This Handbook provides the first comprehensive and global analysis of medieval military strategy, covering the period from the sixth to the seventeenth century. Challenging the widely held notion in modern strategic studies that medieval strategy was non-existent, the Handbook brings together leading scholars to explore a range of literatures, campaigns, laws, and contexts that highlight medieval warfare’s multifaceted contours. The scope of the work is ambitious, with over 30 chapters dedicated to analyzing strategy across six continents. From Charlemagne to Henry V and Scandinavia to Florence; southbound to Morocco then across the Sahara to Kongo; past the Adriatic to Byzantium and Georgia and the Crusades and Egypt; further still into Indian and Chinese dynasties and Japan; and finally, to Central and South America—this Handbook provides ready access to military strategy across the medieval world stage. In the process, it fills a significant gap in the history of strategy and serves to connect the ancient world with the modern, demonstrating that—whatever the period—military leaders have consistently plied warfare in the pursuit of greater ends. This Handbook will be of much interest to researchers and students of military strategy, medieval military history, and strategic studies in general.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Europe 1. Charlemagne’s Long-Term Strategic Goal: Obtaining the Imperial Title in the West 2. Anglo-Saxon and Viking Military Strategies 3. Grand Strategy of the Ottonian Empire, 919-973 4. Strategy in the High Middle Ages: Anglo-Normans, Capetians and Plantagenets 5. Insurgency: Unconventional Strategy in the West, 500-1300 6. The Continuous Crusade in Northeast Europe: Warfare in Livonia, Estonia, Prussia and Lithuania, 1198-1411 7. Military Professionalization and Strategy in Late Medieval England 8. Beyond the Town Walls: Economy and the Florentine Forces, 1336-1392 9. The Origins of National Navies in the West 10. Strategy and Military Revolutions Part II: The Mediterranean 11. Strategy and Grand Strategy: Resources, Geopolitics and Ideology in the East Roman/Byzantine Empire 12. Maurice and His Legacy: Strategike in the Byzantine Military Manuals 13. The Fatimids and Syria 14. The Crusades: Western Armies and Eastern Strategies 15. The Rule of the Temple and the Military-Religious Orders 16. Raiding as a Strategy in Medieval Georgia 17. Spain’s Leading Thirteenth-Century Law Code and (Incidental) Military Treatise Las Siete Partidas 18. Ottomans: Mehmed the Conqueror Part III: Asia and Africa 19. Beyond and Behind the Wall: Siege Warfare of Sui-Tang China, 600-900 20. China in the Gunpowder Age, Song to Ming Dynasties 21. Strategy and Warfare in Ancient and Medieval Japan 22. Strategies in Post-Gupta India 23. Strategy of the Delhi Sultanate, 1206-1526 24. Strategy and the Mughal Empire 25. Strategy in the Mongol Way of War 26. Almoravid Tactics and Strategy 27. “The Kingdom of Ethiopia Shall Live Forever”: Military Strategies in Ethiopia (13th-16th Centuries) 28. Military Strategies in Pre-17th Century West Africa 29. The Military-Political Strategy of the Medieval Kingdom of Kongo Part IV: Western Hemisphere 30. The Excan tlatoloyan and Military Strategies for Mesoamerican Control in the Late Post-Classic Period 31. Late Andean Warfare: Evolving Military Sophistication under the Inka 32. Medieval Strategy: Conclusions and New Directions