Mediaeval Military Architecture in England

THE art of construction in Europe from the fall of the Roman empire to the dawn of the Reformation, though of late years much and successfully investigated, has been approached almost exclusively from its ecclesiastical side. This was, for many reasons, to be expected. The service of the altar justified, perhaps required, the highest degree of taste in the design of the temple, and the utmost richness in its ornamentation. Moreover, the greater number of our ecclesiastical buildings are still in use, and even the remains of those that are in decay, being chiefly monastic, are interesting from the intimate connexion of their foundations and endowments with early piety and learning, and from the evidence supplied by their records of the descent of landed property and of the ancestry of the older historic families of the country.