‘The Chamber called <I>Gloriette’</I>: Living at Leisure in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Castles

Review of periodical literature published in 2004

“…Crook discusses the break‐up of the cross‐Channel estates following the loss of King John's Continental possessions in 1204, showing how the status of the lands held by ‘Norman’ lords in Nottinghamshire remained problematic well into the reign of Henry III. Ashbee looks at four British examples of an elite residence with a chamber called a ‘gloriette’ (three in castles and one at Canterbury cathedral priory). He argues that, rather than being a garden pavilion of Islamic origin, the term came from a marble tower described in a twelfth‐century chanson de geste and had general connotations of chivalry and opulence.…”