The study of military service in late medieval England, of the men who fought and of the circumstances and mentalities that caused them to take up arms, has been transformed in recent years. In 1994 it was possible to write that ‘[t]here are few aspects of medieval English history as worthy of investigation, yet as neglected, as military service’. Indeed, the principal aim of the book that opened with these words was to establish methodological and interpretative foundations for the study of the armies and military communities of fourteenth-century England. Such foundation-laying could not have been achieved in an academic vacuum: it was preceded, accompanied and informed by a range of important work on late medieval military organisation and army recruitment. But in the mid 1990s there was no immediate prospect that Philippe Contamine's magisterial Guerre, état et société à la fin du Moyen Age would be emulated in England. Since then, it is pleasing to report, purposeful advances have been made, notably two book-length military prosopographical studies and the completion of the Soldier in Later Medieval England Project. The latter has provided online access to all surviving military service records for the period 1369–1453, a remarkable achievement, efficiently realised. Given that, elsewhere, similar datasets have been, or are being, compiled for the preceding century, there is good reason to hope that an appreciation of the importance of military service, through direct engagement with the collective experience of those who fought, will now have altogether more influence on research.