Medieval Warfare and its Effects on Society/Economics

[Doug McCrae]

Finance:

The attempt to raise funds was central to every crusader’s preparations… If a crusader had any savings then he would use them, but chivalric society was not generally renowned for thrift… Another obvious response was to call in debts owed to the crusader before departure…​

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It was exploitation of rights and material assets that from the beginning provided the surest means of raising liquid cash in sufficient quantities. First, there was sale of produce, stock, and chattels; timber, in particular, was a commodity often sold to raise money quickly. One of Earl Richard of Cornwall’s first actions on taking the cross in 1236 was to cut down and sell his woods, while Alphonse of Poitiers is known to have raised a considerable sum from timber sales for his second crusade in 1270. Lords might also enfranchise their serfs in return for cash, as the measures of Alphonse of Poitiers again illustrate, or sell rights and privileges to townsmen living under their jurisdiction. In one instance, in March–April 1202, Count Hugh of St-Pol established three, perhaps four, urban communes within his lands to raise money towards his participation in the Fourth Crusade.​

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The first compulsory tax precisely tied to a specific crusading expedition was the famous Saladin Tithe (1188), to help finance the Third Crusade. It was… a tenth for one year of the value of income and movables of all subjects, lay and ecclesiastical, excepting crusaders who would receive the tithes of their non-crusading vassals.​

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- The Oxford History of the Crusades​

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In 1189–90, Richard I of England (1189–99)... indulged in an orgy of asset-stripping, selling offices, titles, property and rights. An experienced general, Richard recognised the huge expense of war and the especially great costs of crusading. Government receipts for 1190, at over £30,000, showed a 50 per cent increase on normal revenue in the 1180s, excluding income from the Saladin Tithe, which a contemporary optimistically believed may have reached upwards of £60,000; and other extraordinary levies, such as that on the Jews, which may have brought in a further £10,000. Even so, equipping and manning Richard’s crusade fleet of about one hundred vessels of various sizes alone may have cost almost £9,000 just for the first year’s wages, a further £5,700 for hiring ships and thousands more on equipment (from horses to siege engines) and food (bacon, cheese as well as grain for biscuits).​

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- The World of the Crusades​

 

[macd21]

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.

That may have been the ideal, but in practice often wasn’t the case. A lot of medieval warfare involved avoiding the enemy as much as possible, while killing his serfs and taking his stuff. The idea being to preserve your troops (which were expensive) while pressuring your opponent to make a concession.

 

[billd91]

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?

Even if the main battlefields are isolated, depending on the sizes of the armies, famine and disease tend to follow in their wake. A large army, like the infantry of the First Crusade, consumes a lot of food and other resources while on the march - if they want to remain in fighting shape. If they're pillaging along the way, the communities they pass, if not slaughtered outright, stand a high chance of suffering excess mortality from famine.
And then there's disease. Not only will it probably ravage the armies themselves as their close living quarters will allow the spread, they'll contribute to diseases borne of pollution and fouled water supplies like cholera and, more broadly, dysentery.

 

[Bluenose]

Medieval warfare wasn't only open battlefield, but also castle sieges, and theses are too expensive to be built, and also it needed a lot of time.

And then they weren't professional soldiers, but ordinary people. Who fights and dies in the war is a farmer who isn't working and paying taxes.

I suppose it depends how you define a professional soldier, but towards the end of the medieval period any state that could afford it preferred to take money in the form of taxes, leave the peasant-farmers at home, and go to war with an army of professional volunteer soldiers. It could be raised by Commission of Array in England, hired from a minor Prince who'd decided to form a Condotta in Italy, or formed as an Ordonnance Company in France/Burgundy, or if you go beyond western Europe there's some other ways of maintaining an army that don't depend on trashing your own tax base. Although sometimes that full-time army was so expensive that you couldn't afford it anyway, isn't that right Hungary?

 

[macd21]

I suppose it depends how you define a professional soldier, but towards the end of the medieval period any state that could afford it preferred to take money in the form of taxes, leave the peasant-farmers at home, and go to war with an army of professional volunteer soldiers. It could be raised by Commission of Array in England, hired from a minor Prince who'd decided to form a Condotta in Italy, or formed as an Ordonnance Company in France/Burgundy, or if you go beyond western Europe there's some other ways of maintaining an army that don't depend on trashing your own tax base. Although sometimes that full-time army was so expensive that you couldn't afford it anyway, isn't that right Hungary?

That rather depends on what era of ‘medieval’ you’re talking about, and what region.