War and Society in Medieval Wales 633-1283

War and Society in Medieval Wales 633-1283

Author: Sean Davies

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2014-11-15

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 178316140X

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The story of Wales from the end of the Roman period to the conquest by Edward I in 1283 is unknown to most, but recent historiography has opened up the source material and allowed for a modern, critical reappraisal. The development of the country is traced within the context of the rest of post-Roman western Europe in a study that is a valuable resource for anyone with an interest in military history and the history of Wales in relation to its neighbours in Britain and on the continent.


War and Society in Medieval Wales 633-1283

War and Society in Medieval Wales 633-1283

Author: Sean Davies

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781783161393

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An examination of Welsh military organization, strategy, tactics and conduct in war from 633-1283 which touches on all aspects of Welsh society in this period and questions the tendency to see the Welsh as 'barbaric'.


War and Society in Medieval Wales 633-1283

War and Society in Medieval Wales 633-1283

Author: Sean Davies

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2014-11-15

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1783161426

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The story of Wales from the end of the Roman period to the conquest by Edward I in 1283 is unknown to most, but recent historiography has opened up the source material and allowed for a modern, critical reappraisal. The development of the country is traced within the context of the rest of post-Roman western Europe in a study that is a valuable resource for anyone with an interest in military history and the history of Wales in relation to its neighbours in Britain and on the continent.


The First Prince of Wales?

The First Prince of Wales?

Author: Sean Davies

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2016-10-20

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1783169370

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This is the first book on one of Wales’s greatest leaders, arguably ‘first prince of Wales’, Bleddyn ap Cynfyn. Bleddyn was at the heart of the tumultuous events that forged Britain in the cauldron of Norman aggression, and his reign offers an important new perspective on the events of 1066 and beyond. He was a leader who used alliances on the wider British scale as he strove to recreate the fledgling kingdom of Wales that had been built and ruled by his brother, though outside pressures and internal intrigues meant his successors would compete ultimately for a principality.


Deception in Medieval Warfare

Deception in Medieval Warfare

Author: James Titterton

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1783276789

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First full-length study of the use and perception of deceit in medieval warfare. Deception and trickery are a universal feature of warfare, from the Trojan horse to the inflatable tanks of the Second World War. The wars of the Central Middle Ages (c. 1000-1320) were no exception. This book looks at the various tricks reported in medieval chronicles, from the Normans feigning flight at the battle of Hastings (1066) to draw the English off Senlac Hill, to the Turks who infiltrated the Frankish camp at the Field of Blood (1119) disguised as bird sellers, to the Scottish camp followers descending on the field of Bannockburn (1314) waving laundry as banners to mimic a division of soldiers. This study also considers what contemporary society thought about deception on the battlefield: was it a legitimate way to fight? Was cunning considered an admirable quality in a warrior? Were the culturally and religious "other" thought to be more deceitful in war than Western Europeans? Through a detailed analysis of vocabulary and narrative devices, this book reveals a society with a profound moral ambivalence towards military deception, in which authors were able to celebrate a warrior's cunning while simultaneously condemning their enemies for similar acts of deceit. It also includes an appendix cataloguing over four hundred incidents of military deception as recorded in contemporary chronicle narratives.


The Welsh and the Medieval World

The Welsh and the Medieval World

Author: Patricia Skinner

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2018-02-07

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1786831910

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Entry point into Welsh migration by experts: many of the contributors have longer studies that students can then read; Multi-disciplinary: shows how historical and literary sources can be read together, includes new archaeological data Showcases new work by a new generation of Welsh historians.


Armies of the Dark Ages

Armies of the Dark Ages

Author: Ian Heath

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2015-03-23

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1326233327

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Armies of the Dark Ages spans the period from 600 AD to 1066 and describes Byzantine, Sub-Roman, Pictish, Irish, Visigothic, Lombard, Merovingian, Carolingian, Ottonian, Viking, Russian, Slav, Avar, Khazar, Magyar, Bulgar, Pecheneg, Ghuzz, Alan, Armenian, Sassanid, Arab, Andalusian, Near Eastern, Saxon, Norman, Italian and Spanish armies. It examines tactics and strategy, organisation and formations as well as providing a detailed guide to the dress and equipment of the armies of the period. Comprehensive illustrations complement the text and the result is a wealth of information for anyone interested in the warfare of the time. Long out of print, the book has been a source of inspiration to wargamers and academic historians alike. It is reprinted here in its complete 1980 second edition with an updated bibliography.


Princely Ambition

Princely Ambition

Author: Craig Owen Jones

Publisher: Univ of Hertfordshire Press

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1912260514

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While the Edwardian castles of Conwy, Beaumaris, Harlech and Caernarfon are rightly hailed as outstanding examples of castle architecture, the castles of the native Welsh princes are far more enigmatic. Where some dominate their surroundings as completely as any castle of Edward I, others are concealed in the depths of forests, or tucked away in the corners of valleys, their relationship with the landscape of which they are a part far more difficult to discern than their English counterparts. This ground-breaking book seeks to analyse the castle-building activities of the native princes of Wales in the thirteenth century. Whereas early castles were built to delimit territory and as an expression of Llywelyn I ab Iorwerth's will to power following his violent assumption of the throne of Gwynedd in the 1190s, by the time of his grandson Llywelyn II ap Gruffudd's later reign in the 1260s and 1270s, the castles' prestige value had been superseded in importance by an understanding of the need to make the polity he created - the Principality of Wales - defensible. Employing a probing analysis of the topographical settings and defensive dispositions of almost a dozen native Welsh masonry castles, Craig Owen Jones interrogates the long-held theory that the native princes' approach to castle-building in medieval Wales was characterised by ignorance of basic architectural principles, disregard for the castle's relationship to the landscape, and whimsy, in order to arrive at a new understanding of the castles' significance in Welsh society. Previous interpretations argue that the native Welsh castles were created as part of a single defensive policy, but close inspection of the documentary and architectural evidence reveals that this policy varied considerably from prince to prince, and even within a prince's reign. Taking advantage of recent ground-breaking archaeological investigations at several important castle sites, Jones offers a timely corrective to perceptions of these castles as poorly sited and weakly defended: theories of construction and siting appropriate to Anglo-Norman castles are not applicable to the native Welsh example without some major revisions.Princely Ambition also advances a timeline that synthesises various strands of evidence to arrive at a chronology of native Welsh castle-building. This exciting new account fills a crucial gap in scholarship on Wales' built heritage prior to the Edwardian conquest and establishes a nuanced understanding of important military sites in the context of native Welsh politics.


Medieval Wales c.1050-1332

Medieval Wales c.1050-1332

Author: David Stephenson

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2019-03-15

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1786833875

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After outlining conventional accounts of Wales in the High Middle Ages, this book moves to more radical approaches to its subject. Rather than discussing the emergence of the March of Wales from the usual perspective of the ‘intrusive’ marcher lords, for instance, it is considered from a Welsh standpoint explaining the lure of the March to Welsh princes and its contribution to the fall of the native principality of Wales. Analysis of the achievements of the princes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries focuses on the paradoxical process by which increasingly sophisticated political structures and a changing political culture supported an autonomous native principality, but also facilitated eventual assimilation of much of Wales into an English ‘empire’. The Edwardian conquest is examined and it is argued that, alongside the resultant hardship and oppression suffered by many, the rising class of Welsh administrators and community leaders who were essential to the governance of Wales enjoyed an age of opportunity. This is a book that introduces the reader to the celebrated and the less well-known men and women who shaped medieval Wales.


Post-Roman Kingdoms

Post-Roman Kingdoms

Author: Raffaele D’Amato

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-01-19

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1472850947

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Meticulously researched, this book examines the evidence for the post-Roman military forces of France and Britain during the 'Dark Ages', reconstructing their way of life and the battles they fought in compelling detail. The collapse of the former Western Roman Empire during the so called 'Dark Ages' c. AD 410 was gradual and piecemeal. Out of this vacuum arose regional tribes and leaders determined to take back kingdoms that were theirs and oust any Roman presence for good. However, the Roman guard was tenacious and survived in small pockets that emerged in both Gaul and Britain. These areas of Romano-Celtic resistance held out against the Saxons until at least the mid 6th century in Britain and against the Visigoths and the Merovingian Franks until the late 8th century in France. Drawing on archaeological finds, contemporary sculpture and manuscript illuminations, Dr Raffaele D'Amato presents contemporary evidence for 5th to 9th-century Gallic and British 'Dark Age' armies and reconstructs their way of life and the battles they fought. The text, accompanied by photographs and colour illustrations, paints an intricate picture of how these disparate groups of Roman soldiers survived and adapted on the fringes of the Roman Empire.