From Book Jacket's flap: Castles exert a powerful influence on our imagination. The walls echo our footsteps once echoed to long-past laugher, revelry, the ring of he armorer's anvil, the clatter of horses' hooves. Above all we want to know the detail of life then. How was the household organized and run from day to day? Where were clothes washed? What did lord and servant eat? Where did they sleep? How and why castles built? The text is lavishly illustrated with over 100 fascinating picture of basic amenities, discomfort (Henry III insisted that the constable of the Tower of London have another privy put in 'even though it should cost a hundred pounds'), pageantry, warfare, and administration of an brutal feudal system. Binding the detail into a broader scheme, John Burke enables the reader to see the castle in the context of medieval society (the role it played in the countryside, its political and military importance, the sort of life it sustained) and to get a clear picture of castle development from early motte and bailey forts through the great Norman and high medieval period to castle's transformation into the manor house.