Medieval Military Combat: Battle Tactics and Fighting Techniques of the Wars of the Roses

AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR This books shows for the first time the battle techniques of the medieval period and reexamines the sources for battle numbers. We don’t know how medieval soldiers fought. Did they just walk forward in their armour, to smash each other with their maces and poleaxes, for hours on end, as depicted on film in programs such as Game of Thrones? They could not have done so. It is impossible to fight in such a manner for more than several minutes as exhaustion becomes a preventative factor. Indeed, we know more of how the Roman and Greek armies fought than we do of the 1300 to 1550 period. So how did medieval soldiers in the War of the Roses, and in the infantry sections of battles such as Agincourt and Towton, carry out their grim work? Medieval Military Combat shows, for the first time, the techniques of such battles. It also breaks new ground in establishing medieval battle numbers as highly exaggerated, and that we need to look again at the accounts of actions such as the famous Battle of Towton, which this work uses as a basic for its overall study. AUTHOR: Dr Tom Lewis OAM is an Australian author and military historian. He served for 20 years in the Australian Defence Forces, and is also a high school teacher. He has been awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to naval history.