Anglo-Norman warfare - Matthew Strickland

The influence of war on late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman society was dominant and all-pervasive. This volume brings together for the first time many of the most fundamental articles hitherto published on warfare in England and Normandy in the 11th and 12th centuries, combining the work of some of the foremost scholars in the field.;Redressing the tendency to study military institutions and obligations in isolation from the practice of war, equal emphasis is here given both to organization and the composition of forces, and to strategy, tactics and conduct in war. The aim is to provide not only an in-depth analysis of the nature of war itself, but also firmly to place the study of warfare in a broader social, political and cultural context. The themes dealt with largely span the period of the Conquest, offering an assessment of the extent to which the Norman invasion marked radical change or a degree of continuity in the composition of armies and in methods of fighting.;This collection, with an introduction and select bibliography, should be useful not simply to students of medieval warfare, but to those studying Anglo-Norman society and its ruling warrior aristocracy whose raison d'etre was war.