Francoise H M Le Saux & Neil Thomas 
Writing War: Medieval Literary Responses to Warfare [PDF ebook] 

Essays consider the variety of responses to warfare and combat in medieval literature.


War is a powerful and enduring literary topos, a repeated theme in both secular and religious literary genres of the middle ages. The idea and practice of war is central to some of the most dominant subject matters in the medievalperiod – as well as to chivalry, to religion, to ideas of nationhood, to concepts of gender, the body and the psyche. This book considers the variety of responses to warfare and combat in medieval literature, beginning with a consideration of ideal military practice and the reception of Vegetius, contrasted with Christine de Pisan’s treatise on warfare. The collection then turns to chronicling war, particularly in France, Germany and Scotland, and also covers the fictions of war, as presented in English Arthurian narratives, Chaucer, Malory, and pastoral poetry. It concludes with an examination of attitudes to women in warfare.


Contributors: MARIANNE AILES, CHRISTOPHERALLMAND, GEORGES LE BRUSQUE, HELEN COOPER, HARRY JACKSON, ANDREW LYNCH, SIMON MEECHAM-JONES, CORINNE SAUNDERS, FRANCOISE LE SAUX, THEA SUMMERFIELD, NEIL E. THOMAS, KEVIN S. WHETTER.


CORINNE SAUNDERS and NEIL THOMAS are in the department of English Studies, University of Durham; FRANCOISE LE SAUX is in the department of French at the University of Reading.

Table of Content

Introduction – Neil E. Thomas

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and Renaissance – Christopher Allmand

Ambroises’s Heroes of the Third Crusade – Marianne Ailes

Medieval Responses to War in Rudolf von Ems – Harry Jackson

Chronicling War in the Duchy of Burgundy and the Kingdom of France at the Close of the Middle Ages – Georges le Brusque

War and Warfare in Christine de Pizan’s
Livre des Faits d’Armes et de Chevalerie – Francoise H M Le Saux

Barbour’s
Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect – Thea Summerfield

‘Peace is good after war’: The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition – Andrew Lynch

Chaucer and Warfare – Simon Meecham-Jones

Malory and Warfare – Kevin S Whetter

Writing Women and Warfare – Corinne Saunders

Speaking for the Victims: Medieval Pastoral Satire – Helen Cooper

About the author

MARIANNE AILES is Professor of French at the University of Bristol.