War in Sixteenth-Century Europe: Revolution and Renaissance

Abstract

For over forty years — ever since Michael Roberts’s 1956 article ‘The Military Revolution, 1560–1660’ first introduced and defined the idea of an early modern military revolution — historians have been debating the question of whether the sixteenth century can be identified as a — or perhaps even the — revolutionary period in the history of warfare in the Western world.1 In the last decade, particularly in the wake of Geoffrey Parker’s The Military Revolution (1st edition 1988; 2nd edition 1996), attention to the issue has only intensified. At this date no survey of war in sixteenth-century Europe, not even the present limited chapter, can honestly avoid taking a position on this dominating historiographical problem. So, then: was there an early modern military revolution, and did it principally take place in the sixteenth century?