Danske middelalderborge (
Danish medieval castles) by Rikke Agnete Olsen (
Danish Wikipedia) is her lavishly-illustrated Danish-language historical architecture/archaeology accessibly-written survey of Exactly What It Says In The Title, done in a coffee table book sort of style with plenty of historical backgrounder and general how-they-lived sort of info (including a medieval pancake recipe!), free courtesy of Aarhus University Press.
This is their featured Danish-language Free Book of the Month selection for May. The full blurb for this says that a particular bookcrafting association chose this for one of their Year's Best selections for 2011, and it is a very nice book indeed, with plenty of beautiful colour photographs and black & white line diagrams including a nifty illustrated glossary of castle construction terms, which even non-Danish Gentle Readers who have an interest in the subject matter will be able to appreciate, and perhaps plan some sight-seeing travel trips around.
Currently free throughout the month of May directly @
the university's dedicated promo page (DRM-free PDF available worldwide), and you can view more details on the
regular catalogue page.
NB: this is nearly 40 MB for the download, so you might prefer not to do it on a mobile device if you've got dataplan/space limits.
And this has been the (late!) selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.
It had some stiff competition from the other archaeological survey that's the English-language BOTM from Aarhus University Press, especially since that was sited in Norway which is my actual favourite Scandinavian nation and statistically, more people can probably actually read that, but I figure that even with the language barrier which may or may not be resolvable via Google Translate, this one is actually more accessible and potentially enjoyable to most Gentle Readers worldwide and easier to learn nifty stuff from, and I just really like the illustrated glossary, so bonus points.
(For another nifty illustrated glossary of castle construction terms which is vaguely related, some LEGO® enthusiast folks have put together one that depicts various parts of castle construction using LEGO® bricks. Alas, they never got past the letter G, but what they have so far is very cute and fun indeed, if you want to go have a look:
A-B,
C-G)
Enjoy!
Beskrivelse på dansk
Siden dette værk udkom første gang i begyndelsen af 1980'erne, er interessen for middelalderen vokset, og her kommer borgene ind i billedet.
De var rammen om kongers og stormænds hverdag, fra dem blev riget regeret og administreret, og fra dem blev freden sikret i landet. Borgene var også store gårde og langt op i tiden i vid udstrækning selvforsynende med mange af dagligdagens fornødenheder.
Hver eneste borg var en verden i sig selv med mange sociale lag, den var et spejl af det samfund, den hørte til i. Derfor er det i høj grad gennem borgene og livet på dem, at man kan lære middelalderens samfund at kende både i krig og i fred.
Langt de fleste af Danmarks middelalderborge er nu forsvundet; enten er de ombygget til ukendelighed gennem århundrederne, eller også ligger de hen som mere eller mindre synlige ruiner eller voldsteder i landskabet.
Danske Middelalderborge er den eneste samlede oversigt over de anlæg, man kender fra det middelalderlige Danmark. Her berettes om, hvem der byggede borgene, hvornår de gjorde det, og hvorfor det skete. Gennem de seneste årtier er flere steder blevet undersøgt, enkelte nye anlæg er blevet fundet, og gamle udgravninger er blevet genåbnet, så man har fået ny viden på flere områder.
Det er alt sammen inddraget i denne stærkt reviderede, tredje udgave. Ny viden såvel som nye tider er baggrunden for et helt nyt layout med understregning af vigtige problemstillinger og henvisning til væsentlig litteratur, så man nemt kan komme videre ind i de forskellige emner, der drages frem i bogen.