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Q&A What are some good historical sources for writing medieval battles?

This question popped into my mind after criticizing the strategic choices in a recent episode of a famous fantasy television show (coffs). A lot of genre fiction (mostly fantasy, even if we may ca...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Liquid‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T11:56:51Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45144
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:53:23Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45144
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T11:53:23Z (about 5 years ago)
This question popped into my mind after criticizing the strategic choices in a recent episode of a famous fantasy television show (_coffs_).

**A lot of genre fiction** (mostly fantasy, even if we may cast historical-fiction into the pot) **deals with battles, war and similar events**. However, the emotional impact of those scenes can be lost if the author doesn't write plausible, or at least coherent, battle tactics.

When the heroes win, we want to see them win thanks to clever tactics, and when they lose, we want them to lose despite having fought their best. This is an hard target to hit when not knowing much about military strategy.

Fantasy usually goes along pretty well with a medievalish era, in terms of technologies and settings, so let's stick with the middle ages.

I'm interesting to hear the name of some good, reliable historical source on how war was waged, what strategies where employed and what the state of the art was at the time. I know there are some manuscripts about very specific aspects of fighting (swordplay manuals mostly) but I'm unaware of any source discussing tactics.

What I'd like is something akin to Sun Tzu's Art of War, roughly speaking.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-05-12T20:37:10Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 7