Warfare has been central to European history for millennia; Twenty Battles that Shaped Medieval Europe examines the strategy, military and equipment and battle-tactics of European armies in the Middle Ages. Its fundamental aim is to stimulate the reader's interest in the importance of pitched battles in war, and to explain the geo-political gravity of twenty of them from the Battle of Frigidus in AD394 to the Battle of Varna in 1444, taking in such key battles as Hastings in 1066 and Bouvines in 1214.