A team led by Dr. Adrian Bell and Prof. Anne Curry, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, have put up a stunning new database of military service records of medieval soldiers serving from 1369 and 1453:
“The main campaigns of the period were to France but there were others to Flanders, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, a much wider geographical spectrum than before 1369. In addition, garrisons were maintained within England (such as that held at the Tower of London), the Channel Islands, Wales and the marches, as well as at Calais and in Gascony. In the fourteenth-century phase of the Hundred Years War, the English also held some garrisons in areas of northern France, and in the fifteenth century phase, there was a systematic garrison-based occupation of Normandy and surrounding regions…”
While the database’s primary purpose seems to be exploring the lives of individual soldiers of note, There are great many potential applications for large observation (large-n) quantitative studies of conflict and health. Variables in the database include: First Name, Last Name, Status, Rank, Captain’s Name, Commander’s Name, Year of Service, Nature of Activity, Reference Number, and Membrane. Read the project details for more information.
Click here to Access the database.
Here is a sample query results for soldiers with the surname “Albon”:
Christopher Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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That’s a really cool database, though I don’t find my mongrel surname anywhere. What are you doing with it? (The database, not my name.)
Nothing yet. They just released it. There are number of really interesting possible applications though.
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