Medieval Soldiers online at the ICMA Centre!

For a brief moment on Tuesday 21^st July, the online database of medieval soldiers (http://www.medievalsoldier.org/) hosted at the ICMA Centre, was the news! This database of soldiers serving the English crown between 1369-1454 and including the names of men-at-arms and archers who served at famous battles such as Agincourt in 1415, made the front page of the BBC website, was the most shared site on BBC news online, and interviews were given to BBC Radio Four and 5Live, local radio and even the national radio broadcaster in Canada. Some 250,000 service records are now available to freely search and the database recorded some 125,000 hits on Tuesday alone. The database has gone from strength to strength and this publicity has made the online database extremely popular, and it has now registered 3.5 million hits in just three months - demonstrating the interest of our research to the public at large.

The database is the culmination of a major AHRC project shared between Dr Adrian Bell at the ICMA Centre, and Professor Anne Curry of the University of Southampton. This research draws upon records held by the English Exchequer, as part of a detailed audit process to ensure that money was being spent appropriately, and for which musters of expeditionary forces were taken and then kept alongside the indentures for the campaign and the captains pay accounts.

The launch of the database was celebrated by a three-day conference held at the ICMA Centre from 20-22 July. Over 60 delegates attended the conference to hear papers focusing on ?England's Wars 1272-1399', delivered by an international panel of speakers from the USA, France, Portugal, Belgium, Republic of Ireland and the UK.

The Soldier project is just one of a number of collaborative and inter-disciplinary projects being undertaken by academics at the ICMA Centre and based around the theme of the History of Finance.