Bloodied Banners

Author: Robert W. Jones
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843835614
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
Groundbreaking reassessment of the role played by armour, weapons and heraldry in medieval warfare, showing their cultural as well as military significance. `A penetrating investigation of medieval martial display... The reader is struck by its originality, and by its sophisticated and critical interpretative engagement with historical and literary sources. Particularly notable is the author's subtle exploration of the function of armour: not only its practical role, but as a form of display... A refreshingly different approach to the world of the medieval combatant and his place within that "host of many colours" that was a medieval army, it adds a new dimension to our understanding of medieval warfare.' Dr ANDREW AYTON, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Hull The medieval battlefield was a place of spectacle and splendour. The fully-armed knight, bedecked in his vivid heraldic colours, mounted on his great charger, riding out beneath his brightly-painted banner, is a stock image of war and the warrior in the middle ages. Yet too often the significance of such display has been ignored or dismissed as the empty preening of a militaristic social elite. Drawing on a broad range of source material and using innovative historical approaches, this book completely re-evaluates the way that such men and their weapons were viewed, showing that martial display was a vital part of the way in which war was waged in the middle ages. It maintains that heraldry and livery served not only to advertise a warrior's family and social ties, but also announced his presence on the battlefield and right to wage war. It also considers the physiological and psychological effect of wearing armour, both on the wearer and those facing him in combat, arguing that the need for display in battle was deeper than any medieval cultural construct and was based in the fundamental biological drives of threat and warning. ROBERT W. JONES gained his PhD from Cardiff University.

Bloodied Banners

Author: Robert Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chivalry
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Book Description

Chivalry and the Ideals of Knighthood in France during the Hundred Years War

Author: Craig Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107513111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Book Description
Craig Taylor's study examines the wide-ranging French debates on the martial ideals of chivalry and knighthood during the period of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). Faced by stunning military disasters and the collapse of public order, writers and intellectuals carefully scrutinized the martial qualities expected of knights and soldiers. They questioned when knights and men-at-arms could legitimately resort to violence, the true nature of courage, the importance of mercy, and the role of books and scholarly learning in the very practical world of military men. Contributors to these discussions included some of the most famous French medieval writers, led by Jean Froissart, Geoffroi de Charny, Philippe de Mézières, Honorat Bovet, Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier and Antoine de La Sale. This interdisciplinary study sets their discussions in context, challenging modern, romantic assumptions about chivalry and investigating the historical reality of debates about knighthood and warfare in late medieval France.

Longbowman vs Crossbowman

Author: David Campbell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147281763X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 81

Book Description
For centuries, the crossbow had played a key role on the battlefields of continental Europe, with mercenaries from Genoa and Brabant in particular filling the ranks of the French army, yet on the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War they came up against a more powerful foe. To master the English longbow was a labour of years, requiring far greater skill to use than the crossbow, but it was much more flexible and formidable, striking fear into the French and their allies. This study examines three battles – Sluys (1340), Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) – and shows how the use of the longbow allowed England's armies to inflict crushing defeats on numerically superior forces. The longbow changed the shape of war, becoming the defining weapon of the age and wreaking havoc upon the French armies that would face it. Featuring full-colour artwork, this is the engrossing story of the first clashes between the English longbowmen and the crossbowmen of the French king on the bloody battlefields of the Hundred Years' War.

John of Salisbury

Author: John Hosler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004251472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
The English scholar John of Salisbury was a major intellectual of the twelfth century whose contributions to the fields of education, grammar, political theory, and rhetoric are well-known. His significance is amplified further in John of Salisbury: Military Authority of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, in which John D. Hosler examines his heretofore overlooked contributions to the ideals and practice of medieval warfare. This book surveys an array of military topics present within John’s extant corpus, including generalship, strategy, tactics, logistics, military organization, and training; it also collates John’s military lexicon and charts the influence of classical texts upon his conceptualization of war. John of Salisbury, it argues, deserves inclusion in the roll-call of military theoreticians and writers of pre-Reformation Europe.

Welsh Soldiers in the Later Middle Ages, 1282-1422

Author: Adam Chapman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783270314
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
Examines the role of Welsh soldiers in English armies, from the conquests under Edward I through to the Battle of Agincourt.

The Routledge History Handbook of Medieval Revolt

Author: Justine Firnhaber-Baker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113487894X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546

Book Description
The Routledge History Handbook of Medieval Revolt charts the history of medieval rebellion from Spain to Bohemia and from Italy to England, and includes chapters spanning the centuries between Imperial Rome and the Reformation. Drawing together an international group of leading scholars, chapters consider how uprisings worked, why they happened, whom they implicated, what they meant to contemporaries, and how we might understand them now. This collection builds upon new approaches to political history and communication, and provides new insights into revolt as integral to medieval political life. Drawing upon research from the social sciences and literary theory, the essays use revolts and their sources to explore questions of meaning and communication, identity and mobilization, the use of violence and the construction of power. The authors emphasize historical actors’ agency, but argue that access to these actors and their actions is mediated and often obscured by the texts that report them. Supported by an introduction and conclusion which survey the previous historiography of medieval revolt and envisage future directions in the field, The Routledge History Handbook of Medieval Revolt will be an essential reference for students and scholars of medieval political history.

The Household Knights of Edward III

Author: Matthew Hefferan
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783275642
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
First extended survey of the subject, looking at the knights' activities, roles, background and service.

Documenting Warfare

Author:
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1837650241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 430

Book Description
Insights from English and French writers on one of the most significant armed conflicts of the Middle Ages

Jousts, Tournaments, and War Training

Author: Margaux Baum
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1499464746
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Book Description
Throughout Europe, medieval forces were either engaged in conflict or preparing for it through training. Arising from the need to keep the skills of warriors sharp and battle-ready, medieval jousting for knights on horseback became a widespread pastime. This book details how the culture of medieval tournaments arose around jousting and other games of combat, including both for the mounted cavalry (knights) and foot soldiers (in events such as melees) and became a central aspect of medieval court life. Readers will be further drawn in by the visual pageantry and artifacts depicted in the book's historical imagery.