Armies And Politics In The Early Medieval West

In these articles Professor Bachrach starts by looking at aspects of the 'barbarian' occupation of the land of the Roman Empire, from Britain to the Alan settlements in southern Gaul. His particular interest, however, is in the political and, above all, in the military structures that grew out of the Early Middle Ages. He has sought to demonstrate that there was a fundamental continuity in military organisation and tactics from the Merovingian through the Carolingian period. As he shows, there is no reason to connect the origins of 'feudalism' with Charles Martel's wish to create a force of cavalry, and it is a fallacy that he grasped the potential of the stirrup for enabling mounted shock combat. On the contrary, its use in the West progressed only slowly, and it had nothing to do with the origins or growth of feudalism. Le professeur Bachrach débute par l'analyse de certains aspects de l'occupation barbare des terres de l'empire romain, de la Grande-Bretagne aux campements alans en Gaule méridionale. Il s'attache en suite aux structures politiques et, surtout, militaires qui furent issues du Haut Moyen Age. Selon lui, et il tente d'en faire ici la démonstration, l'organisation et les tactiques militaires ont fait preuve d'une continuité fondamentale de l'époque mérovingienne à celle des Carolingiens. Comme il le demontre, il n'y a pas lieu d'établir de liens entre l'origine du féodalisme et le désir qu'avait Charles Martel de créer une cavalerie; il est également tout à fait erroné de dire que ce dernier s'était rendu compte du potentiel de l'étrier en tant que facteur de mener des combats à cheval de choc. Bien contraire, l'utilisation de l'étrier à l'Ouest ne fit que progresser lentement et aucun rapport n'existe entre cet instrument et l'origine ou la croissance de la féodalité.

Guy Halsall relates warfare to many aspects of medieval life, economy, society and politics.This book recovers its distinctiveness, looking at warfare in a rounded context in the British Isles and Western Europe between the end of the Roman Empire and the break-up of the Carolingian Empire. Examining the raising and organization of early medieval armies and looks at the conduct of campaigns, the survey also includes a study of the equipment of warriors and the horrific experience of battle as well as an analysis of medieval fortifications and siege warfare. Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West uses historical and archaeological evidence in a rigorous and sophisticated fashion. It stresses regional variations but also places Anglo-Saxon England in the mainstream of the military developments in this era, and in the process, provides an outstanding resource for students of all levels.

Latest volume of original articles on all aspects of warfare in the middle ages. The broad topic of medieval warfare is here explored across the full chronological range of the Middle Ages, using a wide variety of approaches, including literary, prosopographical, technological, and narrative-based analysis. Akey feature of the journal is its commitment to fostering debate on the most significant issues in medieval military history; that tradition is continued here with Bernard Bachrach's argument against the idea that early medieval military structures and practices were sharply different from Late Antique ones. Individual battles, the Hattin campaign of 1187 and Byzantine war against Bulgaria in 1254-1256, are the focus of two other chapters; an article by Richard Kaeuper (based on his De Re Militari special lecture at the International Congress of Medieval Studies) emphasizes the value of chansons de geste and other "romance" material for understanding the mentalité of the martial lay aristocracy of medieval Christendom; and there are further articles on the factors that motivated gentlemen to fight, in both open warfare, and individual combat. Weapons of warfare are not neglected, with chapters casting lighton the development of the crossbow and the trebuchet. CONTRIBUTORS: BERNARD S. BACHRACH, MICHAEL EHRLICH, MICHAEL BASISTA, NICHOLAS S. KANELLOPOULOS, JOANNE K. LEKEA, RICHARD W. KAEUPER, MARK DUPUY, MALCOLM MERCER, STEVEN C. HUGHES

In recent years military history has moved decisively out of its specialized ghetto and has come to be regarded as central to the mainstream study of the past. The concept of a 'military revolution' consisting of the emergence of large infantry-based armies in early modern Europe, the use of potent gunpowder weapons and the rapid escalation of war costs, is now seen to have had far-reaching political and social consequences for European society. Indeed, war itself is now seen as a major engine of state development during this key period. The essays in this volume illustrate the integration of military history with the broader concerns of historians, and also suggest that the military history of the Middle Ages was more dynamic than is often recognized: that the 'military revolution' needs to be interpreted by placing it in the context of rapid socio-political transformation.

Without the complex military machine that his forebears had built up over the course of the eighth century, it would have been impossible for Charlemagne to revive the Roman empire in the West. Early Carolingian Warfare is the first book-length study of how the Frankish dynasty, beginning with Pippin II, established its power and cultivated its military expertise in order to reestablish the regnum Francorum, a geographical area of the late Roman period that includes much of present-day France and western Germany. Bernard Bachrach has thoroughly examined contemporary sources, including court chronicles, military handbooks, and late Roman histories and manuals, to establish how the early Carolingians used their legacy of political and military techniques and strategies forged in imperial Rome to regain control in the West. Pippin II and his successors were not diverted by opportunities for financial enrichment in the short term through raids and campaigns outside of the regnum Francorum; they focused on conquest with sagacious sensibilities, preferring bloodless diplomatic solutions to unnecessarily destructive warfare, and disdained military glory for its own sake. But when they had to deploy their military forces, their operations were brutal and efficient. Their training was exceptionally well developed, and their techniques included hand-to-hand combat, regimented troop movements, fighting on horseback with specialized mounted soldiers, and the execution of lengthy sieges employing artillery. In order to sustain their long-term strategy, the early Carolingians relied on a late Roman model whereby soldiers were recruited from among the militarized population who were required by law to serve outside their immediate communities. The ability to mass and train large armies from among farmers and urban-dwellers gave the Carolingians the necessary power to lay siege to the old Roman fortress cities that dominated the military topography of the West. Bachrach includes fresh accounts of Charles Martel's defeat of the Muslims at Poitiers in 732, and Pippin's successful siege of Bourges in 762, demonstrating that in the matter of warfare there never was a western European Dark Age that ultimately was enlightened by some later Renaissance. The early Carolingians built upon surviving military institutions, adopted late antique technology, and effectively utilized their classical intellectual inheritance to prepare the way militarily for Charlemagne's empire.

This book presents a comprehensive survey of warfare in India up to the point where the British began to dominate the sub-continent. It discusses issues such as how far was the relatively bloodless nature of pre-British Indian warfare the product of stateless Indian society? How far did technology determine the dynamics of warfare in India? Did warfare in this period have a particular Indian nature and was it ritualistic? The book considers land warfare including sieges, naval warfare, the impact of horses, elephants and gunpowder, and the differences made by the arrival of Muslim rulers and by the influx of other foreign influences and techniques. The book concludes by arguing that the presence of standing professional armies supported by centralised bureaucratic states have been underemphasised in the history of India.

This study combines both a broad introduction to medieval warfare and detailed studies of warriors and weaponry throughout the Middle Ages.