April 26, 2023
Attend Parrish Lecture on medieval warfare this Thursday
Join the history department for the Parrish Lecture 2023 featuring historian David Bachrach from the University of New Hampshire. Bachrach will present "A Little Reality About Medieval European Warfare" from 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 27, in the Tadtman Boardroom at the K-State Alumni Center.
The event is free and open to the public.
The popular conception of warfare in medieval Europe is of small numbers of armored knights engaging in single combat for the hand of a lady and perhaps control over a castle, without any regard for how the men or horses were fed, trained, equipped or led on campaign. In reality, warfare was a sophisticated and highly organized
endeavor practiced and led by specialists with extensive training, usually carried out in the context of pursuing strategic goals. This paper focuses on knighthood as a problem of military history, the reality of warfare in pre-crusade Europe, the centrality of sieges and fortifications to warfare, and the implication of fortress studies for our understanding of the scope and scale of warfare, and the concomitant nature of governmental organization.