ABSTRACT
Fortification was invented to preserve mens habitations, and the Suburbs of Corporations, and not for to burne, or pull them downe, as many of our Enginiers have done in these dayes, to their shame and guilt of consciences. The discourse on England as fortified with people rather than walls challenged the military urbanism that swept through Europe in the sixteenth century. In doing so, the discourse challenged militarization’s implications for the organization of community, for the relations between constituencies, and for the relations between individual citizens and a central power. From the bottom of Hell to the heights of Heaven and all the created and “uncreated” worlds in between, walls mark the boundaries of God’s domains and also compartmentalize them. Walls would scarcely seem so necessary given that John Milton’s God is omniscient and all-powerful, but the really odd thing about these walls is that they do not keep the inhabitants of God’s empire in or out.
