Oxbow Books - Weapons of Warre: The Armaments of the Mary Rose edited by Alexzandra Hildred

	Tuesday 22 May 2012

Weapons of Warre: The Armaments of the Mary Rose

edited by Alexzandra Hildred

This volume is devoted to consideration of the ordnance, munitions and equipment for war - the raison d'être for the building of the Mary Rose. It begins with a full description of the guns, followed by discussion of the many objects that relate to their use: the shot, the gunpowder and the items needed for loading and firing, as well the experiments that have been carried out in the manufacture and use of specific gun types, carriages and other items. This is followed by chapters dealing with other ordnance: incendiaries, hand guns, staff weapons and archery equipment. The volume concludes with a drawing together of all the evidence to present a detailed consideration of the ship as a fighting unit and an indication of some of the major topics that still require research. c.1000p, 2 vols, over 700 b/w illus and 16 pages of col pls (The Archaeology of the Mary Rose Volume 3, Mary Rose Trust 2011)

Review Quotes

"The authors of these essays are leaders in their own fields and the quality of writing is exceptional. It is complimented by a plethora of high quality photographs and detailed line drawings that portray the wide variety of weaponry recovered from the ship. The icing on the cake is a DVD with many more line drawings and photographs, plus documentary film on the building and firing of wrought-iron and bronze replica guns at the Royal Armouries."

Classic Arms and Militaria (Oct/Nov 2011)

"This is an important and informative publication, magnificently produced. It is not just a triumph of nautical archaeology, which after all is only the process by which these outstanding results were achieved; but, much more significantly, it adds immeasurably to the sum of knowledge we possess about the evolution of warfare in general at a crucial stage of its development. At the same time it has demonstrated that archaeology is a rich source of primary information for historians, who now know more new things about Tudor naval tactics than documentary sources alone could ever have provided."

Colin Martin
International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2012)

"The ship was a weapons platform carrying a variety of armaments 'designed to complement each other and present a multi-layered weapons system. All of these are copiously illustrated with photographs, technical drawings and instructions for their use, and anyone buying the two-volume work also receives a DVD with many more line drawings and photographs, plus documentary film on the building and firing of wrought-iron and bronze replica guns at the Royal Armouries."