Medieval Warfare and its Effects on Society/Economics

TLDR: Outside of plundering and pillaging, what kind of effects did war have on society and the economy of a kingdom as a whole?

Hey everyone I was wanting to pick the minds of others and see if I could get some tips on my setting. I have a world in which a war is brewing between two kingdoms, currently they are gathering forces preparing for the blood bath that is to follow. When the players first step into my world I plan to put them smack dab in the middle of one of these kingdoms, so I want it to really feel like they are preparing for war. This got me thinking, what kind of effects did medieval wars have on society.

To be clear, I am not talking about what happened to towns when war would sweep over them, but instead I want to focus on the towns and people part of the kingdoms but far from battles. I was thinking that perhaps black smiths might have been taken away to the war camps to help repair armor and forge new sets, farmers would have most of their crops taken, lumber would be in short supply for the use of building war machines, able bodied men would have been forced into service, supplies like medical kits, bedding and mess kits would be in low supply, and in a setting like D&D you'd have a shortage of magical herbs, potions, priests who were tending to the troops and so forth.

Now, I will admit my google skills aren't that great, but when I look into the subject I actually find people saying that war wouldn't have affected those far removed from the battles at all and that the fighting would have mostly been carried out by knights and the kings trained soldiers. So as someone with next to no knowledge on medieval warfare, what kind of effects did war have on society and the economy of a kingdom as a whole?

If by Medieval warfare you mean war in Europe during the Middle Ages (which I'll define as roughly from Charlemagne to the Black Death), Medieval warfare was designed to have as limited of effect on the society as a whole as possible.

Fights were supposed to be exclusively between members of the warring class, which were almost universally heavy cavalry. Serfs were in theory completely outside of warfare, and though they had to support it in their taxes they weren't supposed to be fighting it. Medieval wars were fought on a comparatively small scale for the most part - often with only a few hundred on each side and major battles being a few thousand on each side. Without logistical infrastructure, campaigning was limited to seasonal forays when the small armies could be supported by the surrounding countryside. Castles were very hard to break down with available technology and served as very effective point defense. In the West, officially the church was opposed to any warring between Christian states, and while these sort of prohibitions had limited effect, they did have some and most of the truly impactful wars of the period come under the heading of 'crusades' of various sorts.

Wars don't get really impactful on society until you get out of the Middle Ages, and get into the age of absolute monarchs, standing armies, supply depots, and most of all the developing sense by the commoners that they are a part of the political system in some sense - which leads to Nationalism and ultimately Democracy/Republicanism.

In what time period would you put the Forgotten Realms in? That's really more or less what my campaign world resembles. I always took the Medieval era to be more in tune with what fantasy worlds represented, but it sounds like it might be more in line with the Middle Ages. Would that be a correct assumption?

Celebrim said:

If by Medieval warfare you mean war in Europe during the Middle Ages (which I'll define as roughly from Charlemagne to the Black Death)

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I don't dispute that as a reasonable chunk of time to detail. However, for the readers - what historians usually call the "middle ages" is broader, and includes several centuries before this, and a century or so after this.

And, similarly I note that we are specifying war in Europe. The Crusades, which ran through this period, were outside Europe, and made much larger use of European infantry - IIRC, the first crusade had something like 5000 cavalry, and 30K to 35K infantry. I think we are also leaving out some of the conflicts of northern Europe which we could reasonably call the Viking period that overlaps the early portion of the period you set. Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and other folks there has some back-and-forth among themselves that was in a different mode than the rest of the continent.

The impacts of these kinds of conflicts should probably be handled separately.

Medieval warfare was designed to have as limited of effect on the society as a whole as possible.

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Well, not destroying infrastructure that they intended to own if they won the war was by design. However, the mode of using mounted cavalry instead of infantry was less intentional and more a simple upshot of having developed the wealth base and technology to field enough knights. There wasn't much point in having a standing army of lightly armored infantry, as knights would cut them to ribbons.

Umbran said:

I don't dispute that as a reasonable chunk of time to detail. However, for the readers - what historians usually call the "middle ages" is broader, and includes several centuries before this, and a century or so after this.

And, similarly I note that we are specifying war in Europe. The Crusades, which ran through this period, were outside Europe, and made much larger use of European infantry - IIRC, the first crusade had something like 5000 cavalry, and 30K to 35K infantry. I think we are also leaving out some of the conflicts of northern Europe which we could reasonably call the Viking period that overlaps the early portion of the period you set. Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and other folks there has some back-and-forth among themselves that was in a different mode than the rest of the continent.

The impacts of these kinds of conflicts should probably be handled separately.



Well, not destroying infrastructure that they intended to own if they won the war was by design. However, the mode of using mounted cavalry instead of infantry was less intentional and more a simple upshot of having developed the wealth base and technology to field enough knights. There wasn't much point in having a standing army of lightly armored infantry, as knights would cut them to ribbons.

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There were several crusades inside Europe against various heresies and other groups the pope of the day didn't like. Probably the best known is the Albigensian Crusade where the "Kill them all and let God sort them out" quote is supposed to originate.

Umbran said:

I don't dispute that as a reasonable chunk of time to detail. However, for the readers - what historians usually call the "middle ages" is broader, and includes several centuries before this, and a century or so after this.

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I would accept including the period from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the time of Charlemange - a period on its own often referred to as The Dark Age - as broadly being part of 'the Middle Ages', but there would be significant problems with speaking authoritatively about wars in Europe in the Dark Ages the most obvious would be the nearly complete lack of sources. Another problem is that though the Dark Ages are sometimes lumped in with the Middle Ages, there are vast cultural, economic and social differences between the two, and when people think of 'The Middle Ages' they generally are thinking of the period I choose.

I would not accept a much later date than what I suggested, though I know some prefer dates as late as 1492 - which I consider at least a century too late.

And, similarly I note that we are specifying war in Europe. The Crusades...

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I mentioned them in my post.

, which ran through this period, were outside Europe

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Well, also in this period there were a number of Crusades in Europe, such as the conquest of the Baltic states which at the time still had pagan rulers.

, and made much larger use of European infantry - IIRC, the first crusade had something like 5000 cavalry, and 30K to 35K infantry.

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Yes, the Crusades were very different and had a big role in beginning the changes in European culture that would lead to the end of the Middle Ages.

However, the mode of using mounted cavalry instead of infantry was less intentional and more a simple upshot of having developed the wealth base and technology to field enough knights. There wasn't much point in having a standing army of lightly armored infantry, as knights would cut them to ribbons.

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Your going to force me to break out my Charles Oman. Among other things, the development of heavy cavalry in Europe was a rational response to the sort of warfare that had developed in that 'viking age', where forces of lightly armored infantry could arrive with little warning in a remote area and it would be necessary to counter that force quickly and locally using only the limited resources available to the community.

Sotik said:

In what time period would you put the Forgotten Realms in?

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D&D is always highly anachronistic, with technologies from everything from Ancient Greece to the early modern period coexisting at the same time and often within the same culture. Some of this is deliberate throw the kitchen sink into setting for the sake of diversity, and some of it has to do with the lack of knowledge that the authors have of the subject matter.

But, a typical D&D world resembles a hodge podge of ideas, cultures, and technologies from the Early Renaissance period through to Regency England in the early 19th century.

For example, let's say you have a pirates in your world, and you have someone call out from the Crow's Nest, "Sails, ahoy!" That 'Crow's Nest' is 18th century technology not found anywhere in Middle Ages, and your pirates are very likely speaking an argot and singing sea shanties based on 19th writings about that earlier period, "Rrr, matey", rather than sounding a lot like a character in Shakespeare. And the costuming is likely to be a pastiche of 16th century costuming from the same source.

That's really more or less what my campaign world resembles. I always took the Medieval era to be more in tune with what fantasy worlds represented, but it sounds like it might be more in line with the Middle Ages. Would that be a correct assumption?

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In modern fantasy, there is almost nothing which is actually in line with the Medieval era, whether you call it the Middle Ages or not (most people would consider them the same thing). A typical fantasy world is roughly 16th or 17th century in terms of culture, with the exception that there is typically some sort of prohibition against gunpowder.

So what I largely take away from this, is to just do as I see fit in my world. Since it's not really going to be set to any time period it doesn't really matter how historically accurate I am trying to be. I think I will just settle with what I came up with then. The whole idea that everything is being directed towards the war so people aren't too happy with life. That way as my players go from town to town they get this gloomy feeling from the citizens who all blame the war. I guess I just think of WW1 and WW2 and how much they effected entire countries and I want to carry that over into my world.

None the less, this has been an interesting history lesson.

Celebrim said:

I would accept including the period from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the time of Charlemange - a period on its own often referred to as The Dark Age - as broadly being part of 'the Middle Ages', but there would be significant problems with speaking authoritatively about wars in Europe in the Dark Ages the most obvious would be the nearly complete lack of sources.

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Yep. My only intent there was to note for readers that there's times that are commonly called "Middle ages" but aren't in your timeslice. There is a bit of a difference between "what people think of" and "what terms historical writers use" - such that someone reading other materials could get tripped up.

I don't dispute that your timeslice is a reasonable one to take for this discussion.

Well, also in this period there were a number of Crusades in Europe, such as the conquest of the Baltic states which at the time still had pagan rulers.

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Yes, but those were smaller in comparison. The First Crusade had 5000 knights. The Battle of Saule, by comparison, had something like 50 knights. The Order of Teutonic Knights never had more than about 1300, iirc.

Your going to force me to break out my Charles Oman. Among other things, the development of heavy cavalry in Europe was a rational response to the sort of warfare that had developed in that 'viking age', where forces of lightly armored infantry could arrive with little warning in a remote area and it would be necessary to counter that force quickly and locally using only the limited resources available to the community.

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Yes, it was a rational response. But, turning that rational response to vikings into "the way war is done" only happened because the economy had grown to support it - those knights were expensive. They could not have become the mainstay of war without the economic development to support an entire class of them.

Which, honestly, calls out a major point of the discussion - the mode of warfare, and thus the impact of that warfare on society, is significantly dependent on the economies of the areas at war.

I may be wrong but I think historians claiming eastern-Roman Late Antiquity and western-post-Roman Dark Ages for the Middle Ages is a fairly recent development. It doesn't make much intuitive sense to lump the migration period in with feudal & bastard-medieval societies, but they do it anyway.