which were already there; on the contrary—by reducing the price your had to pay, they really paid you. (Chapter 1)