Verwüsten und Belagern

From 1158 to 1162 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa waged war on Milan in an attempt to assert his imperial rights in Upper Italy. This study is the first to examine the military history of that period. The central issues are the controllability of high-medieval warfare as a political resource in the hands of Frederick I and the use of military technology for sieges, which together with devastation campaigns were the main form of hostility resorted to. The findings of recent studies on the medieval history of warfare are applied to the situation in Lombardy and examined for their validity.