The Study of Castles throughout Europe: Limitations of Multi-Regional Studies

Summary

For much of Europe, castles represent a point of cultural heritage and national pride. Yet, even though the study of castles has long been of interest to scholars, few researchers have moved beyond intraregional analyses to examine interregional trends in the manifestation of these monuments. Traditional archaeological investigations examining cross-cultural differences have been hampered primarily by language barriers and differences in how researchers approach questions pertaining to the encastellation of medieval Europe. The rising use of satellite data and GIS software in archaeological research might represent one such way to get around these barriers. This paper will focus on the potential benefits of large-scale, geospatial investigations of castles, provide an example of an analytical framework from which appropriate research questions can be asked, and examine three disparate regions -Sicily, Bohemia, and Scotland- to look at the geospatial similarities and differences between castles in each of them. It will then conclude with a look at some of the difficulties in taking such a multi-regional approach in terms of computational space needed, differences between data sets between regions, and the problem of using present landscapes as a proxy for medieval ones.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Erotetics, GIS, and Data Resolution: Spatial Analysis in Archaeological Practice

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15626