Architecture. Зайцева И.В. - 45 стр.

families had to be crowded in the darkness of grim square Norman “keeps”,
fortress-homes. Now palaces and castles were built with spacious banqueting
halls illuminated by wide windows with lots of light pouring in. True, there
were still towers at each end, with cannons and shooting apertures.
         The farms and cottages of the poor were built of logs or planks, the
floors were usually bare earth and the roof made of thatch: the walls might be
made of mud and timber.

           Notes to the text:

           to pierce - пронзать
           aperture - отверстие
           beak - клюв
           taper - конусообразный
           turret - башенка
           steeple - шпиль
           pinnacle - остроконечная башенка, шпиц
           gaud - безвкусное украшение
           keep - главная башня
           thatch - солома

        4.4.1 Choose the sentences which correspond to the contents of
the text

      1)    The construction of feudal castles began mostly during the
            Norman invasion.
      2)    Medieval architecture was also churchbuilding.
      3)    The majority of the monasteries and cathedrals were built by
            Anglo-Saxon architects.
      4)    Gothic architecture was brought from Romanic countries.
      5)    Art historians usually point out four periods of English Gothic.
      6)    Palaces and castles of the English nobility had big banqueting halls
            illuminated by wide windows.
      7)    The dwellings of the poor were made of logs and planks.

       4.4.2 Increase you vocabulary. Make some sentences of you own
using the following phrases:

       to date from this period
       to be characterized by
       to be subdivided into
       to be combined with
       to become popular
       to be of great beauty (importance; complexity)