This history of medieval warfare, originally written in 1885 when its author—later one of the great medievalists—was still an undergraduate at Oxford, remains for students and general readers one of the best accounts of military art in the Middle Ages between Adrianople in 378 A.D. (the most fearful defeat suffered by a Roman army since Cannae in 216 B.C.) and Marignano (1515 A.D.), the last of the triumphs of the medieval horseman. It was extensively revised and edited by John H. Beeler in 1953 to incorporate many new facts uncovered since the late nineteenth century.

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It deals with the period of 379–1515 A.D., a period in military history which saw the domination of the heavy cavalry, and does so in a fast-paced prose which makes the book every bit as exciting as an adventure novel.

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Oman traces here with great skill the broad lines of European military history from the Late Roman Empire to the Renaissance.... An authoritative and highly readable study.

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Rare and readable... brilliant history, ingeniously researched and cleanly written.