Journal of Medieval Military History

The essays in this latest edition of the Journal by leading experts in the field are a witness to the flourishing state of the subject and provide significant contributions to various important on-going debates and controversies. They include wide-ranging discussions of state formation and the role of women in medieval warfare and an energetic argument against viewing medieval warfare as cavalry-dominated. A trio of articles dealing with issues of bravery and cowardice though based on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman evidence advance our knowledge of one of the all-pervasive aspects of the military history of the middle ages. Similarly an experimentally-based study of the effectiveness of arrows against mail armor reaches conclusions that will cast light on combat from Visigothic Spain to Crusader Outremer to fifteenth-century Bohemia. In addition the Journal includes in-depth studies of Iberian war-dogs the naval battle of Zierikzee at the start of the fourteenth century and [reflecting the editors' broad understanding of the scope of the field] the war-related activities of Dutch magistrates at the turn of the sixteenth century.