OLD DUFFER'S BOOK CORNER:

The Art of Warfare
During The Middle Ages

J.F.Verbruggen (trans. Willard & Southern) for Boydell.

This is the long-awaited full translation of Verbruggen's Krijgskunst - a book first published in Flemish in 1954. For those of you who knew medieval military history before Gillingham (basically Beeler and Oman) then Verbruggen's work is going to come as the most astonishing surprise. We know very little about the Middle Ages because the sources are so poor; er .... well no actually there are lots of them providing you are aware of them, the book is nearly 400 pages long.

Of course medieval warriors were completed idiots who never fought in formed units with a rational strategy; er well... no to that too, here are a number of contemporary briefing papers on strategic problems and lots of evidence of unit manoeuvre. In the case of Bouvines Verbruggen analyses the incidents of individual action and unit action and the result is most enlightening. This is an astonishing book, sadly it is too long to penetrate the skulls of most designers, but then they leave the Middle Ages in peace so we should be thankful for small mercies. A completely brilliant piece of work.

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