SCFalken Posted May 20, 2011 Posted May 20, 2011 So... ....how exactly did a King/Emperor/Grand Duke generate an Army out of a feudal society? Sure, a knight's fee supported your heavy cavalry and officer class...but what paid for the raising & training of all the guys who weren't knights? The men-at-arms, archers, grunts, etc. Did Baron Bob have only the 3-4 knights his land could provide manors for, and no more fighting men? Or did he have to pay out of pocket for extra thugs, above and beyond the knights fees? In fiction (yes, I know), we always see Barons travelling with dozens of armed retainers. Falken
Richard Lindquist Posted May 21, 2011 Posted May 21, 2011 So... ....how exactly did a King/Emperor/Grand Duke generate an Army out of a feudal society? Sure, a knight's fee supported your heavy cavalry and officer class...but what paid for the raising & training of all the guys who weren't knights? The men-at-arms, archers, grunts, etc. Did Baron Bob have only the 3-4 knights his land could provide manors for, and no more fighting men? Or did he have to pay out of pocket for extra thugs, above and beyond the knights fees? In fiction (yes, I know), we always see Barons travelling with dozens of armed retainers. Falken Most campaigning was done between spring planting and the harvest. In addition to your knights, you were also expected to round up a bunch of your serfs/farmers to be your "infants" or infantry. You got your house servants to supervise the infantry serfs while you and the knights were riding along in style. The word "sergeant" comes from the Latin "serviens". The serfs were pretty much paid in plunder.
R011 Posted May 21, 2011 Posted May 21, 2011 I understand that quite a large part of mediaeval armies were mercenaries. A Captain would recruit a company of archers, for instance, often professional soldiers who would enlist for a campaign or set time. They'd be paid either by a large landowning noble or by the King.
T-44 Posted May 21, 2011 Posted May 21, 2011 It also would depend a lot on the exact period (and geography), but for example in the late medieval counties of Flanders and Artois our the duchy of Brabant a large part of the territory was made up of fiefholds (numbers of up to 30-35% have been put forward). Si basically you have a large number of fiefholders who in theory can be called upon. In practice, only those who held fiefs as viscounts or who held the high justice (criminal executions etc.) - in other words the nobility - would be forced to support the count/duke in person during military expeditions (with a number of their tenants/retainers). Thee remainder of the fiefholder would however have to pay a percentage of the value of their fief (that would have been insufficient to allow them to support to buy armor, horses etc. but which could be used to hire mercenaries). It's actually strange to see that Charles the Bold (with als his "modern" troops of the "ordinance") tried again to enforce the "old-fashioned" personal feudal military service for all of his fiefholders (a lot of who would just be farmers, burghers or non-nobles anyway) in lieu of a financial contribution (which caused a lot of resentment and probably in part explains the revolts of 1477 following his death at Nancy)...
swerve Posted May 21, 2011 Posted May 21, 2011 Very much depends on the period & place. Late mediaeval European armies included large numbers of professional soldiers, for example. The French used regiments of Italian crossbowmen in the 14th century, the English army in the 14th century had large contingents (particularly archers) raised by professional captains, as R011 describes, who'd contract to supply given numbers of men with particular weapons & skills for a specific campaign. Per diem rates were published for each category of soldier. In some countries, towns & cities not under the control of a lord (& there were many of them, governed by councils of guild members, etc) would buy weapons & raise town militias for their own defence. Knights didn't officer archers & other professionals. They had their own officers. Most of the men in armour following lords weren't knights, just men at arms, with no aristocratic title. A knight might have a few of them as retainers, if his fief was rich enough. One estimate of the numbers of knights in England & France in the 1330s that I've seen was about 1000 in England, & about 10000 in France. Compare that with the number of men at arms each country put in the field.
SCFalken Posted May 23, 2011 Author Posted May 23, 2011 Which begs two questions. 1. Who or what generated the ordinary professional Men-at-arms*? They just don't show up when a war's on, or when Baron Bob needs another guard on his keep's walls. Swords and armor were somewhat expensive (as in, not a discretionary item that one would buy with a small sum). and 2. What exactly was a "Knight's Fee", on average (picking a random period)? In terms of acreage, moneys or subjects? Is there a historical benchmark? Evidently, someone knew (generally) how much of each it took to support a knight and his accompanying persons. Falken
buba Posted May 23, 2011 Posted May 23, 2011 (edited) 1. Who or what generated the ordinary professional Men-at-arms*? They just don't show up when a war's on, or when Baron Bob needs another guard on his keep's walls. Professional standing armies were financed by the King, in peacetime from his ordinary revenue and in wartime through special taxes or loans. In most countries the richer landlords also had their own "private" standing armies. These served to police the territories controlled by the landlord and served as a status symbol. However, due to the enormous cost of maintaining such armies, they were rather small and in major wars formed only the nucleus of the entire army. A second group of professional soldiers were the mercenaries. These guys basically moved around Europe, from war to war (or baronial fued). There was a lot of institutionalised violence in Europe in those days so they usually didn't have much trouble in finding sombody willing to pay their wages and offer a share of the spoils. 2. What exactly was a "Knight's Fee", on average (picking a random period)? In terms of acreage, moneys or subjects? Is there a historical benchmark? Evidently, someone knew (generally) how much of each it took to support a knight and his accompanying persons. This is a difficult question because the answer would depend on the country and date. The Dark Ages spanned hundreds of years and rules and customs evolved. A basic thing to understand in that being a "Knight" was not a job, it was a position within society based on a contract with the King/Prince. You obtained from the King a piece of land, you had numerous privileges and in return were obliged, at the King's summons, to show up in arms and armor to perform military work. You were also expected to show up with a retinue, commesurate to your wealth. For the poorer knights this usually meant one servant, who helped out with day-to-day matters and, in battle, covered his knight's back while he was hacking the enemy with his broadsword (visibility under armor was rather shity, like in a WWII tank except you only had one pair of eyes). At the other end of the scale you had the big landlords, who were capable of fielding armies counting hundreds or even thousands of men. Edited May 23, 2011 by buba
T-44 Posted May 23, 2011 Posted May 23, 2011 2. What exactly was a "Knight's Fee", on average (picking a random period)? In terms of acreage, moneys or subjects? Is there a historical benchmark? Evidently, someone knew (generally) how much of each it took to support a knight and his accompanying persons. Falken as said, it's hard to make broad statements. Problem is that al lot of the medieval military "administration" was done on a costumary basis, and so few information has been left (for most regions). I don't know if its any help, but for early 15th century Flanders the limit for supporting a men-at-arms on a campaign seems to have consisted of an input of around 12 to 16 £ Parisis (which corresponds roughly to a sum worth a month's wages of a master craftsman). This is based upon accounts which collected the fines/compensations of those fiefholders who weren't wealthy enough (or unable) to perform military service in the 1420 campaign of duke Philip the Good against the Armagnacs. The fines up until 12 £ are distributed among both male as female fiefholders, while those upwards of 16 £ are all stemming from fiefs held by women (so up until 12 £ you were paying because you couldn't financially support the attributes of a men-at-arms, above 16 £ you were paying because you financially could but were physically unable).It's even harder to make those figures correspond to a "Knight's fee", because acreage, subjects, judicial rights etc. could all be intermingled in one fief. In the above example, a fief which comprised 25 hectares of land (and no apparent other rights or income) was estimated at 10 £ (so just below the "men at arms" limit of around 12 £). But this is just for one region and period.
swerve Posted May 23, 2011 Posted May 23, 2011 Which begs two questions. 1. Who or what generated the ordinary professional Men-at-arms*? They just don't show up when a war's on, or when Baron Bob needs another guard on his keep's walls. Swords and armor were somewhat expensive (as in, not a discretionary item that one would buy with a small sum). and 2. What exactly was a "Knight's Fee", on average (picking a random period)? In terms of acreage, moneys or subjects? Is there a historical benchmark? Evidently, someone knew (generally) how much of each it took to support a knight and his accompanying persons. FalkenAnn Curry's Agincourt - a new history (2005) describes the raising of Henry V's army. Let us look at one very large retinue, which included numerous sub-retinues, that of the Duke of Clarence. He contracted to provide 960 men, including an earl, two bannerets & 14 knights. He only managed ten knights, each of who brought men at arms & archers - from 4 + 8 to 20 + 66. One esquire had 10 + 31, i.e. more than most knights, though on average the 59 esquires had far fewer, 39 having an average of 6 archers, & 20 having both men at arms & archers. The earl & one of the bannerets had no soldiers. The other banneret had 19 + 48. Clarence had 149 archers of his own. Thus, we see that most of his troops were in 70 sub-retinues, & that rank & retinue size were not precisely correlated. From the surviving records, it is clear that sub-retinues frequently contained sub-sub-retinues. Maybe the esquire with 41 men was a good recruiter, a man who found it easy to attract followers. Perhaps a good soldier, maybe trusted to pay reliably - at this remove, we can't know. Wales, Cheshire & Lancashire raised companies of archers. Cheshire, for example, raised 247, paid by the chamberlain of the county palatine (local treasurer) from local taxation. The captains had written contracts. They were paid, & were responsible for paying their men. Companies were mustered at the start of the campaign (before embarking to sail to France, in this case), to check that what was contracted for had been provided. Accounts were kept. Men who died were crossed off the pay lists. Pay rates per diem were -Dukes 2 marks = 13/4d (13 shillings and 4 pence, i.e. 2/3rds of a pound)Earls 1 mark = 6/8dBarons & knights banneret 4/- (4 shillings)Knights bachelor 2/-Men at arms 1/6d (18 pence)Archers 9d That's about a US dollar a day for a duke, at current exchange rates. Inflation, eh? This was 1415, so late mediaeval, as far removed from 1066 as the 1660s are from us. We can't deduce from the arrangements of England in 1415 what would have been done in the Spain of El Cid, for example.
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