Castles are among the most obvious, most interesting, exciting and informative parts of our legacy from the Middle Ages. This book offers a wide-ranging but detailed study of castles built and used by the English at home and elsewhere for 400 years. Opening with their first introduction to England in the mid-11th century, it tells us of the people who created, owned, lived in and worked in them, and the role of castles in government, the expression of power, government, justice and punishment. It then considers their impact on their environs and on the lives, economy and religious life of people living in their shadow. While accepting the symbolism of castles, appropriately generous space is given to the development of the walls, gates, towers and moving parts which defined their form, and the techniques and equipment of attack and defence. As castles were also houses, a chapter discusses the design and development of their domestic buildings, from the 'great tower' and the grandest halls and chambers to their kitchens store rooms. Space is devoted to building castles and the many skills, processes, people and materials it involved, and the book finishes with a chapter on the post medieval fate of the English castle and its cultural legacy.