Tag: Strongholds

Strongholds of the Picts The fortifications of Dark Age Scotland


Free Download Angus Konstam, "Strongholds of the Picts: The fortifications of Dark Age Scotland "
English | ISBN: 1846036860 | 2010 | 64 pages | AZW3 | 6 MB
When the Romans left Britain around AD 410 the island had not been fully subjugated. In the Celtic fringe of Caledonia – now Northern Scotland – these unconquered native peoples were presented with the opportunity to pillage what remained of Roman Britain. By way of response the Post-Roman Britons of what is now Scotland did their best to defend themselves from attack, and to preserve what they could of the economic and administrative systems left behind by the Romans. While some old Roman forts were maintained, the Post-Roman Britons in the area created new strongholds, or re-occupied some of the long-abandoned hill-forts first built by their ancestors before the coming of the Romans. Meanwhile the Caledonians – who evolved into the Picts – relied on fortifications to maintain control over their land.

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Castles and Strongholds of Northumberland A History and Gazetteer


Free Download Castles and Strongholds of Northumberland: A History and Gazetteer by Brian Long
English | August 1st, 2024 | ISBN: 0750994096 | 312 pages | True EPUB | 27.32 MB
Much more than an excellent gazetteer, an engaging history using contemporary sources shows whose hands the defence of the Anglo-Scottish border was in while Henry V was at Agincourt. Subsequent surveys show how Christopher Dacre forwarded a bold project that linked a string of towers forming a defence against marauding Scots, suggesting new towers to stop gaps, a ‘dyke or defence’ joining them like a latter-day Hadrian’s Wall. Beyond this line were many peles or bastles, homes to the headsmen of the notorious reiving families cursed in 1525 by the Bishops of Durham and Glasgow because of their brutal way of life, giving rise to much romance and legend. Polite society occupied the large castles of the coastal area.

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