The mediaeval castle in Scotland

Abstract

THIS volume is based upon the lectures under the Rhind Bequest which, by invitation of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, were delivered by the author in the early part of 1926. The material has been revised and considerably amplified. Obviously it would be impossible to find place ,within the compass of this book for even an allusion to every castellated building in Scotland still in existence. Nor could any example be exhaustively treated. For these requirements one must go to such sources as the five volumes by Messrs. McGibbon and Ross on The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, or the county Inventories, as they appear, of the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, or the few independent monographs on particular castles.The chapters which follow constitute a more general treatment of the subject as a whole, though affording sufficient detail, it is believed, to render any particular example more intelligible to the ordinary observer. The author, however, has handled the material on rather different lines from those more recently followed. At some places, too, divergences from accepted conclusions will be found ; while there may be discerned throughout a deliberate abstention from the use of the so- popular term " keep." Fuller discussion of the more important doubts or differences has been relegated to Appendices.The main fundamental principle introduced is that formulated as the palace plan. It is claimed to account for both the new type of structure that appears with the fifteenth century and the use of the term palace as applied in Scotland to a whole class of buildings, a use of which no explanation has hitherto been offered or even thought necessary.The specific subject of the, book is the Castles of Scotland, but it must not be forgotten that these constituted merely a province in the castle building area of western Europe. Scotland invented nothing in this field, though of course it moulded what it borrowed to its own desires. Thus, however, references to such structures elsewhere become necessary in the course of explanation. That more have not been made is due to the limited extent of the volume.