Twilight of the Medieval Castles

Volume II, entitled the Twilight of the Medieval Castles, gives details of the last period in which the architectural elements characteristic of the medieval period were used. It shows how the castles failed to make the necessary adaptation to the new fighting techniques along with the tastes of the period which also evolved at the end of the period. The incapacity to react to all these constraints was the main reason for the disappearance of the medieval castle. Finally the author evokes the often contrasting fate of some of these buildings which ended up as barracks, prisons or being destroyed.