Summary
De Rei Militari (also known as the Epitoma Rei Militaris) is a treatise on military tactics written by fifth-century Latin author Vegetius. Prince Edward of England commissioned an Old French translation of the popular text while he was on crusade in the Levant in the early 1270s. Although the original codex of the translation has been lost, a copy of it may exist in Marlay Additional MS I, which, along with the translation, contains a short eight-line verse which ascribes the work to translator Master Richard, and explains that it was completed in Acre at Prince Edward’s request.
Representative MSS
Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay Additional MS I.
Edition
“Une petite chronique chypriote du XVe siècle." In Dei Gesta per Francos: Etudes sur le croisades dédiées à Jean Richard, edited by M. Balard, B.Z. Kedar, and J. Riley-Smith. Aldershot, UK: Routledge, 2001.
Secondary Literature
Jaraslow, Folda. Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d'Acre. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. 129-130.
Legge, M. D. “The Lord Edward's Vegetius.” Scriptorium 7 (1953): 262-65.
Thorpe, Lewis. “Maistre Richard, A Thirteenth-Century Translator of the 'De Re Militari,' of Vegetius." Scriptorium 6 (1952): 39-51.