Tuesday, 18 December 2012

The Battle of Crecy - about me


Rupert Matthews is a professional historian with over 150 books, articles and other publications to his name.

To study the Crecy campaign, Rupert followed in the footsteps of the English army, from St Vaast le Hogue to Caen to Poissy to Crecy and on to Calais. He spent much time on the battlefields and key landscapes that had such an impact on events. Having walked over the ground and viewed it as the commanders of the time did, he has a unique insight into what those men could have seen and known, and what they could not. He has studied the weapons and tactics of the time, handling replica weapons and pondering at first hand the problems raised by using such implements in the tactical formations of the time. He has also made a study of the less glamourous, but no less essential, logistical side of medieval warfare.

Rupert is a member of the Battlefields Trust and other military history organisations.

Rupert Matthews has also written a companion volume to this book entitled “The Battle of Thermopylae – A Campaign in Context”. This book is available from Spellmount Publishing and all good book shops.


Rupert was born in 1961 and attended his local grammar school. He now lives in Surrey, England, with his wife and daughter.

from The Battle of Crecy - a Campaign in Context


 

Book Description

1 May 2007
Rupert Matthews tells the story of the most dramatic military campaign of the medieval world, a thrilling tale of action, adventure, mystery and much more. Before the Crecy campaign began, France was recognised to have the greatest, most powerful and most modern army in all Christendom. England was thought of as a prosperous but relatively backward kingdom lying somewhere in the sea off the European coast. But six hours of bloodshed, slaughter and heroism beyond imagining changed all that. The pride of France was humbled, her army destroyed and her king a wounded fugitive fleeing for his life through a foggy night. This book explains to the general reader the reality of warfare in the year 1346. It seeks to recreate in our minds the tactics used in the Crecy Campaign and to put them into the context of the time. It shows what the weapons were like and how they were used in action. It describes the tactics of the different military units involved and how these would have impacted on each other in battle. Crucially, it takes the reader inside the minds of the commanders to explain what they did, why they did it and what they hoped to achieve. This is the second in Spellmount's new series, "Campaign in Context".

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