Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×

Online ordering will be unavailable from 17:00 GMT on Friday, April 25 until 17:00 GMT on Sunday, April 27 due to maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience.

  1. Home
  2. Series
  3. Armour and Weapons

Throughout history armour and weapons have been not merely the preserve of the warrior in battles and warfare, but potent symbols in their own right [the sword of chivalry, the heraldic shield] representing the hunt and hall as well as the battlefield. This series aims to provide a forum for critical studies of all aspects of arms and armour and their technologies, from the end of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the modern world; both new research and works of synthesis are encouraged.

Refine search

Refine search

Content type:
Publication date:
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

11 results in Armour and Weapons

Medieval Arms and Armour
  • A Sourcebook
  • Volume 2, 1400–1450
  • Edited by Ralph Moffat
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    16 May 2024
    Print publication:
    06 February 2024
  • Authoritative reference guide, using the documents in which arms and armour first appeared to explain and define them.

The Thun-Hohenstein Album
  • Cultures of Remembrance in a Paper Armory
  • Chassica Kirchhoff
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    10 January 2024
    Print publication:
    06 June 2023
  • The first extensive study of the depiction of the armour in the Thun-Hohenstein Album, in the vibrant artistic and cultural contexts that created it.

A Cultural History of the Medieval Sword
  • Power, Piety and Play
  • Robert W. Jones
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    10 January 2024
    Print publication:
    23 May 2023
  • This study takes the sword beyond its functional role as a tool for killing, considering it as a cultural artifact , and the broader meaning and significance it had to its bearer.

`The Furie of the Ordnance'
  • Artillery in the English Civil Wars
  • Stephen Bull
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    10 March 2023
    Print publication:
    21 September 2008
  • Shows how new developments in guns and artillery played a decisive role in the English Civil War.

The Medieval Military Engineer
  • From the Roman Empire to the Sixteenth Century
  • Peter Purton
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    21 February 2023
    Print publication:
    20 April 2018
  • Sheds light on the skills and techniques of the medieval military engineer, over a thousand year sweep.

Medieval Arms and Armour a Sourcebook Volume I
  • The Fourteenth Century
  • Ralph Moffat
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    19 May 2022
    Print publication:
    15 February 2022
  • An authoritative reference guide, using the documents in which arms and armour first appeared to explain and define them.

The Art of Swordsmanship by Hans Lecküchner
  • Translated by Jeffrey L. Forgeng
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    17 May 2022
    Print publication:
    16 July 2015
  • Completed in 1482, Johannes Lecküchner's Art of Combat with the "Langes Messer" (Messerfechtkunst) is among the most important documents on the combat arts of the Middle Ages. The Messer was a single-edged, one-handed utility sword peculiar to central Europe, but Lecküchner's techniques apply to cut-and-thrust swords in general: not only is this treatise the single most substantial work on the use of one-handed swords to survive from this period, but it is the most detailed explanation of the two-handed sword techniques of the German "Liechtenauer" school dating back to the 1300s. Lecküchner's lavish manuscript consists of over four hundred illustrations with explanatory text, in which the author, a parish priest, rings the changes on bladework, deceits, and grappling,with techniques ranging from life-or-death escapes from an armed assailant to slapstick moves designed to please the crowd in public fencing matches.
    This translation, complete with all illustrations from the manuscript, makes the treatise accessible for the first time since the author's untimely death less than a year after its completion left his major work to be lost for generations. An extensive introduction, notes, and glossary analyze and contextualize the work and clarify its technical content.

    Jeffrey L. Forgeng is curator of Arms and Armor and Medieval Art at the Worcester Art Museum, and teaches as Adjunct Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

The Sword

Royal and Urban Gunpowder Weapons in Late Medieval England
  • Volume 8
  • Dan Spencer
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    25 March 2020
    Print publication:
    18 October 2019
  • First comprehensive study of English artillery in the late Middle Ages, bringing out its full impact on areas beyond the military.

Pietro Monte's Collectanea
  • The Arms, Armour and Fighting Techniques of a Fifteenth-Century Soldier
  • Volume 6
  • Translated by Jeffrey L. Forgeng
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    03 July 2019
    Print publication:
    23 May 2018
  • First translation into English of a wide-ranging military treatise from the late middle ages.

The Book of Horsemanship by Duarte I of Portugal
  • Translated by Jeffrey L. Forgeng
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    21 April 2016
  • Written around 1430, Duarte of Portugal's remarkable treatise on chivalric horsemanship, the Livro do Cavalgar (Book on Riding), is not only the sole substantial contemporary source on the definitive physical skill of the medieval knight, it is a remarkably intelligent and innovative work that still has much to offer to modern practitioners of physical arts. The book stands out from the body of technical writings that survive from the Middle Ages for its intelligence, insight, and intellectual versatility, ranging from psychological reflections on horsemanship and its implications forhuman ethics, to the details of how to couch a lance under your arm without getting it caught on your armor. Under the general rubric of horsemanship Duarte covers a range of topics that include jousting, tourneying, and hunting, as well as the physical apparatus of equestrianism and various cultural styles of riding.
    However, despite its importance for scholarship, its language and technicalcontent have so far resisted proper translation, a need which this book fills. The introduction provides not only the background to make Duarte's text comprehensible, but for the first time offers modern audiences a systematic point of access to the subject of medieval equestrianism in general.

    Jeffrey L. Forgeng is curator of Arms and Armor and Medieval Art at the Worcester Art Museum, and teaches as Adjunct Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.