1st Edition

Routledge Handbook of Medieval Military Strategy

Edited By John D. Hosler, Daniel P. Franke Copyright 2025
450 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

450 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This Handbook provides the first comprehensive and global analysis of medieval military strategy, covering the period from the sixth to the seventeenth century. Challenging the widely held notion in modern strategic studies that medieval strategy was non-existent, the Handbook brings together leading scholars to explore a range of literatures, campaigns, laws, and contexts that highlight... Read more

Introduction

John D. Hosler

Part I: Europe

1. Charlemagne’s Long-Term Strategic Goal: Obtaining the Imperial Title in the West

Bernard S. Bachrach 

2. Anglo-Saxon and Viking Military Strategies

Richard P. Abels                                

3. Grand Strategy of the Ottonian Empire, 919-973

David S. Bachrach

4. Strategy in the High Middle Ages: Anglo-Normans, Capetians and Plantagenets

Steven Isaac   

5. Insurgency: Unconventional Strategy in the West, 500-1300

Laurence W. Marvin              

6. The Continuous Crusade in Northeast Europe: Warfare in Livonia, Estonia, Prussia and Lithuania, 1198-1411

Alan V. Murray and Gregory Leighton

7. Military Professionalization and Strategy in Late Medieval England

David Simpkin           

8. Beyond the Town Walls: Economy and the Florentine Forces, 1336-1392

William Caferro

9. The Origins of National Navies in the West

Susan Rose

10. Strategy and Military Revolutions

Clifford J. Rogers                                                                  

Part II: The Mediterranean

11. Strategy and Grand Strategy: Resources, Geopolitics and Ideology in the East Roman/Byzantine Empire

John Haldon

12. Maurice and His Legacy: Strategike in the Byzantine Military Manuals         

Georgios Theotokis

13. The Fatimids and Syria

Yaacov Lev and David Bramoullé                 

14. The Crusades: Western Armies and Eastern Strategies

John France                                       

15. The Rule of the Temple and the Military-Religious Orders

Helen J. Nicholson                            

16. Raiding as a Strategy in Medieval Georgia

Mamuka Tsurtsumia                                                  

17. Spain’s Leading Thirteenth-Century Law Code and (Incidental) Military Treatise Las Siete Partidas

L.J. Andrew Villalon                         

18. Ottomans: Mehmed the Conqueror

Juho Wilskman                                                          

Part III: Asia and Africa

19. Beyond and Behind the Wall: Siege Warfare of Sui-Tang China, 600-900

Kai Wan Kwan

20. China in the Gunpowder Age, Song to Ming Dynasties

Peter Lorge                                        

21. Strategy and Warfare in Ancient and Medieval Japan

Thomas Conlan                                              

22. Strategies in Post-Gupta India

Kaushik Roy

23. Strategy of the Delhi Sultanate, 1206-1526

Kaushik Roy

24. Strategy and the Mughal Empire

Andrew de la Garza

25. Strategy in the Mongol Way of War

Timothy May

26. Almoravid Tactics and Strategy

Joe Morrel                                         

27. “The Kingdom of Ethiopia Shall Live Forever”: Military Strategies in Ethiopia (13th-16th Centuries)

Deresse Ayenachew Woldetsadik

28. Military Strategies in Pre-17th Century West Africa

Gérard Chouin                                   

29. The Military-Political Strategy of the Medieval Kingdom of Kongo

John Thornton

Part IV: Western Hemisphere

30. The Excan tlatoloyan and Military Strategies for Mesoamerican Control in the Late Post-Classic Period

Marco Antonio Cervera Obregón

31. Late Andean Warfare: Evolving Military Sophistication under the Inka

David O. Brown

32. Medieval Strategy: Conclusions and New Directions

Daniel P. Franke

Biography

John D. Hosler is a Professor of Military History at the Command and General Staff College. He is the author, most recently, of Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace (Yale UP), and is the editor of Seven Myths of Military History (Hackett).

Daniel P. Franke is an Associate Professor of History at Richard Bland College of William & Mary in Petersburg, Virginia. He specializes in the military history of Germany and England and is currently completing a study of Frederick Barbarossa as a military commander.

"A major contribution not only to strategic studies but also to our understanding of medieval warfare as a whole, this collection fully vindicates its thesis that strategy existed before the term and was of fundamental importance."

Jeremy Blackauthor of Military Strategy: A Global History, University of Exeter, UK

"This is a groundbreaking resource, surveying approaches to military strategy from across the planet.  Written by an impressive line-up of leading experts, this collection provides a scholarly benchmark for research on an astonishing range of military societies, whilst simultaneously offering new insights on many aspects of global military history."  

Nicholas MortonNottingham Trent University, UK