Donald O’Reilly Lost Legion Rediscovered: The Mystery of the Theban Legion (Pen & Sword, 2011), 208 pp. £19.99 Before we delve into this book, we need to understand the very unique subject matter that the book deals with. According to … Continue reading →

Dan Spencer Royal and Urban Gunpowder Weapons in Late Medieval England (Boydell & Brewer, 2019), 282 pp. $99.00/£60.00 Although the English were early adopters of gunpowder weaponry (according to Giovanni Villani they were using guns on the field at Crécy), … Continue reading →

Jeffrey L. Forfeng (ed.) Montius, Petrus, Pietro Monte’s Collectanea: The Arms, Armour and Fighting Techniques of a Fifteenth-Century Soldier (The Boydell Press, 2018), 333 pp. $99.00. Pietro Monte’s Exercitiorum atque artis militaris collectanea in tris [sic.] libros distincta (printed at … Continue reading →

Martin Clauss and Christoph Nübel (eds) Militärisches Entscheiden Voraussetzungen, Prozesse und Repräsentationen einer sozialen Praxis von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Campus Verlag, 2020), 496 pp. € 52.00. The processes and cultures of military decision-making form a well-recognised sub-field … Continue reading →

Nic Fields God’s Viking: Harald Hardrada. The Life and Times of the Last Great Viking (Pen & Sword, 2019) 366 pp. £20.00 Nic Fields attempts to go where others have been before in trying to write a history of the … Continue reading →

Gabriele Esposito Armies of the Hellenistic States 323 BC- AD 30 (Pen & Sword, 2019) 155 pp. $34.95 This book is one of the recent additions to the series “Armies of the Past,” authored by Gabriele Esposito. Esposito is a … Continue reading →

Susan B. Edgington and Steven J. Biddlecombe Baldric of Bourgueil, “History of the Jerusalemites”: A Translation of the Historia Ierosolimitana (Boydell & Brewer, 2020) 224 pp. $99.00 Baldric of Bourgueil (alternatively, Baldric of Dol, d. 1130) was a writer of … Continue reading →

Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, and John S. Ott (eds) Between Sword and Prayer: Warfare and Medieval Clergy in Cultural Perspective (Brill, 2018) 564 pp. $172.00 Under normal circumstances, collected volumes with sixteen chapters and an introduction might seem, at first … Continue reading →

Dweezil Vandekerckhove Medieval Fortifications in Cilicia: The Armenian Contribution to Military Architecture in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2019) 284 pp. $179.00 This book is the most recent volume in Brill’s History of Warfare series. It focuses on the medieval fortifications … Continue reading →

Charles D. Stanton Roger of Lauria (c.1250-1305) “Admiral of Admirals” (The Boydell Press, 2019) 346 pp. $115.00 The term “admiral” was used for the first time by King Roger II, in its Latin form “amiratus amiratorum” in 1133, to designate … Continue reading →

Sue Brunning The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe: Experience, Identity, Representation (The Boydell Press, 2019) 213 pp. $99.00 Sue Brunning’s book belongs to a long line of research regarding early medieval swords. However, instead of staying within the well-established … Continue reading →

Peter Purton The Medieval Military Engineer: From the Roman Empire to the Sixteenth Century (Boydell & Brewer, 2018) 365 pp. $99.00 In this excellent monograph, Peter Purton endeavors to shed new light on the important role of military engineers in … Continue reading →

Anke Fischer-Kattner and Jamel Ostwald (eds.) The World of the Siege: Representations of Early Modern Positional Warfare (Brill, 2019) 316 pp. $126.00 It was a proverbial truism that an early modern soldier would spend far more time sitting out sieges … Continue reading →

Christofer Herrmann Der Hochmeisterpalast auf der Marienburg: Konzeption, Bau und Nutzung der modernsten europäischen Fürstenresidenz um 1400 (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2019) 600 pp. 89.00 € Professor Christofer Herrmann (Uniwersytet Gdańsk / Technische Universität Berlin) is a leading expert on the … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Lapina and Nicholas Morton (eds.) The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources (Brill, 2017) 514 pp. $197.00 The media often brings back the world of the crusades through films and books on the matter, but there is always … Continue reading →

Roger Crowley The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades (Yale University Press/Basic Books, 2019) 304 pp. $25.00 It is an unfortunate reality that most introductory discussions of the crusades continue to give disproportionate attention … Continue reading →

Georgios Kardaras Byzantium and the Avars: Political, Diplomatic, and Cultural Relations (Brill, 2019) 252 pp. $192.00 When it rains, it pours. Accessing material on the Avars has been a difficult matter in the English-speaking world, with limited literary source material … Continue reading →

Craig Taylor A Virtuous Knight: Defending Marshal Boucicaut (Jean II Le Meingre, 1366-1421) (York Medieval Press, 2019) 203 pp. $99.00 Sometimes a book’s title can summarise its contents very neatly. In this case it is the subtitle which tells the … Continue reading →

Georgios Chatzelis Byzantine Military Manuals as Literary Works and Practical Handbooks: The Case of the Tenth-Century Sylloge Tacticorum (Routledge, 2019) 211 pp. $140.00 The Sylloge Tacticorum is a military manual written in Greek attributed to the emperor Leo VI (r. … Continue reading →

Ken Mondschein Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War (McFarland, 2017) 236 pp. $19.99 Ken Mondschein’s Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War can be seen as part of a growing trend in scholarship that has … Continue reading →

Mollie M. Madden The Black Prince and the Grande Chevauchée of 1355 (The Boydell Press, 2018) 262 pp. $99.00 In September 1355, Edward the Black Prince, Edward III’s eldest son, landed in Gascony accompanied by an army. Between 5 October … Continue reading →

L.J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J. Kagay (eds.) To Win and Lose a Medieval Battle: Najera (April 3, 1367), a Pyrrhic Victory for the Black Prince (Brill, 2017) 650 pp. $197.00 This is an immensely thorough and detailed study of … Continue reading →

Richard J. Blakemore & Elaine Murphy The British Civil Wars at Sea 1638 – 1653 (Boydell & Brewer, 2018) 225 pp. $115.00/£65.00 To a student of the British Civil Wars, it soon becomes obvious that the perception one is given … Continue reading →

Susan B. Edgington Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100-1118 (Routledge, 2019) 204 pp. $140.00 The third book in the Rulers of the Latin East series investigates the dawn of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The life and career of Baldwin, Godfrey … Continue reading →

Philip J. Caudrey Military Society and the Court of Chivalry in the Age of the Hundred Years War (Boydell & Brewer, 2019) 227 pp. $99.00/£60.00 As far back as 1832 the indefatigable antiquarian Sir Harris Nicholas identified the potential historical … Continue reading →

Ϸhorsteinn Helgason The Corsairs’ Longest Voyage: The Turkish Raid in Iceland 1627 (Brill, 2018) 372 pp. $185.00/€154.00 In the summer of 1627, the island of Iceland was subjected to two large-scale raids led corsairs from the North African entrepôts of … Continue reading →

Nicholas Savy Bertrucat d’Albret, ou le destin d’un captaine gascon du roi d’Angleterre pendant la guerre de Cent Ans (Archeodrom, 2015) 476 pp. €30.00 Bertrucat d’Albret held a high- even preeminent- position among the routier leaders whose companies spread terror … Continue reading →

Anthony Musson and Nigel Ramsay (eds.) Courts of Chivalry and Admiralty in Late Medieval Europe (The Boydell Press, 2018) 250 pp. $99.00/£60.00 In recent decades the activities of Courts of Admiralty and, perhaps even more, Courts of Chivalry in the … Continue reading →

Joanna Bellis and Laura Slater (eds.) Representing War and Violence, 1250-1600 (The Boydell Press, 2016) 232 pp. $90.00 Representing War and Violence is an important contribution to the recent scholarly discourse on how medieval people interacted with, justified, or condemned … Continue reading →

Michael Lower The Tunis Crusade of 1270: A Mediterranean History (Oxford University Press, 2018) ) xvi + 216 pp. £60.00 The crusades of the thirteenth century have received much less scholarly attention than those of the twelfth. Monograph-length studies on … Continue reading →

Michael S Fulton Artillery in the age of the Crusades: Siege warfare and the development of trebuchet technology (Brill, 2018) 514 pp. $156.00/€130.00 Medieval artillery has been a subject of fascination since the nineteenth century. The interest is shared by … Continue reading →

Nicholas Savy La Ville Fortifiée de la Guerre de Cent Ans (v. 1345-v. 1395): Armement et Tactique (Archeodrom, 2017) 256 pp. $24.00/€20.00 Even academically trained historians are apt, however unconsciously, to see the events of the fourteenth century phases of … Continue reading →

Georgios Theotokis and Aysel Yıldız (eds.) A Military History of the Mediterranean Sea: Aspects of War, Diplomacy, and Military Elites (Brill, 2018) XV + 473 pp. $120.00/€100.00 At first glance, this book’s title conjures up an incongruous image of Fernand … Continue reading →

John France (ed.) Acre and its Falls: Studies in the History of a Crusader City (Brill, 2018) 214 pp. $92.00/€80.00 The fall of Acre to the Mamluk armies in 1291 is conventionally seen as marking a major caesura in the … Continue reading →

Luigi Russo I crociati in Terrasanta. Una nuova storia (1095-1291) (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2018) 284 pp. €22,00 [The review is also available in Italian below] The study of the crusades has long been a marginal area in the Italian academic … Continue reading →

Alexander Sarantis Justinian’s Balkan Wars: Campaigning, Diplomacy and Development in Illyricum, Thrace and the Northern World A.D. 527-565 (Francis Cairns, 2016) ) xviii + 500 pp. $127.50/£85 Based on the author’s 2006 Oxford doctoral dissertation, Alexander Sarantis has produced a … Continue reading →

Tobias Capwell Armour of the English Knight 1400–1450 (Thomas Del Mar Ltd., 2015) 308 pp. £54.00-£75.00 Tobias Capwell—jouster/re-enactor, curator at the Wallace collection, and author of several other excellent works on arms, armor, and their use—presents the answer to the major … Continue reading →

Gary P. Baker, Craig L. Lambert, and David Simpkin Military Communities in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Andrew Ayton (The Boydell Press, 2018) 324 pp. $99.00 The present volume recognises the contribution of Andrew Ayton to the study of … Continue reading →

Linda Paterson Singing the Crusades: French and Occitan Lyric Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137-1336 (D.S. Brewer, 2018) 350 pp. $99.00 As the rather complex bibliographic citation suggests, this is not a completely standard monographic publication. It is rather the hard … Continue reading →

Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, and John S. Ott (eds.) Between Sword and Prayer: Warfare and Medieval Clergy in Cultural Perspective (Brill, 2018) 608 pp. $156.00/€135.00 Violence and bloodshed represent glaring violations of the biblical and canonical principles that members of the … Continue reading →

Danielle E.A. Park Papal Protection and the Crusader: Flanders, Champagne, and the Kingdom of France. 1095-1222 (Boydell & Brewer, 2018) 254 pp. $99.00 British readers of a certain age may associate the potential problems encountered by absent crusaders with a popular … Continue reading →

Mark Hebblewhite The Emperor and the Army in the Later Roman Empire 235-395 (Routledge, 2017) 240 pp. $149.95 In 1984, J. B. Campbell published a seminal study dealing with the interplay between the Roman emperor and his army. [1] His work … Continue reading →

Carl Fredrik Sverdrup The Mongol Conquests (Helion, 2017) 392 pp. £26.95 There is a great deal to appreciate about this volume. For one, it offers a look at the conquests of Genghis Khan and Sube’etei from an understanding of texts about … Continue reading →

Ken Mondschein Game Of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War (McFarland, 2017) 236 pp. $14.49 This book is particularly interesting in that it begins by trying to justify its existence, and the author’s interest in medieval history, to two very … Continue reading →

Simon John Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c. 1060-1100 (Routledge, 2018) 284 pp. $144.95 Godfrey of Bouillon, who rose to be leader of the First Crusade, died shortly after the conquest of Jerusalem leaving behind … Continue reading →

Peter Hoskins and Anne Curry Agincourt 1415: A Tourist’s Guide to the Campaign (Pen & Sword, 2014) 192 pp. $18.65 Much like the author’s book on Crecy [1], this book is designed with the British tourist in mind. Agincourt is a … Continue reading →

Joanna Bellis The Hundred Years War in Literature, 1337-1600 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 312 pp. $99.00 This volume re-examines the reciprocal relationship between language and national identity in late-medieval England, especially in relation to the Hundred Years War. Although scholars have … Continue reading →

Craig M Nakashian Warrior Churchmen of Medieval England, 1000-1250 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 304 pp. $99.00 There has been a considerable increase in scholarship investigating the application of legal and canon legal norms in recent years and its impact on larger … Continue reading →

Martin Aurell The Lettered Knight: Knowledge and Aristocratic Behaviour in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Central European University Press, 2017) 468 pp. $70 In the past two decades, scholars of chivalry have placed the study of imaginative literature (e.g., romances, … Continue reading →

Craig M Nakashian and Daniel P Franke (eds.) Prowess, Piety, and Public Order in Medieval Society: Studies in Honor of Richard W. Kaeuper (Brill, 2017) 436 pp. $114.00/€99,00 This festschrift celebrating the scholarly and professional career of Richard Kaeuper of the … Continue reading →

Richard Wadge Verneuil, The Second Agincourt 1424: The Battle of the Three Kingdoms (The History Press, 2015) 256 pp. £20.00 Looking back in the 1460’s over a military career lasting some forty years, the Burgundian knight and chronicler Jean de … Continue reading →

E.J. Mylod, Guy Perry, Thomas W. Smith, Jan Vandeburie (eds.) The Fifth Crusade in Context The Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century (Routledge, 2017) 240 pp. $149.95/£110. 2017 marks the 800th anniversary of the year that the first contingents of … Continue reading →

Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach Warfare in Medieval Europe c. 400-c.1453 (Routledge, 2017) 410 pp. hb- $150.00, pb- $44.95 With television shows such as Game of Thrones and a host of video games testifying to the enduring appeal … Continue reading →

Desperta Ferro Antigua y Medieval n.º32: La Guerra de los Cien Años (I) (Desperta Ferro Ediciones, 2016) 7€ For understandable reasons, the Hundred Years’ War is a particularly noteworthy subject within English and French language historiography concerning the late Middle … Continue reading →

Lindsay Powell Germanicus (Pen & Sword, 2016) 374 pp. $24.95 According to the author, this is the first modern biography of Germanicus, one of the more notable members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman Emperors, whose controversial early death and … Continue reading →

Kim Hjardar and Vegard Vike Vikings at War (Casemate, 2016) 400 pp. $39.95 An award-winning book when first published in Norwegian, this book is the scholarly and exhaustive English translation, and one that will likely please many who are interested … Continue reading →

Thom Richardson The Tower Armoury in the Fourteenth Century (Royal Armouries, 2016) 254 pp. £40.00 Thom Richardson, who retired after a thirty-year career with the Royal Armouries which culminated in his service as Deputy Master, succeeds in writing a solidly … Continue reading →

Lee Fratantuono The Battle Of Actium 31 BC (Pen & Sword, 2016) 194 pp. £19.99 The Battle of Actium was one of the more decisive battles of ancient history. Before the battle, Rome had been in a state of internal … Continue reading →

Andrew D. Buck The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century (Boydell, 2017) 296 pp. $99.00 The Principality of Antioch was one of the more obscure Crusader states and it has received comparatively less attention than, for … Continue reading →

Daniel M.G. Gerrard The Church at War: The Military Activities of Bishops, Abbots and Other Clergy in England, c. 900-1200 (Routledge, 2016) pp. xiv and 320, $149.95 The problem of the involvement of clerics in war exercised ecclesiastical authorities as … Continue reading →

Craig M Nakashian Warrior Churchmen of Medieval England, 1000-1250 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 304 pp. $99.00 As with the Crusades, studies of the clergy and violence in the Middle Ages seem to be booming these days, and this is an interesting … Continue reading →

Craig Taylor and Jane H.M. Taylor, tr. The Chivalric Biography of Boucicaut, Jean II Le Meingre (Boydell, 2016) 244 pp. $99.00 Fair-minded English-language readers interested in the Hundred Years’ War may often have cause to lament the fact that there are … Continue reading →

Per Lagerås, ed. Environment, Society, and the Black Death (Casemate, 2016) 208 pp. £36.00 The subtitle of this book promises an interdisciplinary approach to the late-medieval crisis in Sweden that resulted from the outbreak of the black death, and it delivers … Continue reading →

Laura L. Gathagan and William North, eds. The Haskins Society Journal 27 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 214 pp. $90.00 This particular book is made of three groups of papers: papers read at the 34th Annual Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins … Continue reading →

Theresa M. Vann and Donald J. Kagay, eds. Hospitaller Piety and Crusader Propaganda (Routledge, 2015) 393 pp. $139.95 Admittedly, I did not know exactly what I was reading when I requested this book. From the title alone, I expected a scholarly … Continue reading →

Adrian Jobson, ed. Baronial Reform and Revolution in England, 1258-1267 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 284 pp. $99.00 For many people who study English history, it is thought that the importance of the burgesses in the English parliament goes back to the … Continue reading →

Steven Muhlberger Charny’s Men-at-Arms: Questions Concerning The Joust, Tournaments and War (Freelance, 2014) 111 pp. $25.00 Written around 1350, Geoffrey de Charny’s Questions Concerning the Joust, Tournaments and War (Les demandes pour la joute, les tournois et la guerre) consists of … Continue reading →

Iain A. MacInnes Scotland’s Second War of Independence (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 275 pp. $99.00/£60.00 The Second Scottish War of Independence has long been something of a historical stepchild. In English historiography it tends to be remembered, if at all, as … Continue reading →

Peter Hoskins with Richard Barber Crecy 1346: A Tourists’ Guide (Pen & Sword, 2017) 207 pp. £14.99 Although this book is not technically labeled as part of a series, it can be considered as the third book by the author in … Continue reading →

Alfred H. Burne The Crecy War: A Military History Of The Hundred Years War From 1337 to the Peace of Bretigny in 1360 (Pen & Sword, 1955; Reissue 2016) 366 pp. £12.99 This book, written shortly after World War II, forms … Continue reading →

Nicholas A. Gribit Henry of Lancaster’s Expedition To Aquitaine, 1345-1346 (Boydell, 2016) 373 pp. $99.99 For most students of the Hundred Years’ War, thoughts of campaigns and battles leads to pondering about Crècy, Agincourt, or perhaps Poitiers. Yet this book-length treatment … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Lapina, April Jehan Morris, Susanna A. Throop, and Laura J. Whatley (eds) The Crusades and Visual Culture (Ashgate, 2015) 286 pp. $109.95 Contrary to the ample scholarship on the political, military, and diplomatic aspects of the crusades, the research on … Continue reading →