Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon: Medieval Warfare in Societies around the Mediterranean (review)

This is a very substantial volume and ranges very widely over its chosen subject. There are no fewer than six parts covering the Laws of War, Crusaders at War, the Spanish Reconquest, the Conquest of Granada, Fourteenth Century Warfare, and, finally, New Answers for Old Questions, all except one containing three essays. There is also a substantial bibliography, although it might have been more useful if divided into separate sections for each essay. The Introduction makes an attempt to find some common purpose or theme which could unite this collection of topics, but despite the claim that the essays "reinforce one overall characteristic attributable to late medieval warfare and government. . . a technology which was perfected as passed from hand to hand," the reader is not very conscious of this. The collection appears much more as a somewhat quirky selection of subjects of varying value and importance. The essays also differ considerably in tone and style: some are almost entirely narrative, for example Cynthia Chamberlin's piece on the Siege of Algeciras in 1278-79, while others are much more analytical in approach, for example the essay on the thinking about war current at the court of Pere III el Cerimonios by David A. Cohen. As the introduction concedes, it is also the case that, despite the wide geographical spread implied in the book's title, eleven out of the seventeen essays included deal wholly or partly with the Iberian peninsula and two of the remainder with Italy. The spotlight is largely on warfare between Christians and Moslems in Spain, with other areas and topics brought in peripherally at most.

Nevertheless, while readers will probably find that their own interests dictate which essays are the most valuable to them, there are some contributions of considerable value here. The essay already mentioned on the court of Pere III makes some very interesting links between the works of Vegetius and the Siete Partidas. It also lays emphasis on the practical aspects of warfare and diplomacy as seen by a fourteenth-century monarch in a society dominated by "patriarchal dynasticism." Stephen Bowman's comparison of Jewish responses to jihad in Moslem lands and the massacres perpetrated by Crusaders treats of a more specialised topic but does so in an essay which is a model of clarity and the marshalling of the relevant sources. One of the minority of essays which deals with the Eastern Mediterranean, that by Kelly de Vries on the effect of the killing of the Christian prisoners after the Turkish victory at Nicopolis in 1396 sheds some more light on a battle which is often referred to in general histories of the period because of the participation of John the Fearless of Burgundy, but which is very seldom discussed in any detail.

The volume as a whole is perhaps ultimately something of a "lucky dip" but there are undoubtedly some 'goodies' included which are worthy of further investigation.