Honour, community and hierarchy in the feasts of the archery and crossbow guilds of Bruges, 1445-81

Archery and crossbow guilds first appeared in the fourteenth century in response to the needs of town defence and princely calls for troops. By the fifteenth century these guilds existed across northern Europe. Despite this they have not received the attention they deserve, and have even been dismissed as little more than militias. An analysis of the uniquely detailed account books of the two Bruges guilds, the archers of St Sebastian and the crossbowmen of St George, reveals much about their social activities, and especially their annual meals. Feasts were important to the guilds in three main ways. Firstly, they demonstrated the guild's status and wealth. Secondly, meals helped to strengthen the bonds of the community. The guild's community could include not just members resident in Bruges, but also shooters from other towns and even leading noblemen. Thirdly, and in contrast to this, communal meals were an occasion to exhibit the hierarchy present within these guilds. Hierarchy is shown through the range of foods purchased, and through the seating plans preserved in the St Sebastian's guild accounts.     

Edward I’s armies

This article reassesses some of the evidence for Edward I’s armies, and suggests that the extent to which these armies anticipated the organisation and tactics used in the Hundred Years War should not be exaggerated. Cavalry numbers are hard to calculate, but historians may have underestimated the quantity of support staff. While horses were imported at the time of the Welsh wars, there is little evidence for this in Edward’s later years. Infantry forces were large and well organised in theory, but desertion was a major problem. Commanders, especially castle constables, had considerable experience. For some, pay and rewards were inadequate. Engineers were highly skilled, with notable achievements in castle warfare and bridge building. The crown’s chief concern in providing supplies was to ensure that there was sufficient for the royal household and for castle garrisons. Battles were few, and evidence for innovative tactics is thin. Bannockburn provided a test for the type of army developed under Edward I, a test which was failed. After 1314 new solutions were needed.     

Food, drink and ritualised communication in the household of Eleanor de Montfort, February to August 1265

This article investigates the use of feasts and gifts of food in the household of Eleanor de Montfort between February and August 1265. In his influential The dangers of ritual, Philippe Buc argued, through a study of early medieval chronicles, that rituals in medieval Europe were regularly targets for disruption and aggressive manipulation either in practice or in the texts reporting the rituals. This article tests Buc’s thesis against administrative records from thirteenth-century England. The evidence from Eleanor’s household accounts is illuminated through a study of contemporary literary sources and didactic texts. It concludes that the administrative records indicate that rituals in practice were less habitually the subject of manipulation and conflict than the literary evidence indicates.     

Armour in England, 1325–99

A dramatic change in the personal armour of the knightly classes occurred across the whole of Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century: the addition of plate armour on top of the mail defences that had been worn since the time of the Roman empire. This change is documented in England by the series of monumental effigies and brasses, as well as a very few surviving examples. The story is supplemented by documentary records, especially those of the armoury at the Tower of London, which shed new light on the equipment of the English armies of the first half of the Hundred Years War.     

Histories of analytic political philosophy

This paper sets out an agenda for the study of the history of analytic and post-analytic political philosophy. It builds on a growing literature on the history of analytic philosophy to make three main suggestions. First, analytic philosophy arose as part of a wider shift from the developmental historicism of the nineteenth century to more modernist modes of knowledge. Second, analytic philosophy included a wide range of approaches to moral and political issues, many of which reflected distinctive concepts of analysis, logic, and science. Third, analytic philosophy only became widespread when the work of Quine and Wittgenstein moved it in a more post-analytic direction. Crucially, the move toward post-analytic philosophy inspired people to rediscover and reinvent other traditions, including liberal humanism, democratic republicanism, virtue ethics, and historicism. The resulting history provides a fluid and diverse understanding of arguably the most powerful philosophical movement of the twentieth century.     

Tracing the ‘chemyn de Portyngale’: English service and servicemen in fourteenth-century Portugal

Three Anglo-Portuguese campaigns took English servicemen into Portugal in the 1380s. Two were largely guided by Plantagenet interests, in 1381–2 and 1386–7, respectively under the earl of Cambridge and the duke of Lancaster. The other, which began in 1384 under the regent João of Avis (later João I), involved entirely volunteer English forces. While the Lancastrian-led expeditions were largely political and military failures, servicemen recruited by the Portuguese in England achieved greater success, including victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota. This article compares these expeditions for the first time. It looks at their political, diplomatic, military, social and economic contexts, exploring motivations for English service in Portugal in particular, from that of the common soldier to that of the governments. By looking at the itineraries in Portugal of English soldiers, their presence is mapped and their continuance debated. The Anglo-Portuguese examples demonstrate how foreign military intervention and mercenary activity might be a driving force in social and economic relations between regions of Europe during the Hundred Years War.     

Gifts of food in late medieval England

Gifts of food were an integral part of late medieval culture. Small items, such as fruit, might be given by anyone. As part of commensality, sociability, hospitality and charity, food gifts underpinned customary patterns of life; they developed networks of relationships, establishing good lordship, and played an important role in negotiations. Patterns of giving demonstrate the distinctiveness and appropriateness of some categories of foodstuff, and illuminate the purposes of donors. Changes over time can be identified: indiscriminate hospitality or large-scale food alms fell out of common practice after the Black Death and gifts of money were preferred in some circumstances. Giving choice foodstuffs, however, remained a constant.