ABSTRACT
Of all the problems facing the student of early medieval warfare, the most intractable is that of finding out what actually happened on the battlefield; here our perennial problem of the inadequacy of the sources becomes particularly acute. All we can say with any certainty is that the early medieval battle was a dense concentration of the most intense and extreme human emotions: men killed and maimed, died and experienced horrendous pain, felt terror and rage, showed bravery, heroism, cruelty and cowardice.
