Medieval Warfare: A History

by Maurice Keen

Overview

This richly illustrated book explores over seven hundred years of European warfare, from the time of Charlemagne to the end of the middle ages (c.1500). The period covered has a distinctive character in military history. It was an age when organization for war was integral to social structure, when the secular aristocrat was by necessity also a warrior, and whose culture was profoundly influenced by martial ideas. Twelve scholars, experts in their own fields, have contributed to this finely illustrated book. It is divided into two parts. Part I seeks to explore the experience of war viewed chronologically with separate chapters on, for instance, the Viking age, on the wars and expansion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, on the Crusades and on the great Hundred Years War between England and France. The chapters in Part II trace thematically the principal developments in the art of warfare; in fortification and siege craft; in the role of armoured cavalrymen; in the employment of mercenary forces; the advent of gunpowder artillery; and of new skills in navigation and shipbuilding. In both parts of the book, the overall aim has been to offer the general reader an impression, not just of the where and the when of great confrontations, but above all of the social experience of warfare in the middle ages, and of the impact of its demands on human resources and human endurance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191647383
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	08/26/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
File size:	19 MB
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About the Author

Maurice Keen is Tutor in Medieval History, and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford University. He lives in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Maurice Keen
Part I: Phases of Medieval Warfare
2. Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare, Timothy Reuter
3. The Vikings, H. B. Clark
4. An Age of Expansion c.1020-1204, John Gillingham
5. Warfare in the Latin East, Peter Edbury
6. European Warfare, c.1200-1320, Norman Housely
7. The Age of the Hundred Years War, Clifford J. Rogers
Part II: The Arts of Warfare
8. Fortifications and Sieges in Western Europe, 800-1450, Richard L. C. Jones
9. Arms, Armour and Horses, Andrew Ayton
10. Mercenaries, Michael Mallett
11. Naval Warfare in the Viking Age, c.1100-1500, Felipe Fern ndez-Armesto
12. War and the Non-Combatant in the Middle Ages, Christopher Allmand
13. The Changing Scene: Guns, Gunpowder, and Permanent Armies, Maurice Keen
fc Further Reading, Chronology, Index

Editorial Reviews

"Scholarly, well constructed"—The Washington Times

From the Publisher