Of Knyghthode and Bataile
Composed for King Henry VI in the middle of the Wars of the Roses, Of Knyghthode and Bataile adapts the most widely used military manual in the Middle Ages into English verse. That work is here edited by Michael Livingston and Trevor Russell Smith from all four surviving manuscripts, and presented with a contextualizing introduction and copious notes and glosses. Responding to both the evolution of warfare and the historical background of his own time, its anonymous poet produced what one critic has called "one of the most brilliant military poems of the fifteenth century."
Michael Livingston is Professor of English at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. He was awarded the 2017 Distinguished Book Prize from the Society for Military History.
Trevor Russell Smith is a postdoctoral fellow in the Arts and Humanities Research Institute, University of Leeds.