Mediev al military historiography

INTRODUCTION Beginning in the early twentieth century a scholarly consensus gradually formed concerning the configuration of medieval military history. This consensus was confirmed in three magisterial historical syntheses. The pioneering work was carried out by the German historian Hans Delbruck, whose monumental Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte began appearing in 1900. 1 In England, Sir Charles Oman began his studies with a short undergraduate Oxford essay, The Art of War, published in 18852 and built this study over the next generation into a magisterial two volume work, History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, which finally was completed in 1923 (Oman 1924). The French historian, Ferdinand Lot, although he was a generalist in medieval history, provided the third leg of this triad. Following the end of the Second World War and probably stimulated by it, he published his exceptionally important L’Art militaire et les armees au moyen age et dans la Proche-Orient (1946).