- 11301 Johnson Road
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- University of Rochester (alumni), History, Alumnusadd
- Medieval History, Military History, Medieval Europe, Crusades, Medieval England, Medieval France, and 19 moreKingship (Medieval History), 13th century England, 14th century England, The Plantagenets, The Hundred Years War, Frederic II., Germany (Medieval Church History), Military (History), Licences to Crenellate, History, Chivalry (Medieval Studies), Medieval Military History, Medieval Warfare, Medieval Nobility, Arms and Armour, Charles V, Atlantic World, Spanish Empire, Colonial Latin America, and Holy Roman Empireedit
- I am Associate Professor of History at Richard Bland College of William and Mary, Petersburg, Virginia, where I teach... moreI am Associate Professor of History at Richard Bland College of William and Mary, Petersburg, Virginia, where I teach the Western Civilization and World History sequences, as well as specialized courses in medieval and modern European and World History such as History 240 Nazi Germany and History 242 The Crusades. I completed my PhD in medieval history in 2014 at the University of Rochester and from 2012 to 2015 taught medieval and military history at the United States Military Academy at West Point as a visiting professor and then as a postdoctoral fellow in network science. Currently I am writing two monographs on medieval military history: a military biography of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and a study of military intelligence in medieval warfare. I will return to my study on the earls of Suffolk in the 14th century in 2023/24.edit
Almost at the copy-editing stage; we are waiting for proofs. Introduction Abstract: Medieval military strategy has received short shrift from modern military historians or strategists. The Middle Ages are often derided as lacking... more
Almost at the copy-editing stage; we are waiting for proofs.
Introduction Abstract:
Medieval military strategy has received short shrift from modern military historians or strategists. The Middle Ages are often derided as lacking strategy entirely, so scholars and military professionals will often study ancient warfare and then skip directly to the 16th century, or later. However, medievalists know this to be a fiction, for strategy was on display throughout the period. As the field turns towards “Global Medieval Studies,” the evidence for it only increases. This Handbook offers a firm rebuttal of received notions about the history of strategy and provides as evidence over thirty chapters—covering 1300 years and six continents—written by some of the top experts in their subfields as well as impressive early career researchers. It is the first comprehensive book on medieval strategy in the English language.
Introduction Abstract:
Medieval military strategy has received short shrift from modern military historians or strategists. The Middle Ages are often derided as lacking strategy entirely, so scholars and military professionals will often study ancient warfare and then skip directly to the 16th century, or later. However, medievalists know this to be a fiction, for strategy was on display throughout the period. As the field turns towards “Global Medieval Studies,” the evidence for it only increases. This Handbook offers a firm rebuttal of received notions about the history of strategy and provides as evidence over thirty chapters—covering 1300 years and six continents—written by some of the top experts in their subfields as well as impressive early career researchers. It is the first comprehensive book on medieval strategy in the English language.
Research Interests:
The volume is a schema of articles, structured around three salient concerns of medieval society: knightly prowess and violence, lay and religious piety, and public order and government. Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasized the... more
The volume is a schema of articles, structured around three salient concerns of medieval society: knightly prowess and violence, lay and religious piety, and public order and government. Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasized the importance of studying intersections and inter-connections while reconstructing how medieval societies conceived of “right order.” This book reflects the importance of this approach in its contents and thematic presentation. The medieval view of "right order" was overwhelmingly concerned with the issues given in the title: of prowess (violence, feud, chivalry, masculinity, memory, honor, and fame), of piety (belief and practice, saints, sin, and redemption, ceremony and ritual), and of public order (law, governance, justice, kingship, literary discourses on identity and power, language and meaning). Each of these themes has been explored and expanded by the work of Richard W. Kaeuper, most directly in three of his monographs- War, Justice, and Public Order (Oxford, 1988), Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), and Holy Warriors (Penn, 2009). Throughout his career, Richard Kaeuper has approached historical questions with an eye towards illuminating the inherent complexities in human ideas and ideals. He has worked to untangle the various threads holding together cultural constructs such as chivalry, licit violence, and lay piety. He has done this by examining a wide range of historical evidence, including art and literature, as a way of more completely understanding how societies created themselves. The present volume builds off of the work that Kaeuper has done in a way that contains the most recent scholarship on these interconnected themes.
Research Interests:
UPDATE: *FInally* getting this off the ground between work and personal duties: The first monograph project, based in part on the dissertation. It focuses on Robert and William Ufford, their families, their social and military... more
UPDATE:
*FInally* getting this off the ground between work and personal duties:
The first monograph project, based in part on the dissertation. It focuses on Robert and William Ufford, their families, their social and military networks, and the way these networks changed over the course of about a century. In addition to filling a gap in the historiography of 14th-century England (there being no full-length study of the Uffords), the volume uses the Uffords as a way to revise accepted military, political, and social narratives of Edward III's reign. Look for it late 2019.
*FInally* getting this off the ground between work and personal duties:
The first monograph project, based in part on the dissertation. It focuses on Robert and William Ufford, their families, their social and military networks, and the way these networks changed over the course of about a century. In addition to filling a gap in the historiography of 14th-century England (there being no full-length study of the Uffords), the volume uses the Uffords as a way to revise accepted military, political, and social narratives of Edward III's reign. Look for it late 2019.
Research Interests:
The volume is a schema of articles, structured around three salient concerns of medieval society: knightly prowess and violence, lay and religious piety, and public order and government. Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasized the... more
The volume is a schema of articles, structured around three salient concerns of medieval society: knightly prowess and violence, lay and religious piety, and public order and government. Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasized the importance of studying intersections and inter-connections while reconstructing how medieval societies conceived of “right order.” This book reflects the importance of this approach in its contents and thematic presentation. The medieval view of "right order" was overwhelmingly concerned with the issues given in the title: of prowess (violence, feud, chivalry, masculinity, memory, honor, and fame), of piety (belief and practice, saints, sin, and redemption, ceremony and ritual), and of public order (law, governance, justice, kingship, literary discourses on identity and power, language and meaning). Each of these themes has been explored and expanded by the work of Richard W. Kaeuper, most directly in three of his monographs- War, Justice, and Public Order (Oxford, 1988), Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), and Holy Warriors (Penn, 2009). Throughout his career, Richard Kaeuper has approached historical questions with an eye towards illuminating the inherent complexities in human ideas and ideals. He has worked to untangle the various threads holding together cultural constructs such as chivalry, licit violence, and lay piety. He has done this by examining a wide range of historical evidence, including art and literature, as a way of more completely understanding how societies created themselves. The present volume builds off of the work that Kaeuper has done in a way that contains the most recent scholarship on these interconnected themes.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The wars of the Staufen emperors with the Lombard League have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, and modern scholars have spent much effort correcting the romantic mistakes of nineteenth-century national scholarship. Yet a good... more
The wars of the Staufen emperors with the Lombard League have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, and modern scholars have spent much effort correcting the romantic mistakes of nineteenth-century national scholarship. Yet a good deal of work remains to be done. A detailed comparison of the two decisive battles in these conflicts allows us to examine serious issues in medieval warfare, including medieval generals’ decision-making processes, the role of chivalry in those processes, the external conditions that shaped military operations, and the utility of force, perceived and actual, in achieving political objectives. Both Frederick I and his grandson Frederick II emerge as capable commanders who pursued rational military policies and made the best decisions possible under the circumstances, despite the different outcomes of these two campaigns.
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Assessment of scholarship on and major themes in heyday of German crusading, from 1180 to 1220.
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In Seven Myths of the Crusades. Edited by Alfred Andrea and Andrew Holt. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2015. Pp. 48-69.
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In The Hundred Years War III: Further Considerations. Edited by Donald Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Pp. 187-215.
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Introduction of my dissertation, written under the direction of my mentor Richard W. Kaeuper at the University of Rochester, recently profiled by the AHA, http://blog.historians.org/2015/02/aha-member-spotlight-richard-w-kaeuper/. I also... more
Introduction of my dissertation, written under the direction of my mentor Richard W. Kaeuper at the University of Rochester, recently profiled by the AHA, http://blog.historians.org/2015/02/aha-member-spotlight-richard-w-kaeuper/. I also owe a lot to my friends and mentors Clifford J. Rogers and Andrew Ayton, although I strike out in a slightly different direction.
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Panel 1 Current Relevance: National Medievalisms Panel 2 Intellectuals: Sources and Historiographies of Medieval Nationalism Panel 3 Literary Constructs: Language, Linguistics, and... more
Panel 1 Current Relevance: National Medievalisms
Panel 2 Intellectuals: Sources and Historiographies of Medieval Nationalism
Panel 3 Literary Constructs: Language, Linguistics, and Literary Production
Panel 4 Political Constructs: Debating the National Community Across Eurasia
Round Table: Medieval Nationalism, National Medievalism: Challenges and Opportunities
Papers of 20 minutes’ duration, or discussion topics of 10 minutes, engaging these issues are welcome from any methodological perspective, including, but not limited to, constructivism, critical race theory, formalism, functionalism, gender, linguistics, positivism, postcolonialism, and structuralism.
If interested, please send the following to dfranke@rbc.edu by September 25, 2017:
-Name
-Title
-Affiliation
-Postgraduate student, yes/no
-Paper Title
-Paper language
-Panel (1-4)
-Indexing terms for paper, at least 2 (see "paper proposal" for their list of terms https://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2018_call.html)
-Abstract (c.100 words)
-Can the abstract appear on the website y/n)
-Equipment needed
-Address (indicate home/office)
-Telephone
-Fax (if available)
-Email
Panel 2 Intellectuals: Sources and Historiographies of Medieval Nationalism
Panel 3 Literary Constructs: Language, Linguistics, and Literary Production
Panel 4 Political Constructs: Debating the National Community Across Eurasia
Round Table: Medieval Nationalism, National Medievalism: Challenges and Opportunities
Papers of 20 minutes’ duration, or discussion topics of 10 minutes, engaging these issues are welcome from any methodological perspective, including, but not limited to, constructivism, critical race theory, formalism, functionalism, gender, linguistics, positivism, postcolonialism, and structuralism.
If interested, please send the following to dfranke@rbc.edu by September 25, 2017:
-Name
-Title
-Affiliation
-Postgraduate student, yes/no
-Paper Title
-Paper language
-Panel (1-4)
-Indexing terms for paper, at least 2 (see "paper proposal" for their list of terms https://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2018_call.html)
-Abstract (c.100 words)
-Can the abstract appear on the website y/n)
-Equipment needed
-Address (indicate home/office)
-Telephone
-Fax (if available)
Research Interests:
Twelve papers and a round table on culture and conflict in the high–late Middle Ages
Research Interests: Archaeology, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Historiography, War Studies, and 13 moreArthurian Studies, Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of Art, Medieval England, Medieval France, Social History, The Hundred Years War, Byzantium, Medieval Germany, Medieval Warfare, Arms and Armour, Siege Warfare, and Vegetius
This is a (first attempt at a) diplomatic game meant for seminar-sized classes to strengthen their grasp of early medieval geo-politics. Please feel free to correct, adapt, or otherwise modify as you wish—it is hardly perfect, though my... more
This is a (first attempt at a) diplomatic game meant for seminar-sized classes to strengthen their grasp of early medieval geo-politics. Please feel free to correct, adapt, or otherwise modify as you wish—it is hardly perfect, though my students were unanimous that it was both fun and educational. I adapted it myself from the Napoleonic diplomacy game created by my colleagues at West Point, and used by some instructors to simulate coalition warfare in 1813. In the medieval case, of course, there are no clear coalitions, complicating things considerably. I happened on 821 CE somewhat by accident, but I think it turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence, since as you can see in the “country” overview below a number of interesting political developments were taking place in this year. Hence the title of the scenario is deliberately evocative of Traina’s brilliant book 428 AD. I framed the title in both Roman Christian and Islamic calendars to stress the multiple cultures of the (European) Middle Ages, especially around the Mediterranean.
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Syllabus to my Nazi Germany course, offered in Fall 2017
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Syllabus to my crusades course, spring 2018
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Analysis of the hashtag #notmypresident from January 4, 2017. Includes dual comparison of Trendsmap and NodeXL capabilities, to examine how the mechanics of the network ensure that Trump dominates the Twitter stream about himself, even... more
Analysis of the hashtag #notmypresident from January 4, 2017. Includes dual comparison of Trendsmap and NodeXL capabilities, to examine how the mechanics of the network ensure that Trump dominates the Twitter stream about himself, even when that stream is in opposition. Post, with links and large images, here: <http://www.milesstrenuus.com/2017/01/05/how-we-use-twitter-part-2-notmypresident-january-4-2017/>
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Blog post on how the hashtag #medievaltwitter traveled around Twitter on December 23. Includes a glossary of key basic terms for social network analysis. Post, with links, here:... more
Blog post on how the hashtag #medievaltwitter traveled around Twitter on December 23. Includes a glossary of key basic terms for social network analysis. Post, with links, here: http://www.milesstrenuus.com/2017/01/02/how-we-use-twitter-part-1-medievaltwitter-roundup-from-december-23-2016/
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This is a presentation I did at Rochester back in November, 2007. It was kind of a one-off, and therefore, as you can see, still very rough in places since I never went back to it, but it essentially argued for the historicity of... more
This is a presentation I did at Rochester back in November, 2007. It was kind of a one-off, and therefore, as you can see, still very rough in places since I never went back to it, but it essentially argued for the historicity of Margery's account of her pilgrimage to Danzig and Aachen. With Margery in the news due to that amazing archival discovery confirming at least some historicity to the "Book", I figured I'd get some small satisfaction from having argued the point eight years ago.
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Short piece I wrote for the University of Rochester's History Department newsletter on "doing history" and history-as-story.
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NAM (Nuova Antologia ;Militare) fascicolo n. 5 (2021) Storia militare medievale. Ordinary Issue edited by Marco Merlo, Antonio Musarra, Fabio Romanoni and Peter Sposato.