[Medieval Military History] Overview / Introduction Book - (something along Viking World?)

by witzkawumme

I recently got my hands on Viking World by Brink (ed.), an excellent book. Now, I am searching for something similar for Medieval Warfare / Military History in Europe for the Middle Ages. Note that the book can be in English or German.

Background:

My problem is I have read a few articles/books recently from Rogers (vs DeVries), Bradbury and Bachrach (Medieval siege warfare: a reconnaissance). This lead me to the following preliminary conclusions:

a) nearly all older literature about medieval warfare is highly inaccurate or off. (according to Bradbury & Bachrach)

b) Bradbury in his Medieval Archer writes mostly chronological without really adding a "general chapter / overview" at the end or beginning. This is annoying, I assume from a review about his book on siege warfare that this is the same. I prefer an analytical style over the "narrative" style.

c) there is quite some debate going on and/or there are some "trolls" out there.

WARitter

For armour and weapons the specialist literature is pretty essential if you are interested in the subject-I have seen some pretty awful claims in some fairly mainstream military histories (the armour and horses chapter in Keen's 'Medieval Warfare' collection is just bad).

I wouldn't trust (without heavy qualifications) anything written about armour from before the middle of the last century. Armour historians before that era were more Victorian antiquarians than modern historians, and they often made unsupported claims. Their terminology is sometimes bad. Some of them (Guy Laking) were engaged with auctioning and appraising, leading to ethical issues.

For purely descriptive work, Claude Blair for Armour (European Armour circa 1066-1700) is fantastic. He is good on terminology and fantastic on the history of armour decoration, as well as how armour fits together. My main caveat with Blair is that he is working mostly from surviving pieces from 1400 onwards, so his descriptions are subject to survival bias - mostly Italian and German armour survives from the 15th century. So he neglects English, Spanish and French armour. Blair lived a long time and worked from the 50's through the end of the 20th century so he had a large influence on subsequent scholars. He even proofed 'The Knight and the Blast Furnace' in 2000.

For scholarship that contextualizes armour you will need to look at contemporary authors. The Knight and the Blast Furncace by Williams is seminal - it collects and synthesizes a lot of previous scholarship on making armour and adds detailed metallurgical analysis of surviving pieces, as well as an attempt to estimate how protective armour was.

On the 'end user' side of armour, Tobias Capwell's Armour if the English Knight 1400-1450 (volume 1 of a projected 2), does a great job of describing 15th century English armour and contextualizing it as it was used by English Men at Arms fighting (mostly) on foot.

textandtrowel

I'd actually be very interested in knowing more about what you've already read. I looked up a few of the authors you mentioned in the Reader's Guide to Military History, which seems to have a fairly thorough and up-to-date bibliography. It might be worth checking out. Another great reference is the Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. I'd also point you to the 'Military History' sections in the Book List. Note that things are currently in the midst of revision, so there's at least three 'Military History' sections; just keep scrolling. And I suspect you're already familiar with De Re Militari.

It's my general impression that military historians of the middle ages gravitate either toward early medieval armies in the successor states to Rome (i.e. Charlemagne and the Anglo-Saxons) or toward the high-medieval florescence of knightly combat and military orders (i.e. Castles, Crusades, and the Hundred Years' War). This leaves a bit of an awkward gap in between, and insofar as I know, no single overview tries to span this gap. Nor, perhaps, should such an overview exist, since the campaigns of Charlemagne are a world apart from those of the Black Prince or the fighting at the Krak des Chevaliers.

That said, it sounds like your readings have focused on the later middle ages, with the exceptions of Bachrach and Brink. It sounds like you've got a handle on some of the later debates (i.e. Rogers v. DeVries—although I must admit I don't know much about their particular arguments). For the earlier period that Bachrach focuses on, he actually espouses a pretty extreme view regarding the size and professionalization of militaries, as well as the political grand strategies that governed their use.

Many scholars of the early middle ages are skeptical that such armies could exist (despite the ambitious estimates of some sources), or that long-term grand strategies drove military developments and conflicts (although historians writing in the middle ages were sometimes wont to make things appear that way). I'd strongly recommend Guy Halsall's Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West 450-900, and if it strikes your interests, his Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 as well. He used to run an excellent blog, where you could get a feel for his arguments and find some of his articles, as well as a lot of his personality, but it seems to be down indefinitely due to some silly hackers or malware.


Edit: I had an old link to Halsall's blog. It's up and running here.