As part of his summer research and writing agenda, Prof. Steven Isaac contributed to two issues of the magazine Medieval Warfare.  For the Sept/Oct issue (VII.4), Isaac returned to one of his “favorite” mercenary-villains, Eustace the Monk, who was–as his name indicates–a former man of the cloth who returned to secular life.  When local politics left him homeless, Eustace sold his services alternately to either the king of England or to Prince Louis of France, acting as a sea-captain, privateer, or pirate (depending on whose coasts were being protected or ravaged, and which year it may have been).  In 1216, Eustace met his end at the Battle of Sandwich, the first fully naval battle of the Middle Ages.  The English victory over their former ally meant that the young King Henry III, not Prince Louis of France, would control England. Besides those important facets, the battle became infamous in later retellings as Eustace’s seafaring prowess was attributed to black magic.

In the upcoming Nov/Dec issue (VII.5), Isaac joined a group of other scholars for a thematic issue dedicated to the murder of Count Charles the Good of Flanders in 1127.  His contribution dealt with the series of sieges that convulsed the city of Bruges in the wake of the assassination.  Across March, April, and May, the avengers of the count’s murder pushed the conspirators and their allies into an ever-smaller refuge in the city: first, they got the townsmen to let them in the city, then they breached the walls of the count’s castle.  Finally, the siege’s violence entered the very church where the murder took place as the Erembald family ran out of supplies, supporters, and stamina.  Besides narrating the various sieges, Isaac’s essay focused on how townsmen and nobility dealt with each other during the vicissitudes of urban combat.