Innehållsförteckning för MW X1.5 från Medieval World Culture & Conflict Magazine

When I first got my hands on Jean de Bueil’s Le Jouvencel, wonderfully translated by Craig Taylor and Jane H.M. Taylor, I realized that we would have to do an issue featuring this fifteenth-century work. For fans of medieval military history, this work has it all – first a fictional story of knights at war, intermixed with valuable advice on being a soldier. Hiding underneath that is a secret history of the later stages of the Hundred Years’ War. To tell the first part of the story of Le Jouvencel, we have brought in the skilled storyteller, Danièle Cybulskie, for her eighth article in the pages of Medieval Warfare. For the second part, I somewhat selfishly wanted to write it myself, and I hope you enjoy it. The issue features…

The two soldiers on the left are on their knees with their hands raised, possibly in prayer. They are wearing conical helmets with nose guards and mail coifs exactly like those depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. They also appear to be wearing mail coats – haubergeons – which come down to just below their knees and which have sleeves to the wrist. Behind them are two ‘kite-shaped’ shields and two (or possibly three) spears. The three soldiers on the right being attacked have been thrown to the floor – one is lying on his back. They wear the same type of helmet with nose guards as those on the left, but it is not at all clear what armour they are wearing. All three have oval shields with prominent bosses,…

The Carolingian Empire By Heinrich Fichtenau ISBN: 978-0802063670 University of Toronto Press (1978) One effect of this was to produce an enormous interest in the reign of Charlemagne (768-814), who seemed to have restored order from the chaos of the early medieval ages. Even down to today there is only one critical study of the great emperor, that of Fichtenau, produced shortly after the Second World War when, perhaps, the vision of a dictator imposing peace on Europe lacked appeal. But the nineteenth century was also an age of rampant nationalism, and much (more or less) scholarly effort was spent on deciding whether Charlemagne was Charles le Grand or Karl der Grosse. Happily, not all historical effort was wasted on this, but his era did attract a great deal of…

Jean de Bueil: Le Jouvencel Translated by Craig Taylor and Jane H M Taylor Boydell Press, 2020 ISBN: 978-1783275403 The Book of Geoffroi de Charny with the Livre Charny By Ian Wilson and Nigel Bryant Boydell Press, 2021 ISBN: 978-1783275854 The Chronicle of the Good Duke Louis II Bourbon Translated by Steven Muhlberger Freelance Academy Press, 2021 ISBN: 978-1937439545 The Chivalric Biography of Boucicaut, Jean II le Meingre Translated by Craig Taylor and Jane H M Taylor Boydell Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-1783271665 The Song of Bertrand du Guesclin Translated by Nigel Bryant Boydell Press, 2019 ISBN: 978-1783272273 Sir Thomas Gray: Scalacronica, 1272-1363 Translated by Andy King Surtees Society, 2005 ISBN: 978-0854440795 This issue would not have been possible without the work of Craig Taylor and Jane H M Taylor. These…

Located upon the coast of what is now south-western Scotland, Galloway was, prior to its annexation by Malcolm IV, an independent and distinct marcher region of plastic loyalties and a layered multifaceted cultural identity. The area marked a confluence between the expanded and increasingly Normanized Kingdom of Scotland and the Norse periphery focused and organized upon the increasingly chaotic Kingdom of the Isles. The extensive nature of Norse and later Norse-Gael settlement to the region during the ninth century effectively detached and distinguished the area from surrounding political and cultural affinities. That the name Galloway itself is derived from the phrase “amongst the Stranger-Gael” demonstrates the extent to which the hybrid culture created within the area came to be regarded as distinct and separate from its Scottish neighbours or former…

I do not know her name, so I have given her one: I call her Hervor. Other famous skeletons have names. Think of Lucy the Australopithecus, named for a Beatles song, and Ötzi the Iceman, named for the valley he was found in. I could have named her Lagertha, after the shield-maid that Saxo Grammaticus, writing his Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes), said “would do battle in the forefront of the most valiant warriors”. But Lagertha has already been brought to life by Katheryn Winnick in the History Channel series Vikings. I could call her Brynhild, Geirvifa, Svava, Mist, Thogn, or Sigrun, names of valkyries in sagas and poems, names that mean Bright Battle, Spear Wife, Sleep Maker, Fog of War, Silence of Death, or Victory Sign. But I…

So writes Jean de Bueil, a renowned fifteenth-century French warrior, in his introduction to Le Jouvencel, a semi-autobiographical book which, through its narrative story-telling, imparts a lifetime of hard won wisdom to warriors young and old. Le Jouvencel was evidently a highly popular treatise in its own time, given that it is still extant in sixteen manuscripts, more than half of which are illustrated. There is good reason for its popularity: through the vehicle of the inspiring romantic story of a knight called Jouvencel (a nickname that simply means ‘young man’), the book offers an astounding range of important military information, from detailed tactics, to legal arguments regarding people and property, to general advice on wellbeing. At the same time, it offers tantalizingly veiled references to the battles and important…

Both show the broad and tidal river Scheldt, which gave Antwerp access to the North Sea, and then to the world: to the oceanic trade routes just opening to Asia, Africa, and America. The docks are crowded with ships waiting to unload spices from the Indies, or wool from England, or silver from America, or gold or copper or diamonds from Golconda. Even Antwerp’s rivals acknowledged the town as the hub of the known world, where anything and everything was traded, where deals were done in ideas and secrets, as well as goods. The magnificent but never quite finished cathedral is there in both maps, the broad market streets, the walls, the gates, and the moat. The caption says the city has “all the vital necessities of life in abundance”:…