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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3551394" data-attributes="member: 4937">You are mostly correct.Generally speaking, fuedal contracts didn't say anything about an obligation to provide men-at-arms.  Men-at-arms, the 'footmen', were generally levied or hired by whoever was doing the fighting.  But the actual feudal obligation was only for a certain number of knights.In most cases, the king had no real power to demand his vassals do much of anything.  Power aggregated to the holders of castles which were strong enough to resist a siege.  So in many cases, the great lords of the kingdom held more real power than the king, who was himself just another great lord.The middle ages didn't really have standing armies as such.  They had feudal armies.  Standing armies are one of the things that the king came up with to deal with the problem of keeping his vassals in line.  The point of the feudal military system was highly distributed defences, so that raiders of various sorts could be met at the point of attack.  It was an inherently defensive system designed to thwart the spring offensive of vikings, moors, and 'Baron Over-the-Hill'.  As for longbowmen, if you weren't English or Welsh, you didn't have any.  In England or Wales, longbowmen were generally drawn from landed freeman (yeoman) who served for wages.  There were however a few longbowmen mercenary companies that served outside of England.Order was maintained by Reeves, Bailliffs, and a whole host of highly specialized legal trades.  All of the positions report to the Lord of the land who is the ultimate legal authority in the region, and is charged with keeping order on it as part of his obligations.  In England, the position of Shire Reeve (Sheriff) was used by the king to usurp the authority of the great lords, since the great lord had power in his own right, but the Sheriff owed his office and power solely to the authority that appointed him and thus was no threat to the king.  By appointing his own men to the office, the King was able to undermine the authority of the great lords - impose his own laws, collect his own taxes, and so forth.</blockquote>

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