Tower studies, 3; Urbs Turrita - Review volume of Tower Studies) focused on aspects of towers as lordly residences, mainly in the countryside. This third volume was based on a conference held in Krakow and in the Introduction the editor, Richard Oram, writes that it and the ten papers derived from it, “turns to the manifestation of towers in a specific context: the urban environment” and that they focus on the towers built by individual lords within towns, rather than towers erected by the town collectively. In fact, as every conference organiser knows, it is impossible to be so prescriptive, and so it proves with this volume. It is only right to start with the four papers from the eastern countries. Malgorzata Chorowska presents the discovery of the foundations of a late-12th-century brick building from within the early castle enclosure Tower studies, 3; ‘Urbs Turrita’ of Wroclaw, in Silesia, incorporated in modern Poland. Although the remains are Richard Oram (ed.): very fragmentary they can be described as of Publisher: Shaun Tyas a 16-sided structure, 24m in diameter on the Hardback: 208 pages (xx + 188) outside, 19m on the inside, with a central base. ISBN-10: 1907730664 The foundations are deep and the angles were ISBN-13: 978-1907730665 marked by pilasters; a separate plan of the Published: April 2019 excavated structure would have helped the Price: £40.00 reader here. Although it has been identified “A defensive-residential tower, in all its as chapel, she reconstructs it as a multi- variants, remained throughout the Middle floored secular tower, probably the principal Ages one of the main residential forms residence in the castle at the time. David favoured by the feudal elite”. These are the Merta and Marek Peska summarise the opening words of one of the papers in this evidence for towers within the medieval city volume (Lasek, Olszacki & Ratajczak) and of Brno, now in the Czech Republic. Apart they summarise perfectly the aims of this and from church towers, there is one extant the previous two volumes of Tower Studies. secular tower, with a further three shown in With the addition of the church towers, it is a 1645 view of the city. 14th-century impossible to imagine a medieval landscape documentary sources record other towers, without towers. However, even when any located in plots owned by members of the enquiry is confined to secular towers, there aristocracy of the area around Brno, allowing are challenges, summarised above in the them to argue that the wealth of the trading phrase “in all its variants”. The first two city attracted aristocrats who marked their conferences (published in the first, double residences with towers. THE CASTLE STUDIES GROUP JOURNALTHE NO CASTLE 29: 2015-16 STUDIES GROUP JOURNAL NO 33: 2019-20 288 Tower studies, 3; Urbs Turrita - Review Two other papers discuss the towers of wider a water supply nor fireplaces) or defence regions. Dominik Nowakowski summarises (again, no water and they have no defensive the information on the urban castles of Silesia features). Taco Hermans reviews the (including Wroclaw) from the 12th to the 14th evidence of urban towers from the centuries. He starts by establishing the nexus Netherlands, where surviving examples are of castles and towns in the region during the not common, except in Frisia where the period and then tries to classify the castles towers are mostly rural, in villages or small according to the size of the towns associated towns. Surprisingly, perhaps, the number with them, from the major royal sites, with in the core area has not been firmly large masonry castles to the small towns with established in the literature but Hermans earthwork castle; however, as with all such can give eighteen examples from nine classifications, the boundaries between the towns. Details of the interior layout are types are obscure and the meaning of them few, but they seem to lack any serious unclear. The castles usually included towers, defensive features. Only one, the Count’s mostly of the tall, narrow bergfried type, built tower at Leiden, had a moat like the rural for display and refuge more than as lordly towers in the Netherlands, which leads residences, which was accommodated in the Hermans to question whether the rest of the hall/chamber building elsewhere in the enclo- urban towers should be considered as not sure. A fine example is at Bolkow, a Ducal being true tower houses, but the absence of castle with a massive round, beaked tower a moat is surely simply the product of a lack with very limited accommodation but beside of space in a town? a large residential block. Piotr Lasek, Tomas There are three papers from the British Olszacki and Tomasz Ratajczak follow this Isles. Ben Murtagh describes and discusses with an account of castles in Poland in the the walls of Waterford and their towers. succeeding 14th and 15th centuries. Starting He gives a well-argued and convincing with the strong influence of the Emperors account of new, stronger dating for the based in Bohemia, who brought in the idea of three successive walls of the city. The the castle with a more formalised courtyard, late-12th-century wall of the Hiberno- dominated by a major residential tower. This Norse city included a tower, the Irish is well illustrated by the so-called Danish builder of which made his peace with the Tower at Krakow, built in the 1390s. It was incoming Anglo-Normans and survived used in 1424 to accommodate kings who had into the new regime. The second wall dates come to attend a royal wedding: Sigismund to the 13th century and was built on a line of Luxemburg in the lower storey, Erik VII a little beyond the first As the city of Denmark in the upper one. All four papers flourished, a third line was constructed in reflect the close ties between the Empire to the 15th century. All three lines incorpo- the West and the Slav states to the East and rated towers. The 13th-century wall had a the influences that are shown in their castles. large round tower, Reginald’s tower (often There is a fairly short paper by Barbara dated earlier) at its apex, which Murtagh Bjodo on the famous towers in the city of suggests was meant to form part of a castle, San Gimignano, where she recapitulates the which did not materialise. He describes evidence that these are aristocratic towers how the various towers along the lines of built for display and mutual rivalry, rather the two successive walls saw multiple uses. than either for residence (they have neither At least one of the gate towers was used as a THE CASTLE STUDIES GROUP JOURNALTHE NO CASTLE 29: 2015-16 STUDIES GROUP JOURNAL NO 33: 2019-20 289 Tower studies, 3; Urbs Turrita - Review gaol, while another was absorbed into an nearly word for word, the editor has had to extended city mansion. Penny Dransart face more serious problems, linked to the follows up her paper in the previous volume perennial problem of how far to alter the text of Tower Studies by drawing attention to how of authors for whom English is not their a tower at the edge of the Episcopal precinct native language and, in this volume he of Elgin was used for display. A curious perhaps errs on the side of caution. We get depiction of the Trinity (as a triple head) is as a result some strange words used: guerite carved on a gable to watch over the people turrets (rounds or bartizans), veduta (a coming to the cathedral. Richard Oram takes painted townscape) or caminata-type three urban towers: Drumlanrig tower in buildings (equipped with a chimney?). The Hawick, Maybole tower and McLellan’s main one – and this is an appeal to Castle tower in Kirkcudbright. These were not Studies Group members to provide an answer merchants’ towers, which are found more – is to find an accepted translation for the often in Ireland than Scotland, but examples German ‘palas’: the large, rectangular block of Scottish aristocrats building in towns near containing a first-floor hall and chamber ? to their lands. As such, their plan, size and Tom McNeill internal organisation show how their designs differed according to the priorities of the lords; British Castles and the arguments would have been clearer if they Palaces had been accompanied by plans. The first two Author: Roy Charles were adjuncts to the main (rural) centres of the Hardcover: 152 pages lords’ power and are simple towers, albeit with Publisher: White on a fine oriel for the lord’s chamber at Maybole. Black Publishing; By contrast, McLellan built a large and elab- Published: July 2019 orate tower, probably because the town was Language: English to be the centre of their power, rather than their ISBN13: 978-1999898168 landed estates. Publisher’s description: ‘British Castles and One paper, by Radoslav Palonka on the Palaces takes you on an epic tour of towers built by the inhabitants of the Pueblo Britain’s inspiring castles and palaces many settlements of the Mesa Verda area in Utah of which still stand proud and can be visited /Colorado, stands out, both geographically today. Since around 280 AD, new invaders and culturally. It shows how much more and established monarchs alike were prolific European medievalists can learn from their builders - symbols of power, wealth and towers, as opposed to those from a society fear. Britain's history can be detected in its without a documented chronology, history majestic buildings bursting with fascinating or social structure on the one hand, or a tales when they have been attacked, burnt programme of internal survey and analysis down and then rebuilt again.