R. Allen Brown
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Reginald Allen Brown (1924–1989) was a British medieval historian, specialising in the study of castles.
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Quotes[edit]
An Historian's Approach to the Origins of the Castle in England (1969)[edit]
- It sometimes seems to me, with a mixture of admiration and despair, that almost any question one may raise about castles has already been raised, and answered, and often definitively answered, by this remarkable woman [Ella Armitage] in her remarkable book, The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles and the main reason why the study of early castles and their origins in this country has not got very much further since her day is that she did not leave us very much further to go.
- Brown, R. Allen, "An Historian's Approach to the Origins of the Castle in England", The Archaeological Journal 126: 134, doi:
The Architecture of Castles (1984)[edit]
- Nowadays, to call anything ‘medieval’ is itself an insult, while to call it ‘feudal’ is ten times more offensive; and if castles are not seen merely as vaguely romantic ruins, they are seen through an idiot haze of bold, bad barons, deep and dismal dungeons, and boiling oil. At best their context is thought to be almost exclusively military, and that too is against them, since in our time one must be against warfare as one used to be against sin.
- Brown, R. Allen (1984), The Architecture of Castles: A Visual Guide, Batsford, p. 7
The Normans and the Norman Conquest (1985; second edition)[edit]
- Few subjects in English history have been studied more and for longer than the Norman Conquest, and few have been more bent in the process by biased interpretations based upon unhistorical prejudices.
- Brown, R. Allen (1985), The Normans and the Norman Conquest (2nd ed.), The Boydell Press, p. 1
About R. Allen Brown[edit]
- I have happy memories of the Round Room at the Public Record Office in the 1950s, with the large fire occasionally made up by one of the supervisors, Allen Brown. His students from King's College later helped us at Richard's Castle; his rather assertive style made him a natural teacher and popular with his students.
- Thompson, M. W. (1990), "Book review: Castles from the Air. By R. Allen Brown. 22 x 28 cm. vi + 246 pp., many illustrations. Cambridge: C.U.P., 1989. Price: £17.50.", Medieval Archaeology 34: 293-294
- One would like to say de mortuis nil nisi bonum, but a friend may be allowed to offer a little criticism. He was not always as receptive to new ideas as he should have been, and as an historian was not always at ease with the physical remains of the period he studied.
- Thompson, M. W. (1990), "Book review: Castles from the Air. By R. Allen Brown. 22 x 28 cm. vi + 246 pp., many illustrations. Cambridge: C.U.P., 1989. Price: £17.50.", Medieval Archaeology 34: 293-294
- R. Allen Brown might be classed as a military historian, but in the broadest possible sense. He restored military history to its place, recognizing that a state's military system is a fundamental aspect of its totality, not an isolated or unimportant sphere.
- Turner, Ralph V. (1992). "Castles, Conquest and Charters: Collected Papers. R. Allen Brown". Speculum 67 (2): 385–387. DOI:10.2307/2864390.
- Brown unashamedly proclaimed himself an "old" historian in terms of shunning trendy topics and approaches. He refused to tolerate nonsense, and he spoke his mind plainly, doubtless stepping on many toes. He must have offended archaeologists with his insistence that archaeology is a branch of history, that an archaeologist should be first a historian and only then an archaeologist
- Turner, Ralph V. (1992). "Castles, Conquest and Charters: Collected Papers. R. Allen Brown". Speculum 67 (2): 385–387. DOI:10.2307/2864390.
- Allen Brown's work encapsulates the slow drift from military to symbolic interpretation [of castles].
- Speight, Sarah (2005), "British Castle Studies in the Late 20th and 21st Centuries", History Compass 2 (1), doi:
