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The first full edition and English translation of the RA I.34 Firework Book.
Produced from the early fifteenth century onwards, Firework Books are, broadly speaking, manuals on how to use gunpowder, witnessing a major development in warfare. Surviving in a corpus of some 65, each text has different content and components, but core elements are present throughout. An important example is a manuscript in the collection of the Royal Armouries (RA I.34), written in Early New High German, and (unlike many other manuscripts) still in what appears to be its original format and binding; it also, unusually, contains a number of illustrations.
This volume provides the first full edition and English translation of the material, with a detailed analysis of its content and context. It positions the Firework Books at a crucial stage in the development of gunpowder artillery, offering an unparalleled insight into fifteenth-century gunpowder technology at a critical juncture of military and technological change at the end of the Middle Ages.
Produced from the early fifteenth century onwards, Firework Books are, broadly speaking, manuals on how to use gunpowder, witnessing a major development in warfare. Surviving in a corpus of some 65, each text has different content and components, but core elements are present throughout. An important example is a manuscript in the collection of the Royal Armouries (RA I.34), written in Early New High German, and (unlike many other manuscripts) still in what appears to be its original format and binding; it also, unusually, contains a number of illustrations.
This volume provides the first full edition and English translation of the material, with a detailed analysis of its content and context. It positions the Firework Books at a crucial stage in the development of gunpowder artillery, offering an unparalleled insight into fifteenth-century gunpowder technology at a critical juncture of military and technological change at the end of the Middle Ages.
Price: $39.95
Pages: 388
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: Boydell Press
Series: Royal Armouries Research Series
Publication Date:
03 June 2025
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781837652662
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
While it might be easy to pigeonhole this volume as mostly a curiosity of late medieval military history, in the editor's hands it becomes a much broader window into both the practical features and the self-representational rhetoric of artisanship and craft culture during this period. Historians of medieval physics, technology, alchemy, recipe collections, and even book and manuscript history are likely to find much to interest them.
Introduction
1. The Firework Book Tradition
2. The Use and Reception of the Firework Book
3. The Leeds Firework Book
4. The Text of Royal Armouries I.34
Editorial Principles
Edition and Translation
5. Analysis of the Text
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
1. The Firework Book Tradition
2. The Use and Reception of the Firework Book
3. The Leeds Firework Book
4. The Text of Royal Armouries I.34
Editorial Principles
Edition and Translation
5. Analysis of the Text
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index