The studies in this book examine and illuminate the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman military institutions that supported and shaped the conduct of war in northwestern Europe in the central middle ages. Taken together they challenge received opinion on a number of issues and force a profound reconsideration of the manner in which the Normans and their adversaries, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Angevins and the Welsh, prepared for and waged war.Contributors: RICHARD ABELS, BERNARD BACHRACH, KELLY DEVRIES, JOHN FRANCE, C.M. GILLMOR, ROBERT HELMERICHS, NIELS LUND, STEPHEN MORILLO, MICHAEL PRESTWICH, FREDERICK SUPPE.Contents RICHARD ABELS, From Alfred to Harold II: The Military Failure of the Late Anglo-Saxon State; BERNARD S. BACHRACH, William Rufus's Plan for the Invasion of Aquitaine; KELLY DEVRIES, Harold Godwinson in Wales: Military Legitimacy in Late Anglo-Saxon England; JOHN FRANCE, The Normans and Crusading; C.M. GILLMORE, Aimoin's Miracula Sancti Germani and the Viking Raids on St Denis and St Germain-des-PrA(c)s; ROB HELMERICHS, 'Ad tutandos patriae fines': The Defense of Normandy, 1135; NILS LUND, Expedicio in Denmark; STEPHEN MORILLO, Milites, Knights and Samurai: Military Terminology, Comparative History, and the Problem of Translation; MICHAEL PRESTWICH, The Garrisoning of English Medieval Castles; FREDERICK SUPPE, The Persistance of Castle-Guard in the Welsh Marches and Wales: Suggestions for a Research Agenda and Methodology.

The essays in this volume derive in the main, though not exclusively, from the 13th annual conference held in Houston in November 1994. Written by an international group of scholars, they centre on the history of England and its neighbours during the Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Anglo-Norman and Angevin periods. Of particular interest is a wide-ranging and well-illustrated article on medieval bridges; other topics include the Anglo-Norman patrons of Bury St Edmunds, Anglo-Welsh relations before 1066, the legal status of the Britons in seventh-century Wessex, and the Hundred Rolls. There is also a particular focus on the roles played by women, with articles on Henry I's queen Adeliza of Louvain, and the Anglo-Norman countesses of Chester.Dr C.P. LEWIS teaches in the Department of History at the University of Liverpool; Dr EMMA COWNIE teaches in the Department of History, King's College, London. Contents and Contributors: EMMA COWNIE, NICHOLAS BROOKS, LOUIS M. ALEXANDER, JOHNR.E. BLIESE, FREDERICK C. SUPPE, W. SCOTT JESSEE, H.B. TEUNIS, JULIE POTTER, LAURA WERTHEIMER, SUSAN JOHNS, R.H. HELMHOLZ, S.F.C. MILSOM, DAVID ROFFE.

A comparison of the opposed military systems along the English/Welsh border - Anglo-Norman and Celtic - in the 12th century. Between 1066 and 1282 two quite different societies were juxtaposedalong the Welsh Marches: a feudally-based Anglo-Norman one, and aCeltic Welsh one. It has been conventional to consider the formerto have been more sophisticated and developed than the latter but, in fact, the situation was more complex, and during more than two centuries of attacks and campaigns each society borrowed from the other. This book is the first comparative study of the twomilitary systems. It considers issues pertinent to the entire border region, and, indeed, to other medieval marches. Specific topics examined include: the nature of Welsh military service, Welsh tactics and the English response, the development and functioning of Clun (a representative border castlery), the local command in Shropshire and the so-called "wardens" of the March, and the extent to which Welsh military customs influenced those of the Marches and of England. FREDERICK SUPPE is Professor of History at Ball State University.

The latest collection of articles on Anglo-Norman topics, with a particular focus on Wales. The 2007 conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, the thirtieth in the annual series, was held in Wales, and there is a Welsh flavour to the proceedings now published. Five of the thirteen papers cover Welsh topics in the long twelfthcentury: Church reform, political culture, the supposed resurgence of Powys as a political entity, and interpreter families in the Marches, besides a broad and compelling historiographical survey of the place of the Normans in Welsh history. Twelfth-century England is represented by papers on chivalry and kingship [in literature and life], the Evesham surveys, lay charters, and Henry of Blois and the arts. Essays which focus on the southern Italian city ofTrani and on the crusader history of Ralph of Caen explore wider Norman identities. Finally, there are two broad surveys contextualizing the Anglo-Norman experience: on the careers of the clergy and on how warriors were identified before heraldry. CONTRIBUTORS: HUW PRYCE, LAURA ASHE, JULIA BARROW, HOWARD B. CLARKE, JOHN REUBEN DAVIES, JUDITH EVERARD, NATASHA HODGSON, CHARLES INSLEY, ROBERT JONES, PAUL OLDFIELD, DAVID STEPHENSON, FREDERICK SUPPE,JEFFREY WEST.