Medieval History 1066-1485
Bohemond of Taranto, Lord of Antioch, unofficial leader of the First Crusade, was a man of boundless ambition and inexhaustible energy – he was, in the words of Romuald of Salerno, ‘always seeking the impossible’. While he failed in his quest to secure the Byzantine throne, he succeeded in founding the most enduring of all the crusader states. Yet few substantial accounts of the life of this remarkable warrior have been written and none have been published in English for over a century – and that is why this absorbing new study by Georgios Theotokis is of such value.
He concentrates on Bohemond as a soldier and commander, covering his contribution to the crusades but focusing in particular on his military achievements in Italy, Sicily, the Balkans and Anatolia. Since medieval commanders generally receive little credit for their strategic understanding, he examines Bohemond’s war-plans in his many campaigns, describes how he adapted his battle-tactics when facing different opponents and considers whether his approach to waging war was typical of the Norman commanders of his time.
St Albans is unique in having been the site of two pivotal battles during the Wars of the Roses, yet this is the first book-length account to have been published. It offers a gripping account of the fighting, and of the politics and intrigue that led to it, and it incorporates the results of the latest research. The authors also plot the events of over 500 years ago onto the twenty-first century landscape of St Albans so that the visitor can retrace the course of each battle on the present-day ground.
This illustrated study investigates the Indo-Islamic fighting men of South Asia from the 7th century AD to the Mughal conquest of the 16th century.
From 1206, much of what is now India as well as parts of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal were ruled by a succession of Islamic dynasties that had their origins in the Ghurid forces that conquered parts of northern India in the 12th century. Although it was never complete, the Islamic domination of this huge region also had a profound impact upon Islamic civilization as a whole, not least in military terms, being felt as far west as Africa. Within South Asia, the war-torn medieval centuries laid the foundations for the subsequent even more brilliant Mughal Empire.
Featuring eight plates of superb artwork alongside carefully chosen photographs and illustrations, this study complements the same author's Medieval Indian Armies (1): Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. It describes and illustrates the Indo-Islamic forces operating in South Asia, from the Umayyad Caliphate's frontier in north-western India and Afghanistan in the late 7th century through to the Delhi Sultanate, the Sultanate of Bengal and the Bahmani Sultanate in the 15th and 16th centuries.
David Nicolle explains how, with respect to arms, armour, fortification and transport both on land and at sea, the widely successful Muslim armies learned a great deal from their more numerous Hindu, Jain and Buddhist opponents. This was especially evident in developments such as the use of war-elephants and the adoption of lighter, often textile-based forms of protection such as 'soft armour' made of cotton. On the other side, there would be widespread adoption of more potent weapons such as the composite bow, and considerably more sophisticated systems of cavalry warfare, among the non-Islamic forces of the Indian sub-continent. Fully illustrated, this absorbing account casts light on many centuries of warfare in South Asia.