Best products from r/MedievalHistory

And on vikings - primary sources though not all of battles - here’s a quick overview of sources https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/professions/education/viking-knowledge/archaeology-and-history/written-sources-for-the-viking-age/

They may be found around the web but here are links to a few to buy

I can recommend the
Icelandic sagas, personally I find them great fun lots of skull bashings - you may have to buy them.

at least some are here https://sagadb.org Or here https://archive.org/details/sagalibrarydonei01snoriala


Icelandic sagas
https://www.amazon.com/Sagas-Icelanders-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0141000031/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=icelandic+saga&qid=1559118780&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Saxo gramattucus or Saco’s saga (13th century danish ‘history’ of kings
https://www.amazon.com/Saxo-Grammaticus-History-English-Commentary/dp/0859915026


Snorris saga
https://www.amazon.com/Sagas-Norse-Kings-Snorri-Sturluson/dp/8209101730 - not sure if there is a newer more comprehensive translation as I read in original language

and the Eddas

Younger Edda
https://www.amazon.com/Edda-Illustrated-Snorri-Sturluson-ebook/dp/B00NCCEJ6O/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=edda+saga&qid=1559118593&s=gateway&sr=8-6

Elder Edda
https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Edda-Viking-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140435859/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?keywords=edda+saga&qid=1559118649&s=gateway&sr=8-11


And on vikings - primary sources though not all of battles

I can recommend the
Icelandic sagas, personally I find them great fun lots of skull bashings - you may have to buy them.

at least some are here https://sagadb.org Or here https://archive.org/details/sagalibrarydonei01snoriala


Icelandic sagas
https://www.amazon.com/Sagas-Icelanders-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0141000031/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=icelandic+saga&qid=1559118780&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Saxo gramattucus or Saco’s saga (13th century danish ‘history’ of kings
https://www.amazon.com/Saxo-Grammaticus-History-English-Commentary/dp/0859915026


Snorris saga
https://www.amazon.com/Sagas-Norse-Kings-Snorri-Sturluson/dp/8209101730 - not sure if there is a newer more comprehensive translation as I read in original language

and the Eddas

Younger Edda
https://www.amazon.com/Edda-Illustrated-Snorri-Sturluson-ebook/dp/B00NCCEJ6O/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=edda+saga&qid=1559118593&s=gateway&sr=8-6

Elder Edda
https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Edda-Viking-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140435859/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?keywords=edda+saga&qid=1559118649&s=gateway&sr=8-11

Start with Farhad Daftary's The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis (I. B. Tauris, 1995) if you want a solid introduction. Another really excellent book on them is Marshall Hodgson's book The Secret Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizari Ismai'lis Against the Islamic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

Lewis' work is out of date, but Hodgson's is still quite relevant. I am pasting below the entry from Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd Ed., which was written by Lewis. It has some good introductory information and does have a few relevant bibliographic items listed. I would just post the link, but it is behind a proxy.

> Ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya, a name given in mediaeval times to the followers in Syria of the Nizārī branch of the Ismāʿīlī sect. The name was carried from Syria to Europe by the Crusaders, and occurs in a variety of forms in the Western literature of the Crusades, as well as in Greek and Hebrew texts. In the form 'assassin' it eventually found its way into French and English usage, with corresponding forms in Italian, Spanish and other languages. At first the word seems to have been used in the sense of devotee or zealot, thus corresponding to fidāʾī [q.v.]. As early as the 12th century Provençal poets compare themselves to Assassins in their self-sacrificing devotion to their ladies (F. M. Chambers, The troubadours and the Assassins, in Modern Language Notes, lxiv (1949), 245 ff.; D. Scheludko, Über die arabischen Lehnwörter im Altprovenzalischen, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, xlvii (1927), 423). But soon it was the murderous tactics of the Nizārīs, rather than their selfless devotion, that fascinated European visitors to the East, and gave the word a new meaning. From being the name of a mysterious sect in Syria, assassin becomes a common noun meaning murderer. It is already used by Dante ('lo perfido assassin ...', Inferno, xix, 49-50), and is explained by his commentator Francesco da Buti, in the second half of the 14th century, as 'one who kills another for money'.
>
> During the 17th and 18th centuries the name assassin—and the sect that first bore it—received a good deal of attention from European scholars, who produced a number of theories, mostly fantastic, to explain its origin and significance. The mystery was finally solved by Silvestre de Sacy in his Mémoire sur la dynastie des Assassins et sur l'origine de leur nom, read to the Institut in 1809 and published in the Mémoires de l'Institut Royal, iv (1818), 1-85 (= Mémoires d'histoire et de littérature orientales, Paris 1818, 322-403). Using Arabic manuscript sources, notably the chronicle of AbūS̲h̲āma, he examines and rejects previous explanations, and shows that the word assassin is connected with the Arabicḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ [q.v.]. He suggests that the variant forms Assassini, Assissini, Heyssisini etc. in the Crusading sources come from alternative Arabic forms ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ī (pl. ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya or has̲h̲īs̲h̲iyyīn) and ḥas̲h̲s̲h̲ās̲h̲ (pl. ḥas̲h̲s̲h̲ās̲h̲īn). In confirmation of this he was able to produce several Arabic texts in which the sectaries are called ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ī, but none in which they are called ḥas̲h̲s̲h̲ās̲h̲. Since then, the form ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ī has been amply confirmed by new texts that have come to light—but there is still, as far as is known, no text in which the sectaries are called ḥas̲h̲s̲h̲ās̲h̲. It would therefore seem that this part of S. de Sacy's explanation must be abandoned, and all the European variants derived from the Arabicḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ī.
>
> This revision raises again the question of the meaning of the term. Ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ is of course the Arabic name of Indian hemp—cannabis sativa—and ḥas̲h̲s̲h̲ās̲h̲ is the common word for a hashish-taker. De Sacy, while not accepting the opinion held by many later writers that the assassins were so called because they were addicts, nevertheless explains the name as due to the secret use of hashish by the leaders of the sect, to give their emissaries a foretaste of the delights of paradise that awaited them on the completion of their missions. He links this interpretation with the story told by Marco Polo, and found also in other eastern and western sources, of the secret 'gardens of paradise' into which the drugged devotees were introduced (Marco Polo, edd. A. C. Moule and P. Pelliot, London 1938, i, 40 ff.; cf. Arnold of Lübeck, Chronicon Slavorum, iv, 16; J. von Hammer, Sur le paradis du Vieux de la Montagne, in Fundgruben des Orients, iii (1813), 201-6—citing an Arabic romance, in which the drug used is called Band̲j̲). This story is early; the oldest version of it, that of Arnold of Lübeck, must date from the end of the 12th century. Their chief, he says, himself gives them daggers which are, so to speak, consecrated to this task, and then “et tunc poculo eos quodam, quo in extasim vel amentiam rapiantur, inebriat, et eis magicis suis quedam sompnia in fantastica, gaudiis et deliciis, immo nugis plena, ostendit, et hec eternaliter pro tali opere eos habere contendit” (Monumenta Germaniae historica, xxi, Hanover 1869, 179). This story, which may well be the earliest account of hashish dreams, is repeated with variants by later writers. It is, however, almost certainly a popular tale, perhaps even a result rather than a cause of the name ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya. The use and effects of hashish were known at the time, and were no secret; the use of the drug by the sectaries, with or without secret gardens, is attested neither by Ismāʿīlī nor by serious Sunnī authors. Even the name ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya is local to Syria (cf. Houtsma, Recueil, i, 195; Ibn Muyassar, Annales, 68) and probably abusive. It was never used by contemporaries of the Persian or any other non-Syrian Ismāʿīlīs; even in Syria it was not used by the Ismāʿīlīs; themselves (except in a polemic tract issued by the FāṭimidCaliph al-Āmir against his Nizārī opponents—A. A. A. Fyzee, al-Hidāyatu 'l-āmirīya, London-Bombay 1938, 27), and only occasionally even by non-Ismāʿīlī writers. Thus Maḳrīzī, in a fairly lengthy discussion of the origins and use of hashish, mentions a Persian mulḥid (probably an Ismāʿīlī) who came to Cairo at about the end of the 8th century A.H. and prepared and sold his own mixture of hashish—but does not call the Ismāʿīlīs ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya, or mention any special connexion between the sect and the drug (Ḵh̲iṭaṭ, Būlāḳ, ii, 126-9). Ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ī would thus appear to have been a local Syrian epithet for the Ismāʿīlīs, probably a term of contempt—a criticism of their behaviour rather than a description of their practices.
>
> (B. Lewis)
>
> Bibliography
>
> B. Lewis, The sources for the history of the Syrian assassins, in Speculum, xxvii (1952), 475-89
>
> idem, The Ismāʿīlites and the Assassins, in A history of the Crusades, editor-in-chief K. M. Setton, i, The first hundred years, ed. M. W. Baldwin, Philadelphia 1955, 99-132
>
> M. G. S. Hodgson, The Order of Assassins, The Hague 1955, espec. 133-7. For the history of the sect see ismāʿīliyya and nizārīs.
>
> [The entry 'Ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya' was originally published in print in 1966 (fascicule 43-46, pp. 267-268).]
>
>[Print Version: Volume III, page 267, column 2]
>
> Citation:
>
> Lewis, B. "Ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲iyya." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman; , Th. Bianquis; , C.E. Bosworth; , E. van Donzel; and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2011. Brill Online.

My area of particular interest is Old Norse stuff, and as far as I know there's little about band of criminals there, probably because of how their justice system worked. The sagas, though, represent a treasure trove of legal ideas, especially concerning what is to be an outlaw, and have all kinds of exciting juicy fighting bits. I'm going to link to to a few relevant sagas, but the translations are all from the 19th century (and thus in the public domain,) so they frequently are translated differently than they would be now. If you're interested enough, I recommend you buy The Sagas of Icelanders for some really top-notch modern translations.

• Gisli's Saga, one of a subgenre of "outlaw sagas," the story of a man who is compelled to seek revenge though it drives him to outlawry and disaster. Take a look at the climactic battle between Gisli and his pursuers. Chapter XI is good for a taste of the Icelandic legal system.
  
  
• Egil's Saga, about one of the bloodthirstiest, ballsiest, most insane and overall most badass heroes in Norse history. Egil's not really an outlaw, though he has a longrunning feud with the Norwegian kings, but the story is replete with battles, duels and all kinds of bloodletting. Check out the duels in chapters LXVII and LXVIII, but the whole work is replete with 'em. The way Egil dispatches his foe in LXVIII is noteworthy for being insanely hardcore.
  
  
• I can't find a link online, but Clever Ref's saga is an incredibly entertaining (and quite short) story about an outlaw on the run who's able to outwit his pursuers with a variety of neat little tricks and gadgets, as well as some clever poetry. Buy the book I recommended! There's lots of good stuff in there!
  
  On the other hand, you're unlikely to get much of any value regarding the actual mechanics of sword combat from these or other literary sources. For that, you should take a look at fechtbucher, or fighting manuals. Most of them post-date the medieval period, but there's still lots of valuable instruction in there. The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts hosts some manuals here, and if you care to poke around a bit more the "Wiktenauer" wiki has some great resources. There's a subculture of people who study these books and train from them, and let me tell you, their combat looks very little like the stereotypical bashing match people think of. If I had to liken it to something, I'd say it most reminds me of an MMA match combined with fencing, though that doesn't do justice to it. Here are a few different videos of people using these techniques:
  
  Duel with renaissance longswords, by (quite probably) the best European-style swordsmen alive today
  
  A less technically-skilled but still entertaining match with longswords
  
  More of the same
  
  Another longsword match, demonstrating the somewhat different techniques used to work around armor
  
  Much the same as above, demonstrating individual techniques
  
  A selection of medieval weapons being used
  
  "Battle of the Nations," competitive fights between national teams, fought with steel weaponry
  
  And remember, this kind of trick probably decided many fights.
  
  Overall: Fast, brutal, deadly. Most fights would be over after a few blows - one misstep and you're quite dead. Long, climactic battles, as shown in Hollywood and even lots of medieval literature, makes for excellent drama, but is unlikely to reflect reality.

Start with The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey. It's a great read and it will introduce you to a lot of concepts of the early middle ages in a fun and very informative way.

Then I'd move on to books by Joeseph and Frances Gies, particularly Life in a Medieval City, Life in a Medieval Castle, and Life in a Medieval Village (the last one being my personal favorite, although village life is especially interesting to me). You really can't go wrong with any Gies books though, so if one catches your eye, go for it.

Then, when you're ready to go into further depth, move onto the books of G. G. Coulton. They were mostly written in the early 20th century so they can be a little dry, but holy smokes the guy was an erudite medievalist, and many authors and researchers owe a lot to him.

BONUS: If, like me, you become interested in the village life aspect of the middle ages, there are some primary documents that you can find online too. I recommend at least The Rules of Robert Grosseteste, Seneschaucie, and Robert of Henley's Husbandry (I don't know what that site is, it was just the first one that came up on my search results).

I'd probably start here in order to get an idea of Britain on the macro scale.
While bountyonme mentions Saxons ruling from 410AD to 1066, the term "rule" is rather loose, as they were constantly being attacked and invaded by Nordic peoples, even having one as their king for a period of time.
And before even that, there was the Roman rule of England, which shouldn't be overlooked, as the Romans had a major impact on the entirety of Europe, and with England so far away from Roman Empire's Mediterranean hub, there was a different flavor of Roman imperialism there than in Italy or France, which left its mark on Britain even after the fall of Rome
Finally, when you're looking at British history, if you're curious about the various cultural elements of the Isles, and how the Brits perceived themselves and others, I would suggest reading Beowulf, with Tolkien's essay on it which examines how the tale provides a peek into the cultural mindset of the period. Also, if you want a somewhat amusing read, check out Gerald of Wales' Topography of Ireland, the section on Irish miracles is especially interesting.
Also, returning to bountyonme, definitely definitely definitely read The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's poetry is equal parts beautiful and humorous. I would suggest reading it in its original Middle English, if you can get a handle on it. Many of the translations remove much of the beauty and humor of the work, leaving a dry, lifeless piece of shit and besmirching the genius's name. I would suggest this edition if you can handle the price or get it through interlibrary loan, it's well-footnoted, provides a primer on how to read/understand Middle English, and uses the most complete edition of the texts.
Welcome to the confusing/frustrating/entertaining/well-worthwhile arena of Medieval history.

Daily Life in Medieval Europe may be a bit too general for what you are looking for, but it does include a section on clothing and even includes some cloth patterns if you are trying to make your own medieval clothing.

Another book, Fashion in the Middle Ages may be closer to what you are looking for, but again this is much broader than your specific 'winter/cold weather' clothes.

This book Medieval Tailor's Assistant: Making Common Garments 1200-1500 may be your best bet. From a customer review:
>This book covers everything you ever wanted to know about medieval clothing, from measurements, patterns and materials to methods of construction. It has over 400 illustrations of medieval clothing, and 121 patterns for shirts and smocks, cotes, doublets, kirtles, hose, surcotes, cotehardies, gowns, overkirtles, cloaks, children's clothing, headwear, and accessories.


Sorry I couldn't be of much help other than a few Amazon links, but hopefully one of these will at least point you in the right direction.

Edit: oops! Saw someone else recommended Tailor's Assistant already. My apologies, but let us know if you find anything interesting!

Alfred P. Smyth's "Warlords And Holy Men" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warlords-Holy-Men-Scotland-D-80-1000/dp/0748601007) is probably a little out of date now, but I read it at University and found it the best source on Kenneth MacAlpin and his formation of a unified kingdom of sorts. Good luck with your research.

One problem I see is that the Arthurian legends are set in pre-Saxon times, roughly 500-700AD, while the Norman conquests are of course several centuries later. If you want to mix the two up and still maintain any historical accuracy, then you might struggle.

If you're interested in understanding early Anglo-Saxon culture then the best book I've found is the historical fiction novel Hild by Nicola Griffith. Its set a little earlier - in the 7th century. But it shows an amazing understanding of the history of northern England, and the inter-tribal/inter-Kingdom warfare endemic to the time.

If you're interested in grounding the Arthurian legends in an historical period then I'd recommend you read Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles. He sets it in 5th/6th century England as the Anglo-Saxons are invading and I really enjoyed its historical setting. You can try reading his other historical fiction series, the Saxon Stories, as well for an understanding of the 9th century.

If you're interested, there's several books by Francis Gies that are decent surveys of medieval life, accessible reading, and affordable. They are a part of the Medieval Life anthology, which focuses more on society rather than tedious tudor biographies (ok so I'm biased).

https://www.amazon.com/Knight-History-Medieval-Life-ebook/dp/B003JBHVOA

The link there takes you to the book on knights, but all of them are pretty good.

[Montaillou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montaillou_(book) by Emmanuelle Roy la Durie is a classic social history, and actually pretty entertaining. Christopher Dyer is an English economic historian who's books Standards of Living in the Middle Ages and Making a Living in the Middle Ages seem exactly what you're looking for, though they are more academic.

I'd also recommend looking up some micro-histories. They're snapshots of events in the lives of medieval people. The Return of Martin Guerre is pretty famous and there's always like 5 copies in my local used bookshop. Giovanni and Lusanna is also good. I also have Stephen Bednarski's book on my shelf and it looks very interesting, but I haven't read it yet.

Edit: fixed link.

There's most of a chapter devoted to them in James Reston's Warrior's of God but Reston doesn't use footnotes so it feels like he made up a bunch of his quotes and more minor facts. On the + side it's an entertaining read.

You should check him out if you have some free time. Very interesting read regarding the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. I read it alongside Gibbon, it's a very useful perspective and takes a more critical perspective on traditional understandings of the ending of the classical era and the beginning of the middle ages.

http://www.amazon.com/Mohammed-Charlemagne-Henri-Pirenne/dp/0486420116/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318814339&sr=8-1-spell

For anyone interested in this area in the previous century, this book is just great.

For a quick, interesting view of life in the medieval period, try the book "The Year 1000". It offers a day-to-day perspective on life in that year alone. Of course there were good and bad aspects of daily life, much like there are now. http://www.amazon.com/Year-1000-First-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579