Customer Reviews

The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts and Walled Cities of the Middle Ages

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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This book starts from the first few pages with an in depth study of the fortified positions of the middle ages - i.e. castles, keeps, etc. Despite a level of detail that may be too in depth for a beginner, the book itself provides a very readable style and is absolutely full of useful information (krunchy bits) for authors or others wishing to make an in depth study of medieval fortifications (ATTENTION GAMERS!). It has hundreds of high quality, albeit sometimes confusing, line art portraits that show each and every aspect of castle or its related cousins (where is #67 again - its sometimes like Where is Waldo finding the numbers referenced in the subtext). The book also has a great deal of information regarding siege techniques and the weapons used therein - and this information is fantastic in its level of detail and the included line art! The included photos are all in B&W, and some are rather grainy, but by far, they all serve the purpose they were intended to - they show the true grandeur of the castle as it was.

Within the text, the authors do have a habit of referencing other authors, which, if your looking for more on the subject, is good. However, by page 80, they have referenced at least 30 other authors and works (is that not what the bibliography is for).

Outside of this one complaint, the book is absolutely invaluable to anyone interested in the subject!

NOTE: This review references the soft-cover red front edition of the book, which I could not find the link for on Amazon (it may be an out of print edition or not, I am not sure - however, the TOC of the this edition appears identical to mine, so I am assuming that the contents have only been repackaged for the HB binding).

It does not matter if you all ready are a "fort-geek" or some one, who just want a book on the topic: This book will for sure please you.

"The Medieval Fortress" is a nice big (app. 11" x 8.5" or 28,5 x 22 cm), 319p. book, which covers the development of fortified places through out Europe and North-Africa from the early to the late middle ages - when the forts had their glory.
The book is built up of five main chapters. The First deals with the elements of a fortification; the Second deals in general with the different kind of fortifications in different parts of Europe (Islamic, Byzantine, Frankish, British, Norse, Slavic and Magyar (Hungarian)); the Third does the same, but with emphasis on the emerging castle; the Fourth chapter introduces gunpowder and the decline of the high castle walls through the description of several sieges (Constantinople, Rhodes, and siege of fortifications during the Reconquista); Chapter Five goes in depth with some selected fortifications in Europe: Some of the more famous ones and some more obscure. The reader is guided through fortifications/castles in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Low Countries, Switzerland, Holy Roman Empire, Scandinavia, Central Europe (present day Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, and Slovenia) Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Mediterranean, Italy, Spain&Portugal, and North Africa. The appendixes gives the names of some more important builders and architects and their titles in different languages (French, Portugese, Spanish, Duch, Sweedish, and Russian), a chronology of important sieges from 623 (Constantinople) to 1529 (Vienna), a history of medival artillery and a glossary.
There are endless amounts of B/W pictures alongside with even more B/W line drawings and plans of forts, just like on the front cover of the book.

This book is a very good buy!

(Review based on First DaCapo Edition, 2001)

This is an excellent work. It would be perfect for a student
project with a focus on Middle Ages building designs. The author
provides detailed engineering specifications for castles, forts,
a motte and rising towers. The engineering statics implications
are explained in the detailed design process. The work covers
action implementalities; such as, the ram, siege and cannon.
The author spends a portion of the book explaining how
war objects were constructed during the Middle Age period.

In addition, he concludes that an increase in wall size
necessarily means weakening the overall superstructure.
Some time is spent explaining the model diet for the period
which consisted of wheat, barley, oats and fish. This work
will help readers understand the building requirements
for structures created during the Middle Ages. The book would
be valuable for historians, art buffs, architects, engineers
and a wide constituency of other readers.

The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts And Walled Cities Of The Middle Ages is a superbly researched and presented historical survey of the castles and other walled defenses of medieval Europe. Fortification specialists J.E. Kaufmann and H.W. Kaufmann explain the origins and evolutions, compositions and components of these structures, along with their offensive and defensive strategies, weapons, and modifications. The informative, photographically illustrated and engaging text is enhanced throughout with technical artist Robert M. Jurga's illustrations, detailed technical drawings. The Medieval Fortress is an enthusiastically recommended addition to any personal, academic, or public library medieval studies reference collection or reading list.

If you liked Sydney Toy's book on Castles, you will love this one. Covering the earliest origins of castles to their decline at about the time of the Rennaisance, this book is a must-have for anyone fond of castles or interested in the middle ages. Although it has only black & white pictures and other books may contain a larger number of castles, this book is incredible in its scope of the subject and covers much history of the important castles and towns of Europe in the middle ages. Reading about this history and seeing pictures of the fortresses & towns gives me a feeling of how it was like to be there. I now have a wish-list of ancient towns & strongholds I would like to visit. The book has many 'basic' floorplans of castles & towns as well as rough maps of the regions talked about. Enough info for many book reports; great for design ideas since the coverage spans hundreds of years & styles of construction from All over Europe.

From reading the publishers note this book appears to be from a relatively new publishing house that believes in combining artists, technical illustrators and historical writers to produce interesting and historically accurate material. If this book is any indication of what we can expect, then I look forward to future offerings from this publishing house. The black and white illustrations are interesting to look at and add much to the overall text. One of the things I really liked is that the book did not focus exculsively on the technical aspects of castles and fortresses, but gave a military, social and economic overview of the period. Being an advid computer gamer who plays simulations covering all ages, I find the material in this book to be of great value in desinging scenarios for simulations covering the Middle Ages. The illustrations of the walls, castles and fortresses of the period are well done and are of obvious value to the games designer or scenario creator who would like to re-create a historically accurate battle or siege. I tought the writing style was interesting and lively as opposed to other books which can sometimes be dull and uninspired. I've been searching for reference material for my personal library and found this book to be a great addition. I highly recommend this book!

If you've been looking for a complete book on medieval castles, you have found the book for you. Although it touches lightly on such on such areas as medieval food, hygene, and battles, the bulk of this book is an in-depth study of castles. The writing is a bit dry, but very informative, covering fortresses from England, France, Itally, and even eastern Europe. I doubt there is much about castles unsaid in this book.

On the whole, I found this book to quite informative with many detailed descriptions of medieval European castles and cities. On some specific castles the data can be fairly general. I found this to be most obvious on castles that I have been fortunate enough to visit in the past and purchase a guide brochure or booklet from which I naturally compared the data.
I found the section on eastern European fortifications and their developement over the centuries to be very interesting as this was a subject I previously knew very little about.
But I do have one major 'gripe' or dissatisfaction with the book. The detailed and extensive floor plans provided throughout the book all suffer from some serious 'under labelling'. For example, a specific castle floor plan might have 20 itemised (numbered) points or features of interest on it. But when one refers to the "legend' or 'key' to find out what a certain feature is, it becomes painfully obvious that not all 20 features are actually clarified or described in the key. This is a fault that is not isolated and is unfortunately prevalent on the vast majority of floor plans in the book.
I'm not sure whether this problem is peculiar to the published edition I purchased or is in fact inherent throughout the whole published run. In any case it appears to be a large oversite in the 'quality control' department of the book's publication process. Other than these faults, I thought this book to be a good 'read'.

This incredibly detailed book shows you every type of castle made. From ancient times to concentric castles. It also describes how castles were defended and how they built the different types of bridges, walls, gatehouses and moats, defenses, drawbridges. The Illustrator is incredible and brings to life very clear depictions of the subject matter. This book is a must have for historians and fantasy writers and artists. This was well worth 20.00 I paid for it. I wish I would have bought the hardback.

The version I got had a red cover, different from the one shown here on amazon. As soon as I opened the book I was already amazed by the first details I saw. There are so many drawings and detials in this book it will make you leap for joy, especially if you are a technically minded drafter like I am. This book isn't just all about pictures though, there is so much more! Plenty of information to keep a guy chewing on this info for a long time. Just get it... you will not regret it.