‘What is Medieval Military History?’, with Dr Matthew Bennett

The War & Diplomacy Podcast: From the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University

Dr Matthew Bennett, leading expert in medieval military history, discusses the technology, economy, and ideology of warfare in the medieval age with Dr Sophie Ambler, Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University.

Dr Bennett describes the connections between warfare, trade and finance in the medieval West, as well as military technology – from bows to armour, artillery and fortifications – and explores the concept of chivalry, the treatment of prisoners of war, and how knights and common soldiers fared differently on the battlefield. He also explains the role of mercenaries and sets out some of the eternal truths of warfare that can be identified in the medieval period.

Dr Bennett is a leading expert on the history of warfare and military culture in the medieval West. He spent three decades teaching at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (retiring in 2015) and has since been lecturing part-time at the University of Winchester, where he was recently made a Visiting Research Fellow. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Society of Antiquaries (London). He has also been a Trustee of The Battlefields Trust, for whom he led the Magna Carta Wars project, supported by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. He has been an editor of the ‘Boydell and Brewer Warfare in History Series’ since its foundation in 1995.

His own extensive publications include the Cambridge Atlas of Medieval Warfare, books on the Norman Conquest of England and the Battle of Agincourt for Osprey Books, and a host of articles, on topics ranging from the experience of civilian populations in the Hundred Years War, to masculinity, medieval hostageship, chivalry and the conduct of war, and most recently the Battle of Hastings as well as Norman battle tactics across the Mediterranean.

Books, websites and sources mentioned in the podcast:

Matthew Bennett and Katherine Weikert (eds.), Medieval Hostageship c.700-c.1500
Hostage, Captive, Prisoner of War, Guarantee, Peacemaker, (Routledge, 2019)

Matthew Bennett and Nicholas Hooper, The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: The Middle Ages, 768–1487, (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

‘The Soldier in Later Medieval England’ – a database containing the names of soldiers serving the English crown between 1369 and 1453, developed by Professors Anne Curry and Adrian Bell and their team, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council: https://www.medievalsoldier.org/

The Pipe Roll Society website provides an extensive introduction to these key records of the medieval English state. The Society is dedicated to publishing editions of the pipe rolls of the Exchequer and of other related medieval documents: https://piperollsociety.co.uk/

The History of William Marshal, trans. Nigel Bryant (Boydell and Brewer, 2016)

Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).