Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history.

We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the

crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders,

to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were

with Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval.

Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. We're currently deep into our special look at castles. If you haven't caught the previous episodes, they're waiting

for you right now. But in this episode, we're going to go back to basics and think about

castles in the role they were designed explicitly for, as fortress going to go back to basics and think about castles in the role they were

designed explicitly for, as fortresses to protect those within from their enemies.

Our focus will be Carlisle Castle, which sits in the far northwest of England, not too far from the border

with Scotland. To talk about this frontier castle and find out how it can shed light on the role

of castles at war, I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Jackson Armstrong of the University

of Aberdeen, who is the author of a book entitled England's Northern Frontier.

Welcome to God Medieval, Jackson. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to join you. So we're

going to explore Carlisle Castle. Full disclaimer, it's a castle I've never

been to. So I'm going to have to add it to my list of castles I need to go and visit. It's not one I know well

at all. So I'm looking forward to finding out more about it. How significant would you say Carlisle Castle

was at its height and maybe when was that height? It is a site that had tremendous significance because of its location in an area

that was over many centuries at the edge of Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland,

and in fact, one of the key sites in the early medieval period within a preceding kingdom,

the Kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria.

So it has a location of significance, which means that over the time there's plenty of

...