Professor John Gillingham: Keynote Lecture

Delivered by Professor John Gillingham, a leading authority on military, political and cultural history in the Middle Ages, the British Commission for Military History's keynote lecture on 'War and the Enslavement of the Enemy's Women: from the Iliad to Islamic State' will explore some of the most profound – yet barely noticed – shifts in the world history of the culture of war. The lecture is hosted by the Centre for War and Diplomacy and will be held in Lancaster's medieval priory.

For thousands of years one of the reasons that men went to war was to capture and enslave their enemy’s women and children. Beginning in Europe about a thousand years ago this all changed. Within war-torn Europe women and children could feel relatively safe. By the twentieth century the more chivalrous attitude to non-combatants had become a global norm - though one that, as recent events have shown, is still not universally followed.

John Gillingham is Emeritus Professor of History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Fellow of the British Academy. A leading authority on military, political and cultural history in medieval Europe and the crusades, his books include Richard I (1999), The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values (2000), The Angevin Empire (2001), Conquests, Catastrophe and Recovery: Britain and Ireland 1066–1485 (2014) and William II (2015).

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