20 Primary sources for the study of medieval warfare
Primary sources on medieval warfare are relatively few. One must include finds from archaeological excavations, including underwater examples for naval warfare. We only include works that for the most part are relatively easily available to the general reader, in short, works that have been translated and printed.
Most records and chronicles may have some bearing on the subject but again we exclude the broad run of such works and include only a few examples. We have also attempted to find sources broadly covering our sections and to include a select few. The general reader may well not wish to study primary sources but curious readers and budding historians perhaps will. No secondary opinion can ever be considered perfect and final, and the best way of reconsidering views is to return to the original evidence.
Roman writers on warfare had some effect on medieval warfare. They influenced medieval chroniclers, who were among the few then able to obtain copies of their work and read them. They influenced leaders who had education or had educated advisers. The most telling example is provided by John of Marmoutier about his hero Geoffrey le Bel of Anjou. At the siege of Montreuil-Bellay John tells us that, as the siege became bogged down, Geoffrey took to reading the Latin work De Re Militari by Vegetius. In it he found inspiration for how to proceed with the siege and eventually take the castle. A few works on military subjects were written during the Middle Ages. Two outstanding examples are mentioned. The first was amazingly by a woman, Christine de Pisan, who wrote on chivalry and knighthood. The second, also unique in its way, was by a medieval king, Jaime I of Aragón (1208–76). Jaime played an important part in the Reconquista and recovered the Balearic islands. He wrote about his own campaigns in telling detail.
For the modern student the best approach is often through especially selected sources, as in collections that exist for various wars and battles, reigns or periods, and some of these are included.
Ailes, Adrian, ‘Heraldry in Twelfth-century England: The Evidence’, England in the Twelfth Century: Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, Woodbridge, 1990, pp. 1–16
Alexander, Michael, ed., The Earliest English Poems, Harmondsworth, 1966
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The, ed. D. Whitelock, D.C. Douglas and S.I. Tucker, London, 1961
Asser, Life of Alfred the Great with other sources, ed. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Harmondsworth, 1983
Barbaro, Nicolo, Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453, ed. J.R. Jones, New York, 1969
Bayeux Tapestry, The, ed. D.M. Wilson, London, 1985
Bertran de Born, The Poems of the Troubadour, ed. W.D. Paden Jr, T. Sankovitch and P.H. Stäblein, London, 1986
Bonet, Honoré, The Tree of Battles, ed. G.W. Coopland, Liverpool, 1949
Brown, R. Allen, ed., The Norman Conquest, London, 1984
Chronicle of the Morea: Crusaders as Conquerors, ed. H.E. Lurier, New York, 1964 Commynes, Philippe de, Memoirs, trans. M. Jones, Harmondsworth, 1972
Comnena, Anna, The Alexiad, trans. E.R.A. Sewter, Harmondsworth, 1969
De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. C.W. David, New York, 1976
Doukas, The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks, ed. H.J. Magoulias, Detroit, 1975
Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne, ed. L. Thorpe (English translation), London, 1970
English Historical Documents, ed. D.C. Douglas, i, 2nd edition London 1979; ii, 2nd edition 1981; iii, 1975; iv, 1969
Fantosme, Jordan, Chronicle, ed. R.C. Johnston, Oxford, 1981
Freising, Otto of, and Rahewin, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, ed. C.C. Mierow and R. Emery, New York, 1953
Froissart, Jean, Chronicles, ed. G. Brereton, 2nd edition, Harmondsworth, 1978
Froissart, Jean, Chronicles, ed. J. Jolliffe, London, 1967
Gabrieli, Francesco, Arab Historians of the Crusades, London, 1969
Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, ed. L. Thorpe, Harmondsworth, 1974
Hallam, Elizabeth, ed., Chronicles of the Crusades, London, 1989
Hill, Boyd H., Medieval Monarchy in Action: The German Empire from Henry I to Henry IV, Oxford, 1972
Hutchinson, Gillian, Medieval Ships and Shipping, London, 1994
James I King of Aragón, Chronicle, ed. J. Forster, 2 vols, London, 1883
Joinville and Hardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. M.R.B. Shaw, Harmondsworth, 1963
Jones, J.R.M., The Siege of Constantinople, 1453: The Contemporary Accounts, Amsterdam, 1972
King, P.D., ed, Charlemagne: Translated Sources, Kendal, 1987
Livonia, Henry of, Chronicle, ed. J.A. Brundage, New York, 1961
Morillo, Stephen, ed., The Battle of Hastings, Woodbridge, 1996
Nicolas, Sir Harris, The History of the Battle of Agincourt, London, 1970
Nicolle, David, Medieval Warfare Source Book: Warfare in Western Christendom, London, 1995
Nicolle, David, Medieval Warfare Source Book, vol. II: Christian Europe and its Neighbours, London, 1996
Oakeshott, E., The Archaeology of Weapons, London, 1960
Pisan, Christine de, The Book of Faytes of Arms and Chyvalrye, trans. W. Caxton, London, 1932
Procopius, The Secret History, trans. G.A. Williamson, London, 1990
Psellus, Michael, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers (Chronographia), trans. E.R.A. Sewter, Harmondsworth, 1966
Riley-Smith, Louise and Jonathan, The Crusades: Idea and Reality 1095–1274, London, 1981
Sagas of Icelanders, The, Preface J. Smiley, Introduction R. Kellogg, London, 1997
Siege of Caerlaverock, The, ed. N.H. Nicolas, London, 1828
Simpson, L.B., trans., The Poem of the Cid, Berkeley, 1957
Smith, Colin, ed., Christians and Moors in Spain, i, 711–1150, Warminster, 2nd edition, 1993
Smith, Colin, ed., Christians and Moors in Spain, ii, 1195–1614, Warminster, 1989
Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat, ed. R.C. Cusimano and J. Moorhead, Washington, 1992
Thordemann, B., Armour from the Battle of Visby, Stockholm, 1939
Three Chronicles of the Reign of Edward IV, ed. K. Dockray, Gloucester, 1988
Upton-Ward, J.M., ed., The Rule of the Templars, Woodbridge, 1992
Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh, Memoirs: An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades, trans. P.K. Hitti, London, 1987
Van Houts, Elisabeth, ed., The Normans in Europe, Manchester, 2000
Vegetius, Epitome of Military Science, trans. N.P. Milner, Liverpool, 1993
William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, 2 vols, Brepols, 1986
Wrottesley, G., Crecy and Calais from the Public Records, London, 1898