In 1095 the First Crusade was launched, establishing a great military endeavour which was a central preoccupation of Europeans until the end of the thirteenth century. In Western warfare in the age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 John France offers a wide-ranging and challenging survey of war and warfare and its place in the development of European Society, culture and economy in the period of the Crusades. Placing the crusades in a wider context, this book brings together the wealth of recent scholarly research on such issues as knighthood, siege warfare, chivalry and fortifications into an accessible form. Western warfare in the age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 examines the nature of war in the period 1000-1300 and argues that it was primarily shaped by the people who conducted war - the landowners. John France illuminates the role of property concerns in producing the characteristic instruments of war: the castle and the knight. This authoritative study details the way in which war was fought and the reasons for it as well as reflecting on the society which produced the crusades.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Highlights "the range and richness of scholarship on medieval warfare, military institutions, and cultures of conflict that characterize the field". History 95 (2010) Warfare on the periphery of Europe and across cultural boundaries is a particular focus of this volume. One article, on Castilian seapower, treats the melding of northern and southern naval traditions; another clarifies the military roles of the Ayyubid and Mamluk miners and stoneworkers in siege warfare; a third emphasizes cultural considerations in an Icelandic conflict; a fourth looks at how an Iberian prelate navigated the line between ecclesiastical and military responsibilities; and a fifth analyzes the different roles of early gunpowder weapons in Europe and China, linking technological history with the significance of human geography. Further contributions also consider technology, two dealing with fifteenth-century English artillery and the third with prefabricated mechanical artillery during the Crusades. Another theme of the volume is source criticism, with re-examinations of the sources for Owain Glyndwr's (possible) victory at Hyddgen in 1401, a (possible) Danish attack on England in 1128, and the role of non-milites in Salian warfare. Contributors: Nicolas Agrait, Tonio Andrade, David Bachrach, Oren Falk, Devin Fields, Michael S. Fulton, Thomas K. Heeboll-Holm, Rabei G. Khamisy, Michael Livingstone, Dan Spencer, L.J. Andrew Villalon

This is a major new study of the ideas and practices involved in the making and breaking of peace treaties and truces from Classical Greece to the time of the Crusades. Leading specialists on war and peace in ancient and medieval history examine the creation of peace agreements, and explore the extent to which their terms could be manipulated to serve the interests of one side at the other's expense. The chapters discuss a wide range of uses to which treaties and other peace agreements were put by rulers and military commanders in pursuit of both individual and collective political aims. The book also considers the wider implications of these issues for our understanding of the nature of war and peace in the ancient and medieval periods. This broad-ranging account includes chapters on ancient Persia, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, Anglo-Saxon England and the Vikings.

This volume brings together a series of articles by John France, published over a span of more than forty years, covering a number of aspects of the military and crusading history of the Middle Ages, both in Europe and the Near East. An interest in understanding how war worked and why informs a first group of articles, ranging from Carolingian armies to the organisation of war in the 13th century. The focus then turns to the Crusades, the most ambitious conquests of the era, with a set of studies on the First Crusade and others on the manner and conduct of warfare in the territories of the Latin East. The volume also includes a major unpublished analysis, co-authored with Nicholas Morton, of the problems faced by the local Islamic powers in the early Crusading period, reminding us that an army is only as strong as its enemies permit, and suggesting that the crusaders should be seen in this light.

"The leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare." Medieval Warfare The twenty-first volume of the Journal of Medieval Military History begins with three studies examining aspects of warfare in the Latin East: an archaeological report on the defenses of Jerusalem by Shimon Gibson and Rafael Y. Lewis; a study of how military victories and defeats (viewed through the lens of carefully shaped reporting) affected the reputation, and the flow of funds and recruits to, the Military Orders, by Nicolas Morton; and an exploration of how the Kingdom of Jerusalem quickly recovered its military strength after the disaster of Hattin by Stephen Donnachie. Turning to the other side of the Mediterranean, Donald J. Kagay analyzes how Jaime I of Aragon worked to control violence within his realms by limiting both castle construction and the use of mechanical artillery. Guilhem Pépin also addresses the limitation of violence, using new documents to show that the Black Prince's sack of Limoges in 1370 was not the unrestrained bloodbath described by Froissart. The remaining three contributions deal with aspects of open battle. Michael John Harbinson offers a large-scale study of when and why late-medieval men-at-arms chose to dismount and fight on foot instead of acting tactically as cavalry. Laurence W. Marvin reconsiders the Battle of Bouvines, concluding that it was far from being a ritualized mass duel. Finally, Michael Livingston elucidates some principles for understanding medieval battles in general, and the battle of Agincourt in particular.

"The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom" is a fascinating and accessible survey that places the medieval Crusades in their European context, and examines, for the first time, their impact on European expansion.
Taking a unique approach that focuses on the motivation behind the crusades, John France chronologically examines the whole crusading movement, from the development of a 'crusading impulse' in the eleventh century through to an examination of the relationship between the Crusades and the imperialist imperatives of the early modern period.
France provides a detailed examination of the first Crusade, the expansion and climax of crusading during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the failure and fragmentation of such practices in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Concluding with an assessment of the influence of the Crusades across history and replete with illustrations, maps, timelines, guides for further reading, and a detailed list of rulers across Europe and the Muslim world, this study provides students with an essential guide to a central aspect of medieval history.

"The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom" is a fascinating and accessible survey that places the medieval Crusades in their European context, and examines, for the first time, their impact on European expansion.
Taking a unique approach that focuses on the motivation behind the crusades, John France chronologically examines the whole crusading movement, from the development of a 'crusading impulse' in the eleventh century through to an examination of the relationship between the Crusades and the imperialist imperatives of the early modern period.
France provides a detailed examination of the first Crusade, the expansion and climax of crusading during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the failure and fragmentation of such practices in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Concluding with an assessment of the influence of the Crusades across history and replete with illustrations, maps, timelines, guides for further reading, and a detailed list of rulers across Europe and the Muslim world, this study provides students with an essential guide to a central aspect of medieval history.

From the author of Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade, this book offers a wide-ranging and innovative survey of crusading warfare, and is intended as a standard reference for students and professional historians

In 1095 the First Crusade was launched, establishing a great military endeavour which was a central preoccupation of Europeans until the end of the thirteenth century. In Western warfare in the age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 John France offers a wide-ranging and challenging survey of war and warfare and its place in the development of European Society, culture and economy in the period of the Crusades. Placing the crusades in a wider context, this book brings together the wealth of recent scholarly research on such issues as knighthood, siege warfare, chivalry and fortifications into an accessible form. Western warfare in the age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 examines the nature of war in the period 1000-1300 and argues that it was primarily shaped by the people who conducted war - the landowners. John France illuminates the role of property concerns in producing the characteristic instruments of war: the castle and the knight. This authoritative study details the way in which war was fought and the reasons for it as well as reflecting on the society which produced the crusades.

"The leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare." Medieval Warfare The essays in this volume of the Journal continue its proud tradition of presenting cutting-edge research with a wide chronological and geographical range, from eleventh-century Georgia (David IV's use of the methods described in De velitatione bellica) to fifteenth-century England and France (a detailed analysis of the use of the under-appreciated lancegay and similar weapons). Iberia and the Empire are also addressed, with a study of Aragonese leaders in the War of the Two Pedros, a discussion of Prince Ferdinand's battle-seeking strategy prior to the battle of Toro in 1476, and an analysis and transcription of a newly-discovered Habsburg battle plan of the early sixteenth century, drawn up for the war against Venice. The volume also embraces different approaches, from cultural-intellectual history (the afterlife of the medieval Christian Warrior), to experimental archaeology (the mechanics of raising trebuchets), to comparison of "the face of battle" in a medieval illuminated manuscript with its depiction in modern films, to archivally-based administrative history (recruitment among the sub-gentry for Edward I's armies). Contributors: David S. Bachrach, Daniel Bertrand, Peter Burkholder, Ekaitz Etxeberria Gallastegi, Michael John Harbinson, Steven Isaac, Donald J. Kagay, Tomaz Lazar, Mamuka Tsurtsumia

The monk Rodulfus Glaber is best known for his Five Books of Histories, a major source for events in the first half of the eleventh century, and valuable above all for revealing the mental furniture of an eleventh-century monk - for his account of the millennium, of relics genuine and false, of church-building, and visions of saints and demons. This edition, the first since 1866, presents the only critical text of the Histories, accompanied by a complete translation and a full historical commentary. Glaber also wrote a Life of his mentor, St William of Dijon, the renowned monastic reformer. The Life is reprinted after the Histories, again with translation and notes. The evidence for Glaber's life, and the value of his work are discussed in a Historical Introduction.

The leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Medieval Warfare The articles here focus on activities in north-western Europe, with a reconsideration of the location of the battle of Stamford Bridge (1066), an examination of the role of open battles in the civil wars of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings, a re-assessment of the strategy of Edward I's war against Philip IV in 1297-98, and an analysis of the role of cavalry "coureurs" in late-medieval France. But regions further to the south and east are by no means neglected, with a dissection of the military rhetoric of Pere III of Aragon and his queen, Elionor of Sicily, and a discussion of the earliest European gunpowder recipes, from Friuli (1336) and Augsburg (1338- c. 1350). The volume also offers studies of the campaigns culminating in the battles of Firad in 634 and Qinnasrin in 1134.

The study of medieval warfare has developed enormously in recent years. The figure of the armoured mounted knight, who was believed to have materialized in Carolingian times, long dominated all discussion of the subject. It is now understood that the knight emerged over a long period of time and that he was never alone on the field of conflict. Infantry, at all times, played a substantial role in conflict, and the notion that they were in some way invented only in the fourteenth century is no longer sustainable. Moreover, modern writers have examined campaigns which for long seemed pointless because they did not lead to spectacular events like battles. As a result, we now understand the pattern of medieval war which often did not depend on battle but on exerting pressure on the opponent by economic warfare. This pattern was intensified by the existence of castles, and careful study has revealed much about their development and the evolving means of attacking them. Crusading warfare pitted westerners against a novel style of war and affords an opportunity to assess the military effectiveness of European methods. New areas of study are now developing. The logistics of medieval armies was always badly neglected, while until very recently there was a silence on the victims of war. Assembled in this volume are 31 papers which represent milestones in the development of the new ideas about medieval warfare, set in context by an introductory essay.

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.

This volume is concerned with the sources for the study of the Crusades, conceived in terms of the records of their history and of their enemies, the motives that inspired them, and the monuments which they left behind. Some of the studies analyze particular historical sources, both written and visual, for the events of the Crusades and the history of the Crusader states. Others look more broadly at the impact of the Crusading movement in the West, its origins and its propaganda, from the first Crusade to the time of Erasmus.

Highlights "the range and richness of scholarship on medieval warfare, military institutions, and cultures of conflict that characterize the field". History 95 (2010) The latest collection of the most up-to-date research on matters of medieval military history contains a remarkable geographical range, extending from Spain and Britain to the southern steppe lands, by way of Scandinavia, Byzantium, and the Crusader States. At one end of the timescale is a study of population in the later Roman Empire and at the other the Hundred Years War, touching on every century in between. Topics include the hardware of war, the social origins of soldiers, considerations of individual battles, and words for weapons in Old Norse literature. Contributors: Bernard S. Bachrach, Gary Baker, Michael Ehrlich, Nicholas A. Gribit, Nicolaos S. Kanellopoulos,Mollie M. Madden, Kenneth J. McMullen, Craig M. Nakashian, Mamuka Tsurtsumia, Andrew L.J. Villalon

The Journal of Medieval Military History continues to consolidate its now assured position as the leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Medieval Warfare The articles here offer a wide range of approaches to medieval warfare. They include traditional studies of strategy (on Baybars) and the logistics of Edward II's wars, as well as cultural history (an examination of chivalry in Guy of Warwick) intellectual history (a broad analysis of strategic theory in the Middle Ages), and social history (on knightly training in arms). The Hundred Years War is studied using cutting-edge methodology (data-drivenanalysis of skirmishes) and by tackling relatively new areas of inquiry (environmental history). There is also a close reading of Carolingian documents, which sheds new light on armies and warfare in the time of Charles the Great. Contributors: Ronald W. Braasch III, Pierre Galle, Walter Goffart, Carl I. Hammer, John Hosler, Rabei G. Khamisy, Ilana Krug, Danny Lake-Giguere, Brian Price.

The Journal of Medieval Military History continues to consolidate its now assured position as the leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Medieval Warfare This volume has a special focus on the topic of proxy actors and irregular forces in medieval warfare. John France and Jochen G. Schenk offer broad overviews: France addresses the military role of non-noble combatants and the significance of differences between medieval and modern ideas of the "legitimacy" of war-fighters, while Schenk applies a concept originating in political science - Mary Kaldor's idea of "New Wars" - to the conflicts of the Middle Ages, showing that in some ways, what is old is new again. Alex Mallett likewise ties the past to the present, comparing Muslim responses to the Crusades with modern responses to the Western-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Michael Lower and Mike Carr, meanwhile, examine important groups of foreign fighters employed by North African states and Byzantium. In addition, the volume encompasses a study of Anglo-Norman siege engines (by Michael Fulton), three pieces on war and politics in fourteenth-century Iberia (by Douglas Biggs, Donald Kagay, and L.J. Andrew Villalon), and David Green's magisterial survey of imperial policy and military practice in the Plantagenet dominions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Contributors: Douglas Biggs, Mike Carr, Michael S. Fulton, David Green, Donald Kagay, Michael Lower, Alex Mallett, Jochen Schenk, Andrew Villalon

This is a major study of the ideas and practices involved in the making and breaking of peace treaties and truces from Classical Greece to the time of the Crusades. Leading specialists on war and peace in ancient and medieval history examine the creation of peace agreements, and explore the extent to which their terms could be manipulated to serve the interests of one side at the other's expense. The chapters discuss a wide range of uses to which treaties and other peace agreements were put by rulers and military commanders in pursuit of both individual and collective political aims. The book also considers the wider implications of these issues for our understanding of the nature of war and peace in the ancient and medieval periods. This broad-ranging account includes chapters on ancient Persia, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, Anglo-Saxon England and the Vikings.

Essays on strategic thinking and practice in medieval warfare. This special edition of the Journal aims to respond to the lively debate in recent years as to whether medieval military history was characterized by particular types of strategy, be it Grand, Vegetian or Battle-Seeking. Itbrings together many of the pre-eminent military historians active today to examine a number of cases that display the complexity and diversity of strategic realities, as well as exploring new models and methodological avenues inevaluating medieval strategies. Material ranges chronologically from the late Roman Empire to the late Middle Ages, and geographically from the Baltic and the British Isles to Iberia and the Crusader States, while the topics explored include the Viking Wars, the English long bow, and the economies of conquest. LEIF INGE REE PETERSEN is Associate Professor of Late Antique and Early Medieval History at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim; MANUEL ROJAS GABRIEL is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Extremadura, Caceres. Contributors: Richard Abels, Bernard S. Bachrach, Matthew Bennett, John France, Luis Garcia-Guijarro Ramos, John Gillingham, Dolores Oliva Garcia, Leif Inge Ree Petersen, Manuel Rojas Gabriel.

Latest volume in the leading forum for debate on aspects of medieval warfare. The tenth anniversary of the Journal includes pieces by some of the most distinguished scholars of military history, including an analysis of tenth-century Ottonian warfare on the eastern frontier of the Empire by David andBernard Bachrach. As ever, the contributions cover a wide span both chronologically (from an analysis of the careers of Justinian's generals in the sixth century, to a study of intelligence-gathering in the Guelders War at the start of the sixteenth) and geographically (from Michael Prestwich's transcription of excerpts from the Hagnaby chronicle describing Edward I's wars in Wales, to a detailed treatment of the Ottoman-Hungarian campaigns of 1442). Other papers address the battle of Rio Salado (1340); the nature of chivalric warfare as presented in the contemporary biography of "le bon duc" Louis de Bourbon (1337-1410); and the military content of the Lay of the Cid. Contributors: David Alan Parnell, Bernard S. Bachrach, David Bachrach, Francisco García Fitz, Nicolás Agrait, Steven Muhlberger, John J. Jefferson, James P. Ward, Michael Prestwich

A collection which highlights "the range and richness of scholarship on medieval warfare, military institutions, and cultures of conflict that characterize the field". History 95 [2010] The journal's hallmark of a broad chronological, geographic, and thematic coverage of the subject is underlined in this volume. It begins with an examination of the brief but fascinating career of an armed league of (mostly) commoners who fought to suppress mercenary bands and to impose a reign of peace in southern France in 1182-1184. This is followed by a thorough re-examination of Matilda of Tuscany's defeat of Henry IV in 1090-97. Two pieces on Hispanic topics - a substantial analysis of the remarkable military career of Jaime I "the Conqueror" of Aragon (r. 1208-1276), and a case study of the campaigns of a single Spanish king, Enrique II of Castile (r. 1366-79), contributingto the active debate over the role of open battle in medieval strategy - come next. Shorter essays deal with the size of the Mongol armies that threatened Europe in the mid-thirteenth century, and with a surprising literary description, dating to 1210-1220, of a knight employing the advanced surgical technique of thoracentesis. Further contributions correct the common misunderstanding of the nature of deeds of arms a outrance in the fifteenth century, and dissect the relevance of the "infantry revolution" and "artillery revolution" to the French successes at the end of the Hundred Years War. The final note explores what etymology can reveal about the origins of the trebuchet. Clifford Rogers is Professor of History, West Point Military Academy; Kelly DeVries is Professor of History, Loyola College, Maryland; John France is Professor of History at the University of Swansea. Contributors: John France, Valerie Eads, Don Kagay, Carl Sverdrup, Jolyon T. Hughes, L. J. Andrew Villalon, Will McLean, Anne Curry, Will Sayers

The success of the First Crusade, and its capture of Jerusalem in 1099, has been conventionally explained in terms of its ideological and political motivation. This book looks at the First Crusade primarily as a military campaign and asks why it was so successful. Modern writing about the crusade has tended to emphasise the moral dimension and the development of the idea of the crusade, but its fate was ultimately decided on the field of battle. Victory in the East looks at the nature of war at the end of the eleventh century and the military experience of all the contending parties in order to explain its extraordinary success. It is the first such examination, taking into account all other factors but emphasising the military.