The suit of armour distinguishes the European Middle Ages & Renaissance. This book tells its story from the 14th to the 17th century, and the making of its steel. The metallurgy of 600 armours has been analysed, and their probable effectiveness in battle assessed.

The medieval mounted knight was a fearsome weapon of war, captivating and horrifying in equal measure, they are a continuing source of fascination. They have been both held up as a paragon of chivalry, whilst often being condemned as oppressive and violent. Occupying a unique place in history, knights on their warhorses are an enigma hidden behind their metal armor, and seemingly unreachable on their steeds. This book seeks to understand the world of the medieval knight by studying their origins, their accomplishments and their eventual decline. Forged in the death throes of the Roman Empire, the mounted knight found a place in a harsh and dangerous world where their skills and mentality carved them into history. From the First Crusade to the fields of Scotland, knights could be found, and their human side is examined to see how these men came to both rule Europe, and ride into enduring legend. The challenges facing the mounted knight were vast and deadly, from increasingly professional and competent infantry forces to gunpowder, the rise of political unity and the crunch of finance. The factors which forced the knight into the past help to define who and what they were, as well as the legacy that they have left indelibly imprinted on the world. The standout feature of this book is the focus on the equine half of the partnership, from an author who practices the arts of horsemanship on a daily basis, including combat with sword and lance. The psychology of the horse, refined by the experience of actually training warhorses, has helped the author to add to the body of academic work on the subject. This insight opens up the world of the mounted knight, and importantly and uniquely, challenges the perception of what he and his horse could really do.

The Journal of Medieval Military History continues to consolidate its now assured position as the leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Medieval Warfare

This interdisciplinary handbook provides extensive information about research in medieval studies and its most important results over the last decades. The handbook is a reference work which enables the readers to quickly and purposely gain insight into the important research discussions and to inform themselves about the current status of research in the field. The handbook consists of four parts. The first, large section offers articles on all of the main disciplines and discussions of the field. The second section presents articles on the key concepts of modern medieval studies and the debates therein. The third section is a lexicon of the most important text genres of the Middle Ages. The fourth section provides an international bio-bibliographical lexicon of the most prominent medievalists in all disciplines. A comprehensive bibliography rounds off the compendium. The result is a reference work which exhaustively documents the current status of research in medieval studies and brings the disciplines and experts of the field together.

The story of the battle of Mohács and of King Louis II’s dramatic escape, only to meet his end by falling from his horse and drowning in the stream of Csele, is well-known. These traumatic events have been seen as symbolizing the fall of the independent Hungarian Kingdom and the dawn of an age of oppression. This volume presents new research on these events and their interpretation, focusing on topics such as battlefield reconstruction, troop involvement, firearm use, and later political use and abuse of the memory of the battle. Contributors are Pál Fodor, Péter Gyenizse, Erika Hancz, Máté Kitanics, Sándor Konkoly, Dénes Lóczy, Tamás Morva, Norbert Pap, Júlia Papp, Gábor Szalai, and Gábor Varga.

Groundbreaking reassessment of the role played by armour, weapons and heraldry in medieval warfare, showing their cultural as well as military significance. `A penetrating investigation of medieval martial display... The reader is struck by its originality, and by its sophisticated and critical interpretative engagement with historical and literary sources. Particularly notable is the author's subtle exploration of the function of armour: not only its practical role, but as a form of display... A refreshingly different approach to the world of the medieval combatant and his place within that "host of many colours" that was a medieval army, it adds a new dimension to our understanding of medieval warfare.' Dr ANDREW AYTON, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Hull The medieval battlefield was a place of spectacle and splendour. The fully-armed knight, bedecked in his vivid heraldic colours, mounted on his great charger, riding out beneath his brightly-painted banner, is a stock image of war and the warrior in the middle ages. Yet too often the significance of such display has been ignored or dismissed as the empty preening of a militaristic social elite. Drawing on a broad range of source material and using innovative historical approaches, this book completely re-evaluates the way that such men and their weapons were viewed, showing that martial display was a vital part of the way in which war was waged in the middle ages. It maintains that heraldry and livery served not only to advertise a warrior's family and social ties, but also announced his presence on the battlefield and right to wage war. It also considers the physiological and psychological effect of wearing armour, both on the wearer and those facing him in combat, arguing that the need for display in battle was deeper than any medieval cultural construct and was based in the fundamental biological drives of threat and warning. ROBERT W. JONES gained his PhD from Cardiff University.

The first extensive study of the depiction of the armour in the Thun-Hohenstein Album against the vibrant artistic and cultural contexts that created it. In late medieval and early modern Europe, armour was more than a defensive technology for war or knightly sport. Its diverse types formed a complex visual language. Luxury armour was fitted precisely to a wearer's body, and its memorable details declared his status. Empty armour could evoke an owner's physical presence, prompting recollection of knightly personae, glittering pageantry, and impressive feats of arms. Its mnemonic power persisted long after the battle had ended, the trumpets had gone silent, and the dust had settled in the tournament arena. Previously believed to contain preliminary designs sketched by master armourers, the Thun-Hohenstein album is a bound collection of drawings by professional book painters depicting some of the most artistically and technologically innovative armours of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Like a paper version of the princely armories that first formed during the 1500s, the album's images offered rich sites of meaning and memory. Their organization within the codex suggests the images' significance to their compiler. At the same time, the composition and details allow the reader to trace the transmission of recognizable armours, and the memories they embodied, from the anvil to the page. This book is the first to examine the album, and the armor it depicts, in their vibrant artistic and cultural context. In five thematic chapters, it moves from case studies of these drawings to explore the album's complex intersections with the genres of martial history, material culture, and literature. It also reveals the album's participation in cultures of remembrance that carried mythic, knightly personae constructed around powerful Habsburg princes forward in time from the Middle Ages into the early modern era, from the courts of the Holy Roman Empire to emerging urban audiences.

Sheds light on the skills and techniques of the medieval military engineer, over a thousand year sweep.