The Toronto University Press series "Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures" has been going from strength to strength in recent years producing a wide range of entry-level primary source collections covering a broad spread of topics. This present volume represents its twenty-first publication, the focus here being on Medieval Warfare.
The volume's editors are certainly well suited to preparing an introductory set of sources on Medieval Warfare. Kelly DeVries and Michael Livingston are well-known scholars, both with considerable research expertise as well as experience in the production of translations and collections of translations. DeVries is widely recognised as a leading authority on medieval warfare, who has written extensively on this topic. His publications include many books and articles such as: Medieval Military Technology (2012, now in its second edition) and Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (2011). Livingston's wide-ranging publications encompass both fiction and non-fiction/academic works, the latter including several translations, such as a fourteenth-century account of the conquest of Jerusalem in AD70 (2004) and The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook (2015, another collaborative project with Kelly DeVries).
In scope, this work focuses predominantly on European warfare (as well as its Roman forebears) although there are many sources discussing Europe's military engagements with neighbouring societies (particularly during the Crusades). There might have been advantages to broadening this work's geographical scope to include other civilizations and continents, but even so the editors have endeavoured to spread their attention reasonably evenly within Europe, and have avoided concentrating too heavily on the wars fought between the kingdoms of France and England which formerly have attracted a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention.
As the editors make clear in their brief but engagingly-written introduction, this work encompasses topics favoured both by "traditional" military historians as well as more recent strands of scholarship (traditional topics being defined as issues such as siegecraft and battles; more recent themes encompassing matters such as the casualties of war and its outcomes). Thus, there are sources here covering an incredible spread of events and experiences including: hostage-taking, duels, wounds and medicine, naval combat and the impact of war on rural and urban communities. In this way, Medieval Warfare seeks to offer a holistic view of this topic, engaging with multiple audiences.
Structurally, Medieval Warfare guides its readers through the topic thematically via four substantive blocks (Part 1. The Casualties of war, Part 2. The Preparations for War, Part 3. The waging of war and Part 4. The outcomes of war) each in turn broken into small sub-sections. These then include a broad range of sources spanning chronologically from the Latin Roman period through to the fifteenth century; with sources covering events ranging from the Battle of Adrianople and the Persian wars through to the fall of Constantinople and the siege of Hospitaller Rhodes.
The sources themselves are an impressive and varied selection demonstrating the editors' deep and wide-ranging knowledge on this topic. Taken as a corpus, the sources for this volume have been very well chosen, both for their accessibility to a student audience and also for showcasing the many different kinds of textual sources available to historians written by male and female authors (ranging from histories, to letters, songs, legal documents, poems, registers etc.). These include materials as various as an account of the Mongol invasion of Hungary (1241), a report of mercenaries dressing as women so as to assault a castle (1388) and Vegetius' advice on the construction of fortifications (c.388).
As is typical with this series, each source is supplied with a brief introduction providing important background information and drawing the reader's attention to the key themes contained in each source. Again like other works in this series, many of these sources have been gathered together from existing translations, and yet there are also a fair number that have been translated here by the editors directly from their original language.
Taken overall, there is much to praise here, especially for lecturers or students seeking an accessible and wide-ranging set of sources on Medieval European warfare. Medieval Warfare might also be of interest to more seasoned scholars because while some of these sources (such as accounts of the battles of Hastings and Hattin) have been well thumbed, there are also many other texts which are not widely known and/or are translated here for the first time. Clearly, a great deal of effort has gone into supplying as broad a view as possible on the many aspects of warfare in this era and the result is indeed--as one of the reviewers points out--a real "treasure trove" of materials.
In short, this is a truly superb source collection, one which is entirely suited to becoming the central point of reference for modules or courses on Medieval European military history.