ABSTRACT
Ademar of Chabannes, the monk of Cybard, stands out as one of the most prolific literary figures of the early eleventh century. Although he produced a considerable corpus of material on religious matters, Ademar is best known by modern scholars for his secularly oriented Chronicon, which is referred to on occasion as a Historia. Ademar treats a great many topics in the Chronicon that deal with events which took place within living memory of his audience. For example, Ademar would appear to have been very much interested in what was happening in the Middle East. In addition to learning about warfare from his uncles, viva voce, Ademar undoubtedly acquired much information regarding the basics of strategy, military operations, and battle tactics from books such as Vegetius’s famous handbook De re militari. The chapter examines a recondite aspect of Ademar’s treatment of military matters, which focused on the terminology that he used to label different types of strongholds.
