Database Takes Scholars to Medieval Battlefields

British researchers have posted records of some 250,000 medieval soldiers in a searchable online database, the BBC reports. Now, interested parties can easily learn about the lives of fighters in the Hundred Years’ War, including salary, health, and knighthood information—for free. The “remarkable” records, says one researcher, names “every soldier from duke to archer.”

“The service records survive because the English exchequer had a very modern obsession with wanting to be sure that the government's money was being spent as intended,” the researcher noted.

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