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 Wars 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 base for its overall study.
Author Dr Tom Lewis has been a combatant in war; is the author of over a dozen books on aspects of combat, and has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to history.
Non-fiction, Military History
About The Author
Military historian; public speaker, author of 25 books, and a retired naval officer, Dr Tom Lewis received the Order of Australian Medal (OAM) for services to naval history.
He served in the Iraq War in 2006 as an Intelligence analyst, and also in East Timor. He has worked as a divemaster, high school teacher, and journalist.
Tom is an expert on World War II, especially in the Pacific, but has also written in areas including medieval battle, and the reality of battlefield behaviour.
His latest books are Cyclone Warriors – the Armed Forces in Cyclone Tracy; The Secret Submarine, revealing the RAAF’s sinking of the Japanese I-178 off Sydney in 1943, and Australia’s Coastal War, which brings together all of the submarine, surface, and air attacks around WWII Australia.
The Sinking of HMAS Sydney has just won the 2024 Australian Naval Institute’s Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize.
