This thesis examines castles in the early Tudor period between 1485 and 1547, considering these buildings as case studies for English and Welsh daily life, rather than as purely military or symbolic structures. The four buildings and their owners investigated here are: Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire and Sir Rhys ap Thomas, Cowdray Castle, West Sussex and Sir William Fitzwilliam, Hedingham Castle, Essex and John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford, and finally, Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire and Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham. Evaluating these four sites in combination with their owners broadens the current scholarship and provides an opportunity to assess the households, spatial arrangements, organisation and display of early Tudor castles. In conjunction, this thesis applies a new methodology that incorporates an interdisciplinary approach in order to investigate and analyse a more rounded set of evidence. The innovative methodology incorporates archaeology, building remains, access analysis maps, and written records to construct a more holistic picture of the castle’s function and role in everyday life.
The first half of the thesis explores the relationship between the lord, the castle, and the regional landscape and community. It establishes that the castle cannot be examined in isolation; instead these aspects need to be incorporated into castle studies in order to provide a clearer picture. The first part forms a vital precursor to the examination of the interaction that happened within the castle itself, which forms the second part of this thesis. The spatial arrangements and the households of each of the four case studies are comparatively examined in order to determine the movement of the household, guests, and the lord through the castle. Each of the chapters reveals similarities between the sites, their layout, and the daily life that took place within them. This furnishes a rich seam of information that contributes to scholarship on the early Tudor period, bringing to the forefront of the discussion the focus on people and place.
