Tell me about medieval armies!

[CombatWombat51]

Thanks for everyone's help so far!

I should have known that my question was a bit too general, as they usually are. But, I do get more varied and open ended responses that way For a more specific time, well, I don't really know. Whatever time period a typical D&D game most closely resembles. By typical, I mean the one that is represented in the 3 core books. I know D&D isn't nearly accurate on such things, but I hope you catch my drift

EDIT: Yeah, what S'mon said about the period

So gate guards, guards at bridges, and such things were garrisoned by mercenaries? And otherwise, except for knights, there generally weren't standing troops?

Forgive my imagination and ignorance, but let me throw some stuff out. I would imagine that there would be certain locations of importance, like forts near enemy countries, that would have a large portion of its population made up of soldiers. Would those too be mercenaries? Or did that type of cold war discouragement not exist?

I haven't checked those links yet, though I will later. And I'm sure more people will chime in with bits of information, too

 

[VirgilCaine]

Good to hear I'm not too far off base with my meager facts...

edit: some governors....call out the National Guard

Riiight. Whatever that means.

 

[S'mon]

So gate guards, guards at bridges, and such things were garrisoned by mercenaries? And otherwise, except for knights, there generally weren't standing troops?

Forgive my imagination and ignorance, but let me throw some stuff out. I would imagine that there would be certain locations of importance, like forts near enemy countries, that would have a large portion of its population made up of soldiers. Would those too be mercenaries? Or did that type of cold war discouragement not exist?

"Mercenaries" - in the sense of "soldiers who are not members of a national army", most medieval soldiers would be mercenaries - 1e DMG used the word in this sense. But 'true' mercenaries in the sense of mercenary companies like the Italian condottieri, who travelled around as a company hiring themselves out to the highest bidder, were a more localised phenomenon. Most warriors served a feudal lord, with an oath of fealty to that lord.

"Standing troops" - these "men at arms" might be knights (hold a knighthood, ie entitled to be called Sir), but not necessarily. Knighthood by the 15th century was quite highly formalised (something like the way it's depicted in 'Excalibur') and in the 15th century there were only a couple of thousand actual Knights in England. In terms of social class, many warriors were free yeomen or un-knighted gentry, these could be bowmen (yeomen, usually), but also melee infantry, or cavalry - a unit of heavy cavalry might include both knights & wealthy non-knights without any obvious distinction in terms of quality of equipment or fighting prowess.

 

[S'mon]

Garrisons - AFAIK border areas were normally garrisoned either by retainers of the local lord - often a senior noble like a Duke - or perhaps an important castle might be garrisoned by royal retainers. Numbers of standing forces would be very small though compared to modern armies or even ancient armies like the Romans' (on which our modern systems are largely based). Thirty men-at-arms in a fair-sized castle was a good number.

edit: The Sheriff of Nottingham who harrassed (a) Robin Hood in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in apparently the late 14th century (not the 12th!) would be an example of a royal retainer - ahistorically in service to King John of Magna Carta fame - garrisoning an area with troops in service to him, most of whih in most representations appear to be non-knights or poor knights, with Sir Guy of Gisburne as his sidekick. The Robin Hood myth is a mishmash from several time periods though - 14th/15th century English longbowmen vs 12th-century Norman men-at-arms in chainmail & kite shield!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Just an add-on about knights.

Knighthood was not herditiary, knights generally did not hold land (there were exceptions a-go-go of course), and there was typically some attempt made to provision the knight, but paying for full armor, warhorse, and barding would be far more money than any would-be-knight-maker would have to toss around.

Sons (and since this is D&D/fantasty) or daughters of a knight were typically in better positions to become knights themselves just from having more money and being in the right social circles. However there is one facsinating account in I believe middle ages France when a knighthood was bestowed upon a commoner who had single-handedly killed a wild boar (don't make piggie jokes, the boar were bigger and meaner then). This would actually be a very good background for a PC.

My point -- and I do have one -- is just not to be quick to associate high-end gear for knights and bachelor knights.

 

[kigmatzomat]

So gate guards, guards at bridges, and such things were garrisoned by mercenaries? And otherwise, except for knights, there generally weren't standing troops?

Well, yes and no. Many guards were more police than soldier. In some cases they were almost legalized thieves, responsible for not only collecting tolls & the like but their pay was based on the tolls they collected, resulting in people "buying" a guard position where they could force more people to pay tolls or raise the toll to pad their pockets.

Many nobles had a standing force on hand but complicating things, the guards were more often loyal to the noble as a person rather than the position or the nation, if they were loyal to anyone but the source of coin. These were personal retainers and they only took the field when the noble did, or did so as commanders of the noble's peasants.

True mercenary units (i.e. no loyalties) were used in positions you would expect: either as experts you can't afford to have onhand permanently (siege engineers, sappers, etc) or in "grist for the mill" positions where they get chewed up the most and have "loyal" forces behind them. They could be used as reserves but you never knew if you could count on them.

I would imagine that there would be certain locations of importance, like forts near enemy countries, that would have a large portion of its population made up of soldiers. Would those too be mercenaries? Or did that type of cold war discouragement not exist?

That happened. Matter of fact the title Marquis or Margrave was specifically designed for these situations. IIRC, Marquis were considered the king's agents and only reported to him. They had complete lattitude in how they handled things. They rarely had the land area of a Duke but they often had more support, both financial and political.

There was usually a much higher number of armed men stationed in those areas and I would think some would be on loan from the King or other nobles. Mercenaries would likely be hired along the borders where fights might break out. Mercs can fill out ranks for a while until the weather makes it too unpleasant for opponents to try anything or when political infighting causes the reserves to vanish.

Most mercs will probably be quasi-freemen (i.e. runaway peasants, criminals, etc) acting as infantry with pikes. More advanced mercs will have cavalry units, trained archers, scouts, and mounted infantry.

Take an adventuring party where 2 or 3 have leadership and you have a decent mercenary unit. You've got a few dozen footmen, a couple of sargeant/leutentant cohorts, and your commanders.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Guards in cites were also frequently decentralized as well.
And crime was frequently handled by people hired to protect a building, with most neighbors merely reporting the fact the next morning to whoever claimed their section of the city.

In 16th century Paris. I found mention that there were over twenty independent army/police forces in Paris most controlled by noblemen of various sorts and claiming small sections of territory. King Louie XI tried to reduce the power of these forces by declaring city wide rules, in regards to dogs, open flames at night, etc. They were widely ignored. Paris was centralized be Cardinal Rousue?sp? (of 3musketeer fame) and later kings.

 

[shilsen]

...Cardinal Rousue?sp? (of 3musketeer fame)...

Cardinal Richelieu

 

[Agemegos]

So gate guards, guards at bridges, and such things were garrisoned by mercenaries? And otherwise, except for knights, there generally weren't standing troops?

Forgive my imagination and ignorance, but let me throw some stuff out. I would imagine that there would be certain locations of importance, like forts near enemy countries, that would have a large portion of its population made up of soldiers. Would those too be mercenaries? Or did that type of cold war discouragement not exist?

In the first place, there was the duty of "guard and ward". A knight who owed military service not only had to show up or provide a substitute in time of war, he [may also have] had to show up for specified service guarding one of his lord's castles in peace-time.

In the second place, lords and landed knights maintained 'households' of 'knights in service', sergeants, archers &c. whom they provided with accommodation, fed (out of the produce of their estates), clothed (with gifts of clothing at Christmas, usually), and sometimes even horsed and armed (with presents on special occasions). Petty lords usually lived in more or less the same place, their households with them. Great lords with scattered estates used to wander around the country, descending on each of their manors in turn, and feeding their household the accumulated surplus. One way that a great lord (such as a king) could garrison a castle was to appoint a castellan and give him estates around the castle. The castellan would then recruit or breed a household, and these would effectively garrison the castle by living in it.

On a larger scale, kings and the emperor sometimes garrisoned borderlands (marches, marks) by appointing special counts (mark-grafs, margraves, marquises) with powerful castles, compact collections of estates, and powers to call up the feudal levies in the king's name. Examples include the markgraf of Brandenburg (later king in Prussia), the markgraf of the Ostermark (later emperor of Austria), the comte de Barcelona (later king of Aragon) and (less spectacularly) the marquis of the Gothic March, and the marquis of Septimania. In England the 'marcher lords' were not given a distinctive title, but the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Shrewbury. the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Richmond &c. did have palatinate powers for border defence. Most remarkably, a march palatinate might be bestowed upon a bishop rather than count: the palatinate powers of the Bishop of Durham were not abolished until the early nineteenth century, and the unique armorial marks of its powers as a palatinate (the crowned mitre and the crossed sword-and-crozier) are still in use.

Finally, in the last three centuries of the feudal period kings would sometimes pay castellans a cash salary rather than giving them estates, and likewise salary the garrisons of their castles (usually archers). They raised the money by allowing knights who owed guard-and-ward to pay cash (called 'scutage') instead.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Quite true. It was true of London as well. In the time of Shakespeare, the city fathers were not at all fond of actors and closed down all of the theatres in their section of the city. The reason that Blackfriars was still able to operate was that it was on land that had been a part of a monastery and law enforcement (and creation) there was the responsibility of the monastery. When Henry VIII disestablished the Catholic Church, the monastery and its lands became the property of the crown and were supposed to be administered directly by the Privy Council until the king or the council appointed someone to administer it. They never did so there was nobody to make or enforce laws against theatre in Blackfriars.

I would imagine that a lot of cities worked like that. I would also imagine that the guards routinely ignored their lack of jurisdiction when apprehending or punishing common crime but that when it came to regulating things that weren't obviously wrong, it was a different matter.

On the other hand, the Free Cities of Germany actually were centralized much earlier. Nuremberg, for instance, was centrally governed for centuries preceeding the Reformation and there were no power groups to compete with the city council within the city.

I expect that the kind of disorganization and jurisdictional chaos that existed in London and Paris was largely a feature that large royal cities acquired as their footprints grew to encompass domains that had formerly been separate.

Guards in cites were also frequently decentralized as well.
And crime was frequently handled by people hired to protect a building, with most neighbors merely reporting the fact the next morning to whoever claimed their section of the city.

In 16th century Paris. I found mention that there were over twenty independent army/police forces in Paris most controlled by noblemen of various sorts and claiming small sections of territory. King Louie XI tried to reduce the power of these forces by declaring city wide rules, in regards to dogs, open flames at night, etc. They were widely ignored. Paris was centralized be Cardinal Rousue?sp? (of 3musketeer fame) and later kings.