True’s Talk: Norfolk Soldiers Serving in the Count of Holland’s Friesland Campaign of 1396

This talk by Dr. John Alban (Honorary Associate Professor, School of History and Art History, UEA) will deal with English – and, in particular, Norfolk – involvement in a late fourteenth-century military campaign in the Low Countries which is almost unheard of in the United Kingdom. That it remains largely unknown to a British audience is mainly due to the fact that the bulk of relevant sources, both primary and secondary, are written in Dutch. Some English soldiers were involved, but, since the campaign lacks recruitment records comparable to those in The National Archives at Kew, which survive for English royal armies in the same period, it has been possible to identify their presence there mainly through a remarkable Dutch heraldic source, the armorial known as het Wapenboek Beyeren. Of especial interest to a Norfolk audience is that, through their coats of arms, three of those English soldiers can be identified as prominent Norfolk knights.

(Image: Folios from het Wapenboek Beyeren, which include coats of arms of Norfolk knights: 1. Morley; 2. Colville; 4. Scales  (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 79 K 21, fos 54v and 54)

True’s Talks are free but places are limited. Please call 01553 770479 or email outreach@truesyard.co.uk to book a place.