
The Wars of the Roses
War and Martial Culture in England, 1455-1487
David Grummitt(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 24. July 2025
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-895891-8 (ISBN)
Description
The series of rebellions against royal authority and the violent clashes between aristocratic families that occurred in England between 1455 and 1487 have long been characterized as the 'Wars of the Roses'. Yet, far from being a continuous period of civil war, the Wars of the Roses were in fact an intermittent series of minor clashes, pitched battles, and sieges. These occurred against the backdrop of a demilitarization of the English aristocracy in the final years of the Hundred Years War.
Drawing on extensive archival research and a wide-ranging synthesis of the secondary literature, David Grummitt here reconsiders the nature of war and the martial culture of the English in the second half of the fifteenth century. He places these experiences within the peculiar legal, constitutional, and political culture of late Lancastrian and Yorkist England, to reexamine in depth the motivation for fighting, the raising and equipping of armies, the experience of battle and its aftermath, and the ways in which civil conflict was rationalized and memorialized. These experiences are compared and contrasted to that in its continental neighbours in an age of expanding royal authority, gunpowder weapons, and emergence of standing, professional armies. The book's conclusions offer a new interpretation of the evidence for the size of armies and scale of conflict during these years, the weaponry and tactics employed, and the wider importance of war, chivalry, and martial culture in late medieval England.
In so doing, and by drawing on a range of new conceptual approaches in the fields of the history of emotions, material culture, and conflict archaeology, alongside other more traditional disciplinary approaches to military history, the book offers a thorough and fulsome history of the Wars of the Roses, one that properly integrates war and marital culture into our understanding of the political and cultural history of fifteenth-century England, and late medieval European military history more generally.
Drawing on extensive archival research and a wide-ranging synthesis of the secondary literature, David Grummitt here reconsiders the nature of war and the martial culture of the English in the second half of the fifteenth century. He places these experiences within the peculiar legal, constitutional, and political culture of late Lancastrian and Yorkist England, to reexamine in depth the motivation for fighting, the raising and equipping of armies, the experience of battle and its aftermath, and the ways in which civil conflict was rationalized and memorialized. These experiences are compared and contrasted to that in its continental neighbours in an age of expanding royal authority, gunpowder weapons, and emergence of standing, professional armies. The book's conclusions offer a new interpretation of the evidence for the size of armies and scale of conflict during these years, the weaponry and tactics employed, and the wider importance of war, chivalry, and martial culture in late medieval England.
In so doing, and by drawing on a range of new conceptual approaches in the fields of the history of emotions, material culture, and conflict archaeology, alongside other more traditional disciplinary approaches to military history, the book offers a thorough and fulsome history of the Wars of the Roses, one that properly integrates war and marital culture into our understanding of the political and cultural history of fifteenth-century England, and late medieval European military history more generally.
Reviews / Votes
Grummitt is currently writing a three-volume military history of the Wars of the Roses and his recent piece on the battle of Wakefield is available on the Battlefields Trust website. Part of the strength of his work derives from the scholarly scepticism he displays toward the sources, notably the chronicles, on questions such as the size of armies. Battlefield archaeology is also used with due scepticism. * Jeremy Black, University of Exeter * This book is a game-changer in our understanding of the Wars of the Roses....This is a well-written, original and lucid book that should make a difference to the way both popular and academic historians look at the Wars of the Roses. * Graham Evans, Battlefield * Grummitt (The Open Univ., UK) is an established authority on 15th-century English military history. ...His book is a deeply researched analysis of various aspects of the military history of the period. ...Grummitt argues that there was an English way of war, with short campaigns (armies living off the land was impolitic), few sieges of towns, and little disruption of civilian life. This is a significant contribution to common understandings of the Wars of the Roses. ...Recommended. * A. C. Reeves, CHOICE *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
588 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-895891-8 (9780198958918)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
David Grummitt has written extensively on the Wars of the Roses. He was a Senior Research Fellow on the 1422-1461 section of the History of Parliament Trust, before taking up a lectureship at the University of Kent. He now works at the Open University and continues to publish extensively on the fifteenth century.
Content
1: Fifteenth-Century England: A Society Structured for War 2: The Wars of the Roses: Treason, Rebellion and Civil War 3: The Logistics of War: Armies and Weapons 4: The Practicalities of War: Training, Strategy and Preparation for Battle 5: The Experience of War: Tactics and Battle 6: The Aftermath of War: Death, Profit and Loss 7: The Legacy of War: Memorialization and History Conclusion. An English Way of War?