Author Archives: DRM_peter

Call for Papers: De Re Militari sessions at 2020 International Congress of Medieval Studies

De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History is sponsoring five sessions for the 2020 International Congress of Medieval Studies, May 7-10, 2020, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (aka the ‘Zoo) Continue reading

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New Evidence for the Teutonic Order’s Bavarian Origins: Fragments Found

This brief article publicizes four little-known sources relevant to the history of the Teutonic Order’s first Grand Master, Heinrich Walpott von Bassenheim, for the purpose of notifying specialists and promoting further research. Continue reading

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Ayyubids, Mamluks, and the Latin East in the Thirteenth Century

Ayyubids, Mamluks, and the Latin East in the Thirteenth Century By R. Stephen Humphreys Mamluk Studies Review, Vol.2 (1990) We thank Mamluk Studies Review for their permission to republish this article. This journal published by the Middle East Documentation Center devoted to the … Continue reading

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Rotting Ships and Razed Harbors: The Naval Policy of the Mamluks

Rotting Ships and Razed Harbors: The Naval Policy of the Mamluks By Albrecht Fuess Mamluk Studies Review, Vol.5 (2001) We thank Mamluk Studies Review for permission to republish this article. This refereed journal published by the Middle East Documentation Center … Continue reading

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Pre-order: Military Communities in Late Medieval England Essays in Honour of Andrew Ayton

Military Communities in Late Medieval England Essays in Honour of Andrew Ayton edited by Gary P. Baker, Craig L. Lambert and David Simpkin From warhorses to the men-at-arms who rode them; armies that were raised to the lords who recruited, … Continue reading

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Observations upon a Scene in the Bayeux Tapestry, the Battle of Hastings and the Military System of the Late Anglo-Saxon State

Observations upon a Scene in the Bayeux Tapestry, the Battle of Hastings and the Military System of the Late Anglo-Saxon State By M. K. Lawson The Medieval State: Essays Presented to James Campbell (2000) If a relative plethora of sources … Continue reading

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Guns and Government: A Comparative Study of Europe and Japan

What role does technological innovation play in shaping histori–cal change in the premodern world? In general terms, this is the problem I address in this article. Specifically, I analyze the “military revolution” that emerged from Europe in the sixteenth century and the similar military changes that characterized sixteenth-century Japan. Continue reading

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The French Chronicle of London on the Battle of Sluys and the Siege of Tournai

The French Chronicle of London, detailing events from 1259 to 1343, provides one of the best accounts of the naval battle of Sluys, and the siege of Tournai by Edward III in 1340. Continue reading

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‘Mount the War-Horses, Take your Lance in your Grip . . .’ Logistics Preparations for the Gascon Campaign of 1294

In June of 1294 Edward I decided to embark on the most ambitious and desperate campaign of his reign – the recovery of the Gascon lands seized by Philip IV, king of France. Continue reading

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‘The Lord put His people to the sword’: Contemporary perceptions of the Battle of Hattin (1187)

This study will seek to argue that such categories were of secondary importance to both Christian and Muslim contemporaries who either fought in the battle or lived through the summer of 1187 when compared with religious explanations. Continue reading

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Warfare Between England and Scotland, 1299 – 1301, according to Documents from the English Government

In the following section, one can see the preparations and actions that the Edward I and his forces undertook in their ongoing war with Scotland at the turn of the fourteenth-century. Continue reading

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Warfare between England and Scotland in the late 13th and early 14th centuries from the Chronicle of Lanercost

The Chronicle of Lanercost covers the period 1201 to 1346. The sections given below involve the ongoing warfare in Scotland between Edward the Second and Robert the Bruce Continue reading

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Warfare between England and Scotland in the late 13th and early 14th centuries from the Scalacronica

In 1355, Sir Thomas Gray of Heton, warden of Norham Castle, was captured during warfare with Scotland. While being held at Edinburgh Castle, Thomas began writing the Scalacronica, a history of England up to the reign of Edward the Third, with the work ending in 1362. Continue reading

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The Battle of the Bannockburn in 1314, according to the Vita Edwardi Secundi

The anonymous author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi provides one of the best accounts of the reign of Edward II. This includes his description of the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, where the Scots under Robert Bruce defeated Edward and his army. Continue reading

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The Siege of Florence in 1312, according to Giovanni Villani

One episode in the continuous warfare between the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy and the Italian city-states was the siege of Florence by the forces of Emperor Henry VII in 1312. This account of the siege was recorded by the Florentine historian Giovanni Villani (d.1348) Continue reading

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Naval Contract by the Papacy against the Turks (1334)

The Aegean Sea became a new theatre of warfare between Crusaders and the Turks in the early fourteenth-century. In the following document, the papal camera contracts four fully equipped galleys for service in the first naval league against the Turks. The contract is dated March 7, 1334. Continue reading

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Descriptions of warfare in The Rhyme Chronicle of Livonia

The Rhyme Chronicle of Livonia (Liulandische Reimchronik) is an account of the activities of the Teutonic Order . It was written around the end of the thirteenth century, and consists of 12017 lines of rhyming couplets written in Middle High German. It is the only major source of Baltic history for the years 1225 to 1290, since the only other chronicle, the one by Henry of Livonia, covers the period 1143 to 1225. Continue reading

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The Battle of Stillfried, 1278, from the Gesta Hungarorum

The Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, was written by Simon of Keza around 1280-2. Simon was a court cleric to King Ladislas IV of Hungary, and his work is highly laudatory of his king. In the following section, the writer describes the battle of Stillfield, in which the forces of Ladislas and Rudolf of Habsburg, the German king, defeated King Otakar of Bohemia. The battle was fought on August 26, 1278. Continue reading

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Military Organisation in the Guta Saga

The Guta Saga is a short chronicle, written sometime between 1220 and 1275, which details the history of Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. One of the last sections in this saga describes the arrangements made regarding what obligations did Gotlanders have in providing ships and men for the military campaigns of the Swedish kings. Continue reading

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Warfare in Thirteenth Century Iceland

The collapse of Iceland as a self-governing country in the mid-thirteenth century is highlighted by several conflicts between various powerful chieftains. The various sagas and histories that make up the Sturlunga Sagas were written soon after the events they record, and their descriptions of some of the battles that took place on the island are among the most interesting medieval accounts of warfare. Continue reading

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Warfare between Bologna and Faenza in 1275

Salimbene de Adam, a Franciscan, produced his Chronicle in the 1280s. He left one of the most interesting and wide-ranging histories of the Middle Ages, in which he covers a variety of matters, from the political maneuvers of the Italian city-states to the practical jokes that his fellow monks played upon each other. Continue reading

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The surrender of Gaston Castle (1268), according The Catalan Rule of the Templars

The following is clause 180 of this text, which describes the surrender of a Templar castle after the fall of Antioch in 1268. It was against the Order’s rule for members to abandon their castles without permission, with a punishment of expulsion from the Templars to those who transgressed. Continue reading

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Muslim accounts on warfare in al-Andalus (Spain)

The second account describes the death of Sancho Ramirez, son of the Aragonese king Ramiro I, while at the siege of Huesca in 1094 (Christian accounts have Sancho Ramirez being killed by an arrow while at the siege). The third section details how James I invaded and captured the island of Majorca in 1231 Continue reading

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Three sources on the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212

One of the most important battles fought on the Iberian peninsula, this was the culmination of a major campaign by Alfonso VIII of Castile against the Almohads. The battle took place on July 16, 1212. The first account comes from … Continue reading

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Charles D. Stanton, Norman naval operations in the Mediterranean (Rodriguez)

In the last years there have been an increasing number of works about medieval naval warfare that try to fill a huge gap in the study of medieval military. The present volume is a welcome addition to this trend although it does not completely fit in it. Continue reading

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JMMH vol. 12 (2014)

Journal of Medieval Military History Volume 12 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, … Continue reading

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