The Place of War in English History, 1066-1214 (Warfare in History)

War and the state in the Anglo-Norman period was, for the late J.O. Prestwich, a lifetime's study. This book contains the Ford Lectures which he gave in 1983, and whose publication has long been anticipated. It pulls together his ideas on the way that war was conducted, both by land and sea, and the ways in which it affected government and the economy. Prestwich was concerned less with actual hostilities than with the ways in which armed forces were raised, maintained, supplied, disciplined and transported. The book considers the relations between war and diplomacy, propaganda and morale, military intelligence, and economic warfare. The discussion ranges widely over such issues as the purpose of Domesday Book, the English contribution to the Lisbon crusade, and the antecedents of Magna Carta. The use of the concept of feudalism to explain the developments of this period is explicitly and forcibly rejected, as is explained in an appendix; a further appendix examines the composition of Anglo-Norman armies. This book is particularly welcome as it makes public the reflections of one of the leading medievalists of his generation.