Tag Archives: 11C

Historical Invasions/Historiographical Inventions: Snorri Sturluson and the Battle of Stamford Bridge

Historical Invasions/Historiographical Inventions: Snorri Sturluson and the Battle of Stamford Bridge By Elizabeth Ashman Rowe Medievalia: A Journal of Medieval Studies, Vol. 17 (1994)  

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Killing or Clemency? Ransom, Chivalry and Changing Attitudes to Defeated Opponents in Britain and Northern France, 7-12th centuries

Killing or Clemency? Ransom, Chivalry and Changing Attitudes to Defeated Opponents in Britain and Northern France, 7-12th centuries Matthew J. Strickland Krieg im Mittelalter (2001) On 25 September, 1066, the forces of King Harold II of England fell upon the … Continue reading

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The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years’ War

The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years’ War Clifford J. Rogers The Journal of Military History: v.57 (1993) The Military Revolution The concept of the “military revolution” first entered the historical literature with Michael Roberts’s famous inaugural lecture, “The Military … Continue reading

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The recruitment of armies in the early middle ages: what can we know?

The recruitment of armies in the early middle ages: what can we know? Timothy Reuter Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD 1-1300 (Copenhagen, 1997) Abstract The study of medieval warfare has probably both benefitted and suffered from … Continue reading

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English Refugees in the Byzantine Armed Forces: The Varangian Guard and Anglo-Saxon Ethnic Consciousness

English Refugees in the Byzantine Armed Forces: The Varangian Guard and Anglo-Saxon Ethnic Consciousness Nicholas C.J. Pappas (Sam Houston State University, 2004) One of the most interesting episodes in Byzantine military history and in medieval English history is the Anglo-Saxon … Continue reading

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Byzantines, Avars and the Introduction of the Trebuchet

Byzantines, Avars and the Introduction of the Trebuchet Stephen McCotter The Queen’s University of Belfast (2003) While there has been much debate over when the traction trebuchet appeared in the west and the extent to which it replaced late-antique torsion … Continue reading

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The Crusading Motivation of the Italian City Republics in the Latin East, c. 1096-1104

The Crusading Motivation of the Italian City Republics in the Latin East, c. 1096-1104 Christopher J. Marshall Rivista di Bizantinistica v.1 (1991) Throughout the 200 years of its existence, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was heavily reliant upon the Italian city … Continue reading

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The Rouen Riot and Conan’s Leap

The Rouen Riot and Conan’s Leap Warren Hollister Peritia: v. 10 (1996) In the course of the eleventh century, and more commonly in the twelfth, many of the growing towns of Western Europe were disrupted by communal riots. The objective … Continue reading

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Militia and Malitia: The Bernardine Vision of Chivalry

Militia and Malitia: The Bernardine Vision of Chivalry Areyh Grabois The Second Crusade and the Cistercians: New York (1992) In his treatise, De laude novae militiae,l Bernard of Clairvaux distinguished between the Templars and the entire secular knighthood. The first … Continue reading

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The Career of Robert Guiscard, according to the Annales Lupi Protospatharii

Robert Guiscard was one of several brothers who came to Italy from Normandy to work as mercenaries and gain their fortune. After arriving in Italy in 1046, he served in several campaigns before taking the place of his brother Humphrey … Continue reading

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Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade

Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade John France  Reading Medieval Studies: v.10 (1984) Abstract By her own account Anna Comnena began to write the Alexiad shortly after the death of her husband, Nicephoros Bryennios, in 1137. He had … Continue reading

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Pagan Peverel: An Anglo-Norman Crusader

Pagan Peverel: An Anglo-Norman Crusader Susan Edgington Crusade and Settlement: Papers read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East and presented to R.C. Smail (1985) Thousands of men participated in the … Continue reading

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Bremen Piracy and Scottish Periphery: The North Sea World in the 1440s

Bremen Piracy and Scottish Periphery: The North Sea World in the 1440s David Ditchburn Ships, Guns and Bibles in the North Sea and the Baltic States, c.1350-c.1700 (2000) Bremen and Hamburg were the eyes through which medieval Saxony viewed the North … Continue reading

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The Courage of the Normans: A Contemporary Study of Battle Rhetoric

The Courage of the Normans: A Contemporary Study of Battle Rhetoric John R. Bliese Nottingham Medieval Studies: v.35 (1991) Abstract The Normans thought of themselves as a distinct ‘race’ or ‘nation’, a separate people different from other peoples. The belief … Continue reading

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A Norman-Italian Adventurer in the East: Richard of Salerno, 1097-1112

A Norman-Italian Adventurer in the East: Richard of Salerno, 1097-1112 George T. Beech Anglo-Norman Studies: v.15 (1993) Abstract The adventures, hardships, and disappointments awaiting the Europeans who went on the crusades have long been well known; indeed enough information has … Continue reading

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Les transports maritimes genois vers la Terre Sainte

Les transports maritimes genois vers la Terre Sainte Michel Balard (Universite de Reims) I Comuni Italiani nel Regno di Gerusalemme (1986) Multi de melioribus Ianuensibus iUa die crucem suscepe­ runt … et reliqui plures qui tanti fuerunt quod duodecim ga­ … Continue reading

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The Battle for Antioch in the First Crusade (1097-98) according to Peter Tudebode

Peter Tudebode was a Poitevin priest who was part of the First Crusade, perhaps with forces of the count of Toulouse. He wrote his account, the Historia de Hieroslymitano Itinere, by at least 1111, which was after many of the … Continue reading

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The Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066) and the life of Haraldr Sigurðarson, according to Theodoricus Monachus

Theodricus Monachus’s De antiquitate regum Norwagiensium is one of the oldest historical works of Norwegian history. It is a Latin account of the kings of Norway from Hardaldr harfaagri (around the ninth century), to Sigurð Magnusson, who died in 1130. Continue reading

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Caballus et Caballarius in Medieval Warfare

Caballus et Caballarius in Medieval Warfare Bernard S. Bachrach The Study of Chivalry: Resources and Approaches (1988) The little poem “For Want of a Nail” has for centuries conveyed to children a glimpse of the fundamental technical underpinnings of the … Continue reading

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Venning – Alternative… Anglo-Saxon Age (Webb)

Timothy Venning An Alternative History of Britain: The Anglo-Saxon Age Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2013. 224 pp. $39.95. ISBN 978-1-78159-125-3. “Nothing was inevitable.” In this one simple statement, printed on the back cover of Dr. Venning’s latest … Continue reading

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From Alfred to Harold II: The Military Failure of the Late Anglo-Saxon State

From Alfred to Harold II: The Military Failure of the Late Anglo-Saxon State Richard Abels The Normans and their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister (Boydell, 2001) Abstract “It would be a serious error,” Warren Hollister acutely … Continue reading

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The Battle of Hastings according to Gaimar, Wace and Benoit: rhetoric and politics

According to Jean Blacker, the Norman Conquest was ‘the most visible cause of the upsurge in historical writing in twelfth-century England’ and in the continental territories controlled by successive Anglo-Norman and Norman-Angevin rulers. Continue reading

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“Fino alle mura di Babilonia”. Aspetti militari della conquista normanna del Sud

“Fino alle mura di Babilonia”. Aspetti militari della conquista normanna del Sud Giovanni Amatuccio Rassegna Storica Salernitana, n.30 (1998) L’apparizione dei Normanni nell’XI  sullo scenario mediterraneo si caratterizza, a livello militare, come un incontro-scontro con le diverse realtà preesistenti: Longobardi, Bizantini … Continue reading

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Saracen Archers in Southern Italy

Saracen Archers in Southern Italy De Re Militari, June (2001) Giovanni Amatuccio During the first phase of their Southern Italian conquest, the Normans included archers in their troops; but such usage seems to have been sporadic and simple. The tactic … Continue reading

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English Logistics and military administration, 871-1066: The Impact of the Viking Wars

English Logistics and military administration, 871-1066: The Impact of the Viking Wars Richard Abels Military aspects of Scandinavian society in a European perspective, AD 1-1300 (1997) King Harold Godwineson is remembered as one of the great `losers’ in history, the … Continue reading

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The First Crusade (1095-99), A short narrative from contemporary sources.

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me… Continue reading

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Multi-volume review of books on medieval warfare

A multi-book essay review by Sean McGlynn has appeared in the European Review of History/Revue europeenne d’histoire 20.1 (2013): 153-159.  For those who have institutional access, you should be able to link to it here.  The books reviewed en masse are Medieval Warfare 1000–1300, ed. … Continue reading

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Ibn al-Athīr’s Accounts of the Rūs (10th to 13th centuries)

Translated by William Watson. From: Canadian/American Slavic Studies 35 (2001). 1. al-Kāmil fi ‘t-Ta’rīkh, viii, 412-415 “The Rūs Seizure of the Town of Barda’a” (332 A.H./943-944 A.D.) In this year (332) armed bands of Rūs went by sea (the Caspian) to the … Continue reading

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Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum, Battle of Stiklastaðir (1030) and Campaign of King Magnus Barelegs against the British Isles (1102-3)

Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum wrote his account of the history of the Norwegian kings around 1190.  Along with Theodoricus Monachus’ Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium and the anonymous Historia Norvegiae, this work represents one of the earliest surving accounts of the history of Norway and … Continue reading

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TMR 12.06.08 Dass, The Deeds of the Franks (Throop)

Nirmal Dass (ed. and trans.), The Deeds of the Franks and other Jerusalem-bound Pilgrims: The Earliest Chronicle of the First Crusades. Lanham, MD:  The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2011. Pp. 154 pages. $24.95. ISBN-13: 9781442204980.  Reviewed by Susanna A. Throop, Ursinus College <[email protected]> Available at The … Continue reading

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