A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages Vol. 1 378 - 1278 AD

Sir Charles Oman was one of Britain's finest historians, and his magnificent A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages has become a classic of military history. Admired both for its readability and for, its great scholarship, its scope is exhaustive on the history of the art of war as warfare was refined, changed and developed throughout Europe over the centuries. Sir Charles Oman's original publication under this title was published in 1885, after which he developed and expanded the subject twice, culminating in the 1924 work from which this new edition is taken. Like it, it is published in two volumes. This volume (378-1278AD) traces the transition from Roman to Mediaeval forms in warfare, as the focus of power passed from the infantry to the cavalry. Each section deals with the characteristic strategy, tactics and military organisation of a period, and is illustrated by detailed accounts of typical battles and campaigns. With the collapse of the frontier defences of the Roman Empire, and the weakening of the legions, came the increasing use of the armed horseman; Sir Charles Oman's pen ranges ably through the cut and thrust of warfare under the Visigoths, Lombards and Franks, and Britain under the Anglo-Saxons; the watershed of the Battle of Hastings where the English infantry battled in vain against the power of the Norman horseman and archer; and the growth of the importance of cavalry in the empire of Charles the Great. With the cavalry now supreme in Western Europe he continues with the epic struggles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries both in Britain and on the Continent, concluding his wide-ranging survey with a comparison of the military abilities of Simon de Montfort and Edward I in Britain, and with the Battle of the Marchfeld in 1278 on the Continent. In the east the author dramatically depicts the rise of the Byzantine army in the sixth century to its decline by the beginning of the thirteenth, and the strategy and tactics of the Crusades over a two hundred year period. When his story ends, the day of the horseman is threatened, for a new weapon is appearing on the scene: the longbow. This volume of A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages is an essential work for all those who want to see how the art of warfare evolved from the might of the Roman army and for all those interested in an age when warfare was a daily fact of life, rather than a last resort. Sir Charles Oman's outstanding work provides a breathtaking and vivid insight into the evolution of war.

Sir Charles Oman

Hardcover with d/w 526pp Greenhill Books 1991

Fine/Fine

Book Code: SH1883

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