Sword of God: The story of Khalid Ibn Al-Walid
Khalid is widely regarded as the military leader responsible for the world-changing expansion of Islam beyond its initial home in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century. His story is fascinating.
Robin Hood – The Man, The Myth, and The History – Part 4: Will the Real Robin Please Stand Up?
Was Robin Hood a real historical figure? Here are four figures that might have been the basis of the legend.
Robin Hood – The Man, The Myth, and The History – Part 3: The Men of the Longbow
Familiarity with 14th-15th century English military archery is crucial to understanding the Robin Hood mythology and the historicity of the outlaw himself.
Robin Hood – The Man, The Myth, and The History – Part 2: The Outlaws of Medieval England
14th century English outlaw was vastly more violent and cruel than the myths would have us believe
Robin Hood – The Man, The Myth, and The History – Part 1: Of Tales and Legends
This series will seek to delve into the history behind the legends and to investigate the critical questions that they raise: who was the real Robin Hood?
The Hundred Years War Revisited: The End of the Beginning
The end of the Hundred Years’ War came about due to successful political and military reforms effectively implemented by Charles VII, and a series of devastating blunders and mismanagement by his counterpart Henry V.
The Hundred Years War Revisited: Avenging Angel
“I am sent from God, the King of Heaven, to chase you out of all France, body for body.”
The Hundred Years’ War Revisited: Band of Brothers
Despite decades of reversals experienced in the waning years of Edward III and throughout the reign of his turbulent grandson, Richard II, England’s role in the Hundred Years War was by no means finished.
The Hundred Years’ War Revisited: English Blunders in the 14th century
So how was it that after this seemingly total victory could England let the initiative slip through its fingers?
The Hundred Years’ War Revisited: The Medieval ‘World War’
How the Hundred Years’ War became a kind of world war involving nearly every major power in Latin Christendom.
The Hundred Years War Revisited: The ‘Caroline War’, 1369-1389
This phase is distinctive in that it saw the scope of the conflict between England and France become truly international – some of its most notable battles were fought far from the home territories of the two belligerents in places as far north as Scotland and Flanders and as far south as Castile and Portugal.
The Hundred Years’ War and the English soldier
Starting in the 1340s, English soldiers – both men-at-arms and their lethal archer companions – began to make their presence felt across all of Western Europe.
‘War, Cruel and Sharp’: England’s Grand Strategy during the Hundred Years’ War
Edward developed a grand strategy for his war against France: use highly disciplined, compact forces to penetrate deep into French territory in chevauchées for the purpose, not of occupying territory, but of wreaking extensive economic, social, and psychological havoc on the French, with the ultimate goal of fatally undermining France’s war effort.
Medieval Geopolitics: The English Military Revolution
Edward III would embark on an ambitious programme of military transformation that would ultimately give rise to a revolutionary new “English way of war.”
Medieval Geopolitics: The Hundred Years’ War: A Tale of Two Crowns
Ultimately, the war was caused by the confluence of a series of events – deeply rooted in medieval concepts of statehood and sovereignty that seem alien at first to modern observers – that eventually formed into a cascade that swept both belligerents (as well as the rest of Europe) out of the medieval era and towards their early modern national destinies.
Medieval Geopolitics: Gascony and the Causes of the Hundred Years’ War
While the titanic clash of medieval superpowers that took place over 117 years later known collectively as the Hundred Years War would rage from Scotland to Spain and everywhere in between, one place that seems to forever lie at the heart of the conflict are the warm, sunny, and wine-sodden vistas of Bordeaux and Gascony.
Medieval Geopolitics: Marxism and Medieval War
How do Marxists deal with medieval geopolitics, and specifically with the dynamics of war in the Middle Ages?
Medieval Geopolitics: Striking Back against the Empire: Per venerabilem
‘The king in his kingdom is the emperor of his kingdom.’
Medieval Geopolitics: A Full-Fledged Theory of Medieval Papal Power
Hostiensis argued that the pope did not govern by divine mandate; rather he governed as a divine agent.
Medieval Geopolitics: The Evolution of Positive Law
In this column I trace the next stage in the evolution of the ideas first laid out Innocent’s influential decretal, focusing in particular on the writings of the canonist Laurentius Hispanus.
Medieval Geopolitics: How a Pope shares in the divine power of God
At the end of the twelfth century, Pope Innocent III issued a document known as the Quanto personam. What kind of influence did it have on ideas about sovereignty and power in the medieval era?
Medieval Geopolitics: The Origins of Jihad and the Islamic Conquests
This short column will explain the historical context for the conquests and the three major transformations that made them possible.
International Relation’s Medieval-Sovereignty Debate: Three Rival Approaches
When did a recognizably modern concept of sovereignty first emerge in Europe? Historically, can we point to a medieval idea of sovereignty? If so, how did this historically specific idea of sovereignty differ from its modern counterpart?
The Middle Ages and the Modern State
Did the modern state emerge in the seventeenth century or in the thirteenth century?
