The Culture of Castles in Tudor England and Wales, by Audrey M. Thorstad

This book should be read by everyone who has an interest in castle studies and the social history of Tudor England more generally. It is a well-researched volume and the first interdisciplinary study devoted to Tudor castles. Audrey M. Thorstad rightly believes in understanding the value of Tudor castles beyond militarism. They are not viewed as an end to castle building nor as castles in decline but as entities worthy of study in their own right. Four Tudor castles, their owners and landscapes are discussed (Cowdray House in Sussex, Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire, Hedingham Castle in Essex and Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire) to form the context through which wider understandings of (castle) life in Tudor England and Wales are developed. Thorstad’s thematic approach covers a wide variety of subjects, from politics, landscapes and hospitality to how households and their spaces (including privacy) articulated the authority and power of the elite in Tudor England. Woven throughout the narratives are keen insights into relationships, traditions and some of the intimate lives of households. The focus of this book is on the periphery of the royal court, which encompasses aspects of the wider support network of the nobility, including their own regional spheres of influence. Integrated also is a message of how Tudor castles and landscapes are a very communicative part of the material world experienced by many different people. The grander narrative of this book is informed by details of the small scale; in attending to this, a sense of how castles might have felt to medieval people is captured. It is a great example of how detailed case-studies of castles lead to wider understanding of contemporary culture. Castle studies remains a male-dominated discipline, which is reflected in many bibliographies in the field. The diversity of references provided in this volume is very welcome, signposting new or under-explored scholarship which acts not just as evidence but as prompts for further reading. Thorstad clearly knows her material and her characters intimately. She perhaps overestimates the reader’s familiarity with the people and places she discusses. Some more chronological context, maps and plans would be helpful to situate the reader in time and space. The volume is richly descriptive, but the author might have taken the interpretation further in certain places. Throughout this book, Thorstad largely resists the temptation to examine spatial arrangements through dualisms that remain prevalent in Western thought. In her discussion of the hall and chapel, she suggests that, rather than interpreting this as a spatial juxtaposition of religious and secular, we should see them as a united pair which facilitated the nourishment of body and mind in the castle (p. 119). This is an intriguing concept and highlights how alternative readings of space are possible. It serves to remind us that the household is a composite made up of different parts but best understood together. Relatedly, lords and ladies are not the sole focus; the lives and roles of other household members, including servants, from their sleeping arrangements to kitchen life and toilet facilities are drawn out. This brings often unknown stories of the castle to the fore, which show it to have been a busy space full of people. Similarly, in exploring the use of space, the emphasis is not only on the great rooms (e.g. the hall or chamber) and how they reinforced a particular idea of lordly largesse, but also on the performance of hospitality. This included the affect of these spaces, such as how the guest experienced the household, as well as their roles as both viewer of ceremony and ritual (p. 125). The addition of music to this sensory perspective is superb: through her careful archival research, Edward Stafford’s patronage of itinerant minstrels at Thornbury (p. 135) is revealed. We can imagine the residence of the Duke of Buckingham not with a background of swords and political whispers, but of a space full of sights, sounds and smells. Throughout the book, the tantalising insights into the sensorial lives of the household stood out for me. One such example shows how the very elaborate Tudor chimneys should be considered not only as evidence of technological marvel but displays of warmth and intimacy. The generation of heat and light is explained as generosity, which is part of the core (gendered?) values of the elite. It tells us of the sensorial and emotional lives of castle-dwellers. Memory and posterity are explored as expressions of power which, within castle studies, has tended to be viewed as an unchanging universal. Thorstad emphasises that such expressions are context-specific and changing. These shifts are managed and reinforced not only through architecture but through various forms of patronage and cultural networks, some of which leave no material trace. For example, positions of household servants and officers of many Tudor castles appear to have been hereditary, even if they were informally filled from families living locally (p. 93). This is a lineage of service attached to a particular noble, which is, in itself, a form of memory-keeping through familial bonds that are reinforced through generations. Thorstad highlights how the act of memorialisation is a citational practice. In the case of the de Veres, earls of Oxford who resided at Hedingham Castle, this can be seen in their familial desire to form a mausoleum. A tradition was established where some members of the family were buried at Thetford Priory, founded in the twelfth century by Aubrey de Vere (d.1141). Both the practice of doing this, and the mausoleum itself, become repositories of memory, which in turn adds to their legacy. Thorstad underscores the effort of families, both old and newly dynastic, to curate memory through architecture, place, monuments and social networks which are central to castle life and the lives of elite (and ordinary) people. The world of castles is an enmeshed reality: a collection of social, political and cultural concerns. Just as Thorstad herself states, castles must be studied together with their political context, interconnectivity with religious institutions and their personal connection with people and place. She clearly has an acute understanding of Tudor castles and society, but some central aspects of castle life are missing from her analysis. Gender in castle studies is very under-explored and it is a theme missing from this book. The chapter on ‘Landscapes’ notes that the garden space enabled women to ‘fashion their own authority and negotiate [the] gender dynamics’ of Tudor society (p. 67). These ideas need to be teased out to identify exactly what was in mind here. I look forward to hearing more on this, and other things, from Thorstad. © Oxford University Press 2021. All rights reserved. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)