Military Institutions on the Welsh Marches: Shropshire, A.D. 1066-1300
by Frederick C. Suppe
Studies in Celtic History XIV, published by the Boydell & Brewer Press, 1994
Between 1066 and 1282 two quite different societies were juxtaposed along the Welsh Marches: a feudally based Anglo-Norman one, and a native Welsh one. It has been conventional to consider the former to have been more sophisticated and developed than the latter and to explain the English conquest of Wales upon the premise of superior English military technology, tactics and institutions. The situation was more complex, and during more than two centuries of raids, attacks, and campaigns each society borrowed from the other.
This book is the first comparative study of two military systems which confronted one another along the Welsh Marches. Although it focuses principally upon Shropshire and adjacent north-central Wales, it considers issues pertinent to the entire border region, and indeed to other mediaeval marches as well. Specific topics include: the exact nature and intensity of Welsh military service, Welsh tactics and the English response to them, the development and functioning of Clun (a representative border castlery), the muntatores of Oswestry (a border-patrol system of light horse), the nature and evolution of local command in Shropshire and the so-called 'wardens' of the March, and the extent to which Welsh military customs had constitutional or practical influence upon those of the Marches and of England.
Professor Suppe and Boydell Press have generously allowed us to republish the Introduction and first chapter of this book. All republished sections are in PDF format. For more information about this book, or other in the Studies in Celtic History series, please visit the Boydell & Brewer website.
Contents
Chapter 1: Welsh Tactics and the English Response (Part 1 - pages 7-17) and (Part 2 - pages 18-33)
Chapter 2: The Castlery of Clun
Chapter 3: The Munatores of Oswestry
Chapter 4: Local Commanders in Shropshire - the Wardens of the March
Chapter 5: The Constitutional Influences of Welsh Military Custom upon March-institutions
Conclusion
Appendices
1 - A Chronology of Local Military Activities on the Shropshire March: 1065-1296
2 - A Geographical Analysis of the 1284 Constituents of the Clun Welshry
3 - A Note on the Vexing Problem of 'Warden' nomenclature
4 - The Legend of the Twelfth-century Fitz Warin Wardenship of the March