Product Description: This seventh volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers the last century (interpreted broadly) of the traditional Western Middle Ages. It takes account of much new research and modern, interdisciplinary approaches to the study and writing of history to present a broad view of late medieval society across Europe...read more

Vegetius' late Roman text became a well known and highly respected 'classic' in the Middle Ages, transformed by its readers into the authority on the waging of war. Christopher Allmand analyses the medieval afterlife of the De Re Militari, tracing the growing interest in the text from the Carolingian world to the late Middle Ages, suggesting how the written word may have influenced the development of military practice in that period. While emphasising that success depended on a commander's ability to outwit the enemy with a carefully selected, well trained and disciplined army, the De Re Militari inspired other unexpected developments, such as that of the 'national' army, and helped create a context in which the role of the soldier assumed greater social and political importance. Allmand explores the significance of the text and the changes it brought for those who accepted the implications of its central messages.

Product Description: War's impact on two societies, England and France, in the late middle ages is fully explored through the evidence and commentary presented here, showing how they reacted to the conflict between them. The Hundred Years War forms the framework for the chosen documents, all from the fourteenth and fifteenth century; extracts show how men thought about war and how they faced up to these ideas in practice; the problems of manpower; and the effects of the military needs of the day on society...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: `Well-balanced collection of essays...judiciously selected and presented'. 15TH CENTURY STUDIES Eight essays around the central theme of the the importance of popular support in the effective exercise of power, both political andreligious, and how that support was mustered in late medieval France...read more