Conference: England’s Wars, 1272-1399

July 20-22, 2009
University of Reading

‘The Soldier in Later Medieval England’ project team and the Univesity of Reading are holding a special three-day conference on England’s Wars, 1272-1339. The conference is intended to be ‘cutting edge’ in terms of its contribution to military history, and will highlight new archival research. The conference has a good spread across the various geographical and chronological areas, and will consider England’s enemies as well as England itself.

Full conference price: £250 (two nights on-campus accommodation, breakfast and lunch, conference dinner and conference fee)

Reduced price for full time students: £160

Day attendance is also possible, rates will be published in the New Year.

For more details and to register for this conference, click here

Call for Papers - Vulcan: Journal of the Social History of Military Technology

Vulcan: Journal of the Social History of Military Technology

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: History Military/War

De Re Militari sessions at conference - call for Papers

Dear Members:

I am endeavoring to put together some sessions for upcoming conferences and am looking for anyone who would like to participate.

Kalamazoo (7-10 May 2009): I still have some slots in the De Re Militari sessions for anyone interested in speaking at this conference. I have to submit the sessions by the end of the month (Sept) so there is some urgency here. Please contact me asap at kdevries@loyola.edu. For those of you who have indicated a desire to participate and have not yet sent me your title, av needs, institution name, address etc please do so also asap.

Society for Military History (2-5 April 2009): This year's conference is being held at Murfreesboro TN (just south of Nashville). We usually have at least one session accepted but I will be glad to submit more if there is interest. Also, we need a commentator or two, so if you would like to attend the meeting and appear on the program but not give a paper, I would be glad to include you, too. For this conference I need a short abstract as well as all the other info.

Sewanee Medieval Congress (3-4 April 2009): This conference is held yearly at the U of the South in Sewanee TN. The theme this year is the City in the Middle Ages. If there is interest in proposing a session or two on war and the city the organizer, Susan Ridyard, said that she would be more than happy to accept them. Unfortunately the SMH meeting overlaps this one, but they are actually only 1/2 hour apart so it may be possible to do a "two-fer" that weekend if so inclined. (I can arrange for the sessions to be on different days.)

Leeds Congress (13-16 July 2009): The Leeds Congress is a great conference with usually several medieval military history sessions. De Re Militari would be teaming with the Royal Armouries to propose sessions (or individual papers) for the congress. The Royal Armouries is in Leeds and an amazing resource for anyone who would like to combine their research and conferencing. I would also be happy to introduce any member to the curators or librarians there. There is some urgency in proposing papers for any of these conferences -- the next couple of weeks. I apologize for leaving this so late but was away almost the whole summer. You can contact me at this email -- the easiest way -- or at 410-653-7254 on MWF all day or in the evenings.

Kelly DeVries
Sessions Organizer
De Re Militari

The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars: History, Organization, and Personnel (1099/1120-1310)

The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars

Call for Papers: International Medieval Congress in Leeds, 2009

The next International Medieval Congress (IMC) in Leeds (UK) is going to held on 13-16 July 2009. The annual IMC seeks to provide an interdisciplinary forum in the heart of the United Kingdom for the discussion of all aspects of medieval studies. Papers and sessions on any topic or theme in the European Middle Ages are welcome. Each Congress has one particular special thematic strand on an area of interdisciplinary study in a wider context. However, this strand is not intended to be an exclusive and submissions from all spheres of medieval research, in any major European language, are welcome. Successful and popular sessions at this year's IMC, including a session sponsored by the Medieval Logistics Group, discussed military logistics, technology and communications. We still felt, however, that much more could have been offered in these traditionally neglected subject areas which are only recently receiving the attention they deserve. It is hoped that a session/strand provisionally entitled 'Military Logistics, Technology and Communication' will provide another fruitful opportunity for researchers in these fields to discuss their work. Those interested in presenting their research should note that sessions usually consist of three papers of 20 minutes duration each with 10 minutes of discussion per paper. Proposals for sessions have to be submitted to Leeds by 30 September 2008, so please send provisional paper titles and a very brief abstract to Jason T Roche (jtr@jasonroche.orangehome.co.uk) by Friday 19 September. Further information, including bursary details, can be found at www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2009_call.html

Medievalists.net

If you are looking for medieval news and other information related to the Middle Ages, please check out the News for Medievalists Blog, which is part of Medievalists.net

Two new items added to our website

We added to the De Re site two interesting pieces. First, Jason Price has generously allowed us to republish his MA thesis: An Analysis of the Strategy and Tactics of Alexious I Komenos. Secondly, Chris Hanson submitted his article, The Mongol Siege of Xiangyang and Fan-ch’eng and the Song military, which we have made available too.

Edwin Mellen Press wants to publish your books!

Fellow De Re member Dana Cushing has sent us this letter, looking for authors who might be interested in working with Edwin Mellen Press (EMP). Here it is:

Dear colleagues:

I hope that De Re Militari members will consider publishing with EMP. Knowing the excellent quality of work produced by DRM members, many of whom are leaders in our field, I would be to offer to you a provisional contract (pending an editorial review meeting). A proposal form is attached hereto.

As a medieval military historian myself, I think EMP is ideally suited to publishing our kind of work because EMP publishes all finalized MSS with full apparatus critici – full notes and bibliographies, foreign languages, tables, charts, plus color capability for maps, medieval manuscript reproduction, and other supporting research – within six months.

Most importantly, you do not have to “write down” your work for non-specialists and EMP never requests any kind of author payment – unlike most college presses.

I would be happy to offer myself personally as a point of contact for members or their students who wish to publish, and professionally as an editor. If anyone wishes to meet with me personally, I shall attend the Society for Military History conference in Frederick, MD and the International Medieval Congresses at Kalamazoo and Leeds later on this year.

Please visit our website (www.mellenpress.com) or contact me if you have any questions about the Press or making a proposal, and please let me know if you would like some information to show to your department chair or thesis supervisor about EMP.

Y/s,

Dr. Dana Cushing
Associate Editor
The Edwin Mellen Press
716-754-2219 (direct)

Two new books on the Crusades

Christopher Tyerman - God's War: A New History of the Crusades
Belknap Press, 2006
ISBN 0-674-02387-0

At over a thousand pages, this is a thick book that deals mostly with the crusades in the Latin East.

Nikolas Jaspert, The Crusades
Routledge, 2006
ISBN: 0-415-35967-8

Translation by Phyllis G. Jestice. Less than 200 pages, so not as comprehensive as Tyerman's book. Gives a small overview of many topics. Seems useful to me, but I haven't read much of it yet.