Transcultural Wars

Eine von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft getragene Forschergruppe an der Universität Regensburg untersucht seit einigen Jahren im Rahmen einer Neuen Militärgeschichte "Formen und Funktionen des Krieges im Mittelalter". Im März 2004 wurde auf einer international und interdisziplinär ausgerichteten Fachtagung, organisiert von Mitgliedern der Regensburger Forschergruppe zusammen mit dem Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, versucht, traditionelle Epochengrenzen, wie sie zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit nach wie vor bestehen, zu überwinden. Die Tagungsbeiträge werden in diesem Band veröffentlicht.

The Anglo-Scottish wars of the late Middle Ages have long attracted scholarly attention, but studies focussing on the military aspects of the conflict over the longue durée and from both sides of the border have been lacking. In this collection of essays covering the years between the battles of Dunbar (1296) and Flodden (1513), Andy King and David Simpkin bring together leading historians in the field to consider afresh the armies and soldiers engaged in the wars, while also reflecting on the conflict's impact either side of the border. At a time when military history is undergoing a renaissance, the Anglo-Scottish wars offer a case-study not only of military institutions but also of the contributions made by individuals and communities. Contributors are Amanda Beam, Steve Boardman, Michael Brown, Sean Cunningham, Claire Etty, Jonathan Gledhill, David Grummitt, Andy King, Alastair Macdonald, Iain MacInnes, Gordon Pentland, David Simpkin, Andrew Spencer, Katie Stevenson and Thea Summerfield.

There are many histories of how wars have begun, but very few which discuss how they have ended. This book fills that gap. Beginning with the Stone Age and ending with globalized terrorism, it addresses the specific issue of surrender, rather than the subsequent establishment of peace. At its heart is the individual warrior or soldier, and his or her decision to lay down arms. In the ancient world surrender led in most cases to slavery, but a slave still lived rather than died. In the modern world international law gives the soldiers rights as prisoners of war, and those rights include the prospect of their eventual return home. But individuals can surrender at any point in a war, and without having such an effect that they end the war. The termination of hostilities depends on a collective act for its consequences to be decisive. It also requires the enemy to accept the offer to surrender in the midst of combat. In other words, like so much else in war, surrender depends on reciprocity - on the readiness of one side to stop fighting and of the other to accept that readiness. This volume argues that surrender is the single biggest contributor to the containment of violence in warfare, offering the vanquished the opportunity to survive and the victor the chance to show moderation and magnanimity. Since the rules of surrender have developed over time, they form a key element in understanding the cultural history of warfare.

An examination of written and other responses to conflict in a variety of forms and genres, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.

First full-length study of the use and perception of deceit in medieval warfare. Deception and trickery are a universal feature of warfare, from the Trojan horse to the inflatable tanks of the Second World War. The wars of the Central Middle Ages (c. 1000-1320) were no exception. This book looks at the various tricks reported in medieval chronicles, from the Normans feigning flight at the battle of Hastings (1066) to draw the English off Senlac Hill, to the Turks who infiltrated the Frankish camp at the Field of Blood (1119) disguised as bird sellers, to the Scottish camp followers descending on the field of Bannockburn (1314) waving laundry as banners to mimic a division of soldiers. This study also considers what contemporary society thought about deception on the battlefield: was it a legitimate way to fight? Was cunning considered an admirable quality in a warrior? Were the culturally and religious "other" thought to be more deceitful in war than Western Europeans? Through a detailed analysis of vocabulary and narrative devices, this book reveals a society with a profound moral ambivalence towards military deception, in which authors were able to celebrate a warrior's cunning while simultaneously condemning their enemies for similar acts of deceit. It also includes an appendix cataloguing over four hundred incidents of military deception as recorded in contemporary chronicle narratives.

Medieval slavery has received little attention relative to slavery in ancient Greece and Rome and in the early modern Atlantic world. This imbalance in the scholarship has led many to assume that slavery was of minor importance in the Middle Ages. In fact, the practice of slavery continued unabated across the globe throughout the medieval millennium. This volume – the final volume in The Cambridge World History of Slavery – covers the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of the transatlantic plantation complexes by assembling twenty-three original essays, written by scholars acknowledged as leaders in their respective fields. The volume demonstrates the continual and central presence of slavery in societies worldwide between 500 CE and 1420 CE. The essays analyze key concepts in the history of slavery, including gender, trade, empire, state formation and diplomacy, labor, childhood, social status and mobility, cultural attitudes, spectrums of dependency and coercion, and life histories of enslaved people.

Drawing on previously inaccessible and overlooked archival sources, The Herero Genocide undertakes a groundbreaking investigation into the war between colonizer and colonized in what was formerly German South-West Africa and is today the nation of Namibia. In addition to its eye-opening depictions of the starvation, disease, mass captivity, and other atrocities suffered by the Herero, it reaches surprising conclusions about the nature of imperial dominion, showing how the colonial state’s genocidal posture arose from its own inherent weakness and military failures. The result is an indispensable account of a genocide that has been neglected for too long.

Essays on aspects of medieval military history, encompassing the most recent critical approaches.