To the Millennium, and Beyond!

The Red Dragon of Wales

My next adventure in Wales was at Castell Caerdydd, a.k.a. Cardiff Castle. The castle has an impressively long history. It started off in 55 CE as a Roman fort and trading post. In 1081 the Normans rebuilt it as a motte-and-bailey castle, first with a wooden keep, then a stone one. Around 1200, construction began on the curtain wall, and towers along the wall continued to be built through the 1450s. In 1776, the First Marquess of Bute started enlarging the outer towers and converting their interiors into more of a house. Construction continued through to the Third Marquess of Bute, who, in 1868 with her husband, William Burges, remodeled the interior to reflect a Gothic Victorian mansion. Work was finally completed in 1930.

The keep lies in the center-back of the grounds, and has long ago fallen into ruins. Even in its crumbled state, it's beautiful.

Here you can appreciate the "motte" part of motte-and-bailey.

A moat! The castle museum staff were very excited that Cardiff Castle still has a working moat; most castles' moats have dried up. The ducks were excited, too.

Inside the keep, looking at the interior side of the main entrance.

Same view. Less wall, more flag.

I climbed up the tower. Notice the right-twisting staircase.

View from the tower, looking at the other side of the interior of the keep and a bit of Cardiff in the background.

View from the front battlements. The towers and buildings over to the right comprise the mansion.

Better views of the exterior of the mansion.

It was hard to get good shots of the rooms in the mansion. They just didn't fit into the photo frame well. Instead, I concentrated on bits of the decor, to give you a feel for the place.

The entirety of the Gothic Victorian interior was designed with two themes in mind: the Bible and Time. Each room (well, most of them) is dedicated to a different book of the Bible: Genesis for the small family dining room, the Book of Kings for the roof garden, etc.

The last family used this house as a vacation home for four weeks in the summer and two in the winter. In the 1840s-1870s, they were one of the richest families in the world, and made their fortune off of coal (fitting, as Pwll Mawr/Big Pit is just outside of Cardiff).

The fireplace and ceiling in the gentlemen's smoking room, located in the clock tower. Sorry the fireplace is a little blurry.

I got a kick out of this. This devil's face is carved into the ceiling just outside of the smoking room, to frighten the ladies away.

The ceiling in the second gentlemen's smoking room. Because of course one smoking room isn't enough. Gorgeous, isn't it? Given the near-Eastern influences in the architecture, and having read my fair share of Victorian literature, I'm guessing this room was intended for smoking opium rather than cigars.

More blurry photos. My camera just wasn't feeling the love this trip. Maybe it had a camera-cold.

These photos are of the nursery. The figures wrapping around the walls are all storybook characters!

The large dining room. The floor plan has been in place since the 15th century. Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair, and Elizabeth II have all dined here.

Close-up of one of the angels on the ceiling

The murals around the walls of the dining room depict different battles in which the mansion's owners had taken part. Nothing like violence and gore to stimulate the appetite.

The library!

One of the first indoor bathrooms, with what was considered a very advent-guard plumbing and flush system. This was also the first house in Wales to have electricity. The bathroom has 60 different types of marble in it.

The gentleman of the house's bedroom and dressing quarters. The theme of this room is Revelation. Just the kind of theme you need to sleep well at night. The original wardrobe was actually shaped like a confessional.

The roof garden. Each box was overflowing with greenery, and the water fountain/bird bath flowed into a pool.

The theme for the roof garden is the Book of Kings. Most of the mural scenes depict parts of the life of Elijah, and the scrolling text along each wall reads passages in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin--the three main languages of the Bible.

The top of the fireplace and the ceiling in the family dining room. The theme for this room is Genesis, with a particular emphasis on the Garden of Eden.

The hole in the center of the table was for a giant vase. Every day fresh branches laden with fruit were put in the vase, so the family could pick fresh fruit off the vine during mealtimes.

Another thing I got a kick out of. This monkey is just to the left of the fireplace. Though the forbidding of flash photography means you can't see it, the monkey is holding an acorn. Pull the monkey's nut, and it rings for the servants to come running.

The ladies' parlor, also called the drawing room. Drawing room is actually short for "withdrawing room," as it is the room to which the ladies would withdraw after dinner, leaving the men to their brandy snifters and talk of business and politics. Unlike the gentlemen's room, which ladies were forbidden to enter, the men could enter the ladies' parlor anytime they pleased.

The walls were purposely left in a bare, 18th-century Georgian design, rather than matching the heavy Gothic Revival in the rest of the house. This way, each new lady of the house could decorate it according to her personal tastes, allowing her to put her mark on the house without messing up the rest of it. I am so glad I live in the 21st century.

Some final shots of Cardiff city center, taken from the battlements of the keep:

In direct contrast to the castle, that saucer-shaped structure behind the clock tower is Millennium Stadium, currently under construction for the 2012 Summer Olympics. While London is technically hosting the Olympics, the city is so built-up that they've outsourced some of the larger stadiums to other major English (and Welsh) cities.

Playing for Keeps

Castle: A medieval fortress, built primarily as a military stronghold. Warfare and security first, comfort and nobles' living quarters second.

Palace: A post-medieval aristocrat's home du season. War being primarily a thing for distant battlefields or seas now, the emphasis of this structure is on beauty, elegance, comfort, and showing off how wealthy you are.

Keep: The most important part of the castle. This structure is the first thing to be built and the last thing to fall in the event of an attack. It sits in the middle of the castle grounds, usually on top of a mound of dirt and sometimes surrounded by a moat. In early centuries, keeps were usually round or square; in later centuries, they took on fancy shapes like quatrefoils. Actually, the term "keep" arose in the 16th century. Prior to that, it was called a "donjon."

Motte-and-Bailey: The precursor to castles. The motte is a huge mound of dirt. The bailey, or ward, is the fortified structure on top of the motte. These were originally made out of wood, but got upgraded to stone. Baileys and keeps are like rectangles and squares. A keep is a bailey, but a bailey isn't necessarily a keep. Some (later) castles had multiple baileys, but the main one was the keep.

Curtain Wall: The main wall enclosing the bailey. These could be anywhere from six to 20 feet thick.

Battlements: The walkway on top of the curtain wall, where you could position your archers.

Since Bristol Castle was demolished in the 17th century, I'm going to rely on some old study abroad photos to illustrate.

Palace

Giant driveway, large windows

Castle

Thick barricaded wall to greet you, "windows" reduced to arrow slits

Palace

My ballroom is fancier than your ballroom.

Castle

Um, well, the fireplace is over in the corner...and the tapestries help with the drafts.

Palace

Look at my flower garden!

Castle

Say hello to my catapult.

Palace

No, no, darling--this is the back staircase. The grand staircase can fit three ball gowns across.

Castle

Bahaha. Only one of you can squeeze through at a time. Now I can kill you all single-handedly!

Actually, fun fact: most castle stairways curve to the right, so that a person defending the castle could strike with his sword-hand, while the attacker would be forced to use his left, non-dominant hand. (Of course, this didn't work if you had two lefties going at it.) Also, castle steps were purposely made to be uneven. That way, you couldn't get into a rhythm running up the stairs--invaders would have to walk slowly or risk tripping and falling.

The History of the British Isles, Part I

Dark and High? Norman? Plantagenet? Whaaat? This next post is a brief breakdown of the English medieval period. Trust me--it will help in future posts.

The Dark Ages (and why we really shouldn't call them that)

The Dark Ages was a term invented by Petrarch in the 1330s, designating the "gap" between the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance (or more precisely, the 13oos Italian renaissance, since Petrarch didn't like to think of himself as uncultured and unenlightened). He cast the previous centuries in a poor, "dark" light so as to make the current times by comparison seem great and wonderful and advanced and sunshiny.

In the 19th century, scholars really liked this term, but boiled it down to about 475-800 or 410-1000 CE, depending on what part of Europe you were talking about. Basically, from the fall of the Roman Empire to when kingdoms started picking up again and structuring things so that there were more urban centers.

The problem is, those kingdoms were already in place under the Roman Empire. The Empire was just way too big to not have local governments keeping things in check. Those kings just owed fealty and taxes to the bigwigs in Rome. Plus, those centuries really weren't as lawless as Petrarch and his followers painted them--they just wanted to make themselves look good by comparison. So modern scholars toss out the term altogether. Instead, the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance (as in the Early Modern one in the 16th century) is divided into Early, Middle, and High Middle Ages.

Roman Britain (55 BCE--410 CE)

55 BCE: The Romans start trying to invade Britain. They don't get the knack of it until nearly 100 years later. Boudicca, a British queen (d. 61 CE), does a damn impressive job of fighting them off.

410 CE: The Roman Empire, collapsing rapidly, withdraws from Britain.

Early Middle Ages (5th-11th century)

Lots of fighting and trying to figure things out after Rome took away a lot of the continental connections and trade. Mid-way through, Alfred the Great starts some literacy programs. The Anglo-Saxons are the main ruling class.

5oo CE

Photo from www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/maps/500_kingdoms.html

700 CE

Photo from www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/EnglandMapAD700.htm

875 CE

Photo from http://britishstudies.pbworks.com/w/page/15133669/Anglo-Saxon%20Britain

900 CE

Photo from www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/EnglandMapAD900.htm

Middle Ages (the Middle of the Middle Ages, 11th-13th century)

The century dates are pretty rough. As with most everything having to do with anything, there's a lot of scholarly debate. These dates seem to be the most widely accepted.

1066: Battle of Hastings. The only date you really need to know in English history. Truly. My team won a pub trivia night with this question. Well, this date and a question about domestic cat breeds. The Battle of Hastings is important because this is the battle that started, and pretty much assured, the Norman Invasion, an event that changed the English language (and many other things) forever. Big deal. Huge.

William the Conqueror came over, defeated Harold II, and replaced nearly all of the aristocracy with French-speaking noblemen. Some argue that he introduced feudalism, but that opinion has pretty much gone by the wayside now--it was in place long before he arrived; he just made it extra-popular.

Henry II (mid-12th century): Henry and his frenemy, Archbishop Thomas Becket, have a massive, massive quarrel about Church versus State. People are exiled. Kingdom-wide interdicts are laid. Thomas loses...and in doing so, wins. Henry's halfwit knights slaughter him in Canterbury Cathedral, a move so politically stupid that you know Henry didn't plan it. Thomas is turned into one of the most popular martyrs of his time, and Henry finds himself crawling to Canterbury barefoot and receiving a ceremonial flogging. Ouch.

Canterbury Cathedral

Inside Canterbury Cathedral

Spot where Thomas Becket was hacked to pieces.

High Middle Ages

Richard the Lionheart. King John (think Robin Hood). Magna Carta. Sir Thomas Malory (author of Arthurian legends, first European to write fiction in prose). The War of the Roses.

Or, in other terms:

You can also divide the medieval period by dynastic houses.

Roman (yep, same dates as before)

Not quite the Middle Ages, but still important. Just read above.

Anglo-Saxon (500-1066)

Alfred the Great. Beowulf. Some Danish rulers thrown in the mix.

Norman (1066-1154)

William the Conqueror. Lots of French. Introduction of the motte-and-bailey castle. Domesday Book (how many sheep, cows, and acres of land do you have, so I can tax the daylights out of you?).

Plantagenet (1154-1399)

Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Henry II. Her sons, including Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland, are referred to as the "Devil's Brood." Funny considering Richard is still the most popular king in English history. And that in itself is ironic, as Richard spent less than six months of his ten-year reign in England, and the rest of the time he spent driving the country into debt for the sake of his Crusade shenanigans.

With his mother no longer there to keep him in line, King John manages to lose almost the entirety of the Angevin Empire, reducing his domain from the British Isles and the majority of France to England, part of Ireland, and a sliver of Gascony. Well done. He also polishes off what little money remained after Richard's rule, plunges the country into debt, and is forced to sign the Magna Carta, starting the monarchy down the path to "symbolic role."

Lancastrians and Yorkists (1399-1485)

Lots of back-and-forths over who gets to be king. Everyone keeps switching sides, and no one knows who is supposed to be fighting whom. Finally Henry VII comes along, combines the red and white roses, starts the reign of the Tudor house, and leaves the Middle Ages behind him.

Photo from www.chichestercathedraltrust.org.uk/events/tudor-banquet/

The Tudor Rose