Boydell Press Journal of Medieval Military History XXIV

The leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Volume 24 of the Journal of Medieval Military History takes a lengthy chronological sweep, from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages. It opens with Conor Whatley's study of unit sizes during Justinian's wars, which employs a wide diversity of sources to argue that sixth-century Roman unit sizes were standardized, and that Procopius's figures are generally reliable. Georgios Theotokis uses Maurice's Strategikon to highlight that the toolkit of Byzantine strategists, in Clausewitzian terms, included the "strategy of annihilation," not just the "strategy of exhaustion". Christopher P. Flynn's new analysis of Andernach (876) likewise addresses the role of decisive battle in medieval strategy, examining Charles the Bald's decision to force an engagement against Louis the Younger in the context of the volatile politics of the time, as well reconstructing the battle's course. Intelligence and counterintelligence take center stage in David Bachrach's study of the Salian era, showing how Henry IV and Rudolph of Rheinfelden collected information, and sought to conceal it from their enemies, during the crises of the 1070s. John France's essay on the Field of Blood (1119) illuminates how terrain shaped operational and tactical choices, while L.J. Andrew Villalon's discussion of Alfonso X's Las Siete Partidas demonstrates how it encompassed a systematic military treatise - far more than a medieval echo of Vegetius - both reflecting and revealing Iberia's thirteenth-century realities. The volume concludes with Michael Livingston's presentation of new evidence on the disputed location of the battle of Crécy (1346), in the form of a local monument near Domvast dedicated to the battle's fallen.