NEW LOW PRICE The English Civil War has frequently been depicted as a struggle between Cavaliers and Roundheads in which technology played little part. The first-hand sources now tell us that this romantic picture is deeply flawed - revealing a reality of gunpowder, artillery, and a grinding struggle of siege and starvation. As with naval warfare, developments in gun technology drastically changed land warfare in the years leading up to 1642. The Civil War was itself shaped largely by the availability of munitions. A failure to procure them in 1643 and 1644 - combined with abortive attempts...

Written around 1430, Duarte of Portugal's remarkable treatise on chivalric horsemanship, the Livro do Cavalgar (Book on Riding), is the sole substantial contemporary source to survive on the definitive physical skill of the medieval knight. It also stands out from the body of technical writings of the Middle Ages for its intelligence, insight, and intellectual versatility, ranging from psychological reflections on horsemanship and its implications for human ethics, to the details of how to couch a lance under the arm without getting it caught on armour. Under the general rubric of...

First translation into English of a wide-ranging military treatise from the late middle ages.

tifications and siege warfare; She

English translation of one of the most significant medieval texts on fighting with swords.

The sword is an important and multi-faceted symbol of military power, royal and communal authority, religion and mysticism. This study takes the sword beyond its functional role as a tool for killing, considering it as a cultural artefact, and the broader meaning and significance it had to its bearer. It should be on the bookshelf of anybody who claims to be interested in the importance of the sword in medieval life and thought and their cultural significance in the past - and present. Robert Woosnam-Savage, Royal Armouries. We see the sword as an object of nobility and status, a mystical...