Was Strategy Practised before the Word was Used?

This chapter presents a challenge, as it purports to deal with strategic thinkers in Europe, most of whom lived and wrote before the word 'strategy' was introduced to European languages. 'Strategy is a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills'. The chapter endeavours to identify instances where strategy was indeed applied, or strategic decisions were made. It summarises the main patterns of relations between European polities in the Late Middle Ages. The problems of dynastic succession also lay at the roots of other wars, civil or domestic and foreign: the dividing line was quite blurred throughout this period. Recommended by Christine de Pizan, and implemented by Charles VII of France as he emerged triumphant from the Hundred Years' War with England, the reinvention of a standing army on the basis of important changes in fiscal-military relations ushered in a new age of warfare in Europe.