Synopsis
For seven decades, war consumed medieval Britain. Between 1260 and 1330, English kings battled for Wales and Scotland and civil conflict tore England apart. War had once been episodic – now it seemed to be endless, with vast infantry armies swelled by conscription. Who filled the ranks? What chance did they have of surviving the hail of arrows and slingshot, and what would become of their bodies – and their souls – if they fell?
In The Gates of Mercy, award-winning historian Sophie Thérèse Ambler lays bare the brutal realities of life on the front line of a medieval battlefield. By resurrecting the testimonies of soldiers, their victims, and those who mourned the dead, she reveals the untold story of the ordinary men and women who lived and died in this turbulent era. We follow the men forced into battle, the medics who fought to save their lives, and the communities who struggled for justice in the aftermath of war.
From the king’s council to the contested borderlands, and from battlefields to courtrooms, this expansive history combines new archival discoveries with battlefield archaeology, medical research and theories of conflict to tell a new kind of story about war in the medieval world.
