Recruitment in Midde Age

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

I would like to know exactly how was the recruitment of the armies in Middle Age Europe. From the higher classes to the simple levies.

How were they recruited? What weapons did they use and why? How did the army know what weapons to give to this or that soldier?

What happened to a person who was for example working in a field and then was drafted to the army, where would he go?

It's these little things I really have curiosity about. How would the draft process go to a random guy?

Please I don't want one liners or something of that kind I want true information.

Also I will give rep to the good anwsers.

[Faint]

From what I have read so far, and that is not much, it would be this way in the Feudal times.

The noble had to pay lealty to his superior noble, much like an vassal state. And one of his duties was to send troops in times of war, also weapons or sometimes "money".

And the noble got his troops by taking the able man of his feud. And would also get the necessary things for forging weapons.

The peasant would go to the war, and if it came alive, it would go back to work, as it was his duty to serve his noble. There were also mercenaries, but these work the same way as they still do.

I'm not 100% sure of this, but this is as I remember it.

[Azog 150]

From what I have read so far, and that is not much, it would be this way in the Feudal times.

The noble had to pay lealty to his superior noble, much like an vassal state. And one of his duties was to send troops in times of war, also weapons or sometimes "money".

And the noble got his troops by taking the able man of his feud. And would also get the necessary things for forging weapons.

The peasant would go to the war, and if it came alive, it would go back to work, as it was his duty to serve his noble. There were also mercenaries, but these work the same way as they still do.

I'm not 100% sure of this, but this is as I remember it.

This is basically it I think.



Basically, nobles and knights own land. King asks them to go to war, and they will take with them the local peasants. Everyone had to buy their own equipment, so naturally the nobles and knights got the horses, decent armour and swords etc. The peasants on the other hand would be stuck with their long bows, crossbows, halberds, pikes, leather armour and whatnot. Seasoned peasants who had been on campaigns before would probably also have looted armour which they have taken off the dead.

Thats a very simplified version anyway.

[Farnan]

This is basically it I think.



Basically, nobles and knights own land. King asks them to go to war, and they will take with them the local peasants. Everyone had to buy their own equipment, so naturally the nobles and knights got the horses, decent armour and swords etc. The peasants on the other hand would be stuck with their long bows, crossbows, halberds, pikes, leather armour and whatnot. Seasoned peasants who had been on campaigns before would probably also have looted armour which they have taken off the dead.

Thats a very simplified version anyway.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe that method actually happened, at least passed the middle middle ages.

From what I understand each knight was responsible for providing a certain number of soldiers subdivided into classes. So each knight would have to provide say 3 archers, 4 spearmen and a sergeant.

I don't know how they were chosen but they were probably semi-full time soldiers. Peasant levies were not a common thing.

[hellheaven1987]

Each district has to provide a certain amount of men during a full mobilization, and lead by the leader of the district. However, that was more ideal situation, and local leaders might always ignore the call of mobilization. There was a general requirement for how many different types and numbers of troops for each district, depending on how the agreement was.

[Viking Prince]

I know tha playing the TW games can give a misread regarding mercenaries. That they existed is not the point. Their use was rare. Most were already on the campaign and simply continued with the added support rather than leaving at the end of a battle. The other option is the recruiting in the field of members dissatisfied with the unpopular local lord. Remember, the concept of nations is still a bit fuzzy. With an agrarian based society it is always difficult to maintain an army when agricultural duties call.

[Farnan]

I know tha playing the TW games can give a misread regarding mercenaries. That they existed is not the point. Their use was rare. Most were already on the campaign and simply continued with the added support rather than leaving at the end of a battle. With an agrarian based society it is always difficult to maintain an army when agricultural duties call.

Depends at what point during the Middle Ages. Towards the end they were very very common.

And depends where you are in the Middle Ages. In Italy and the Byzantine Empire mercenaries were also common.

[Viking Prince]

Depends at what point during the Middle Ages. Towards the end they were very very common.

And depends where you are in the Middle Ages. In Italy and the Byzantine Empire mercenaries were also common.

My fault for generalizing. Your are indeed correct by focusing on the detail.

[Nik]

The best answer is probably "Read Contamine, War in the middle Ages". The subject is much to complicated (and loitered with bits and pieces of common misconceptions) to concentrate in a simple forum post.
The whole military recruitment system was subject to continuus change, both in time and in space.
Which rough period do you mean? Early, High or late mediaval age?
Which region? England, France, Germany, spain or byzantine?
Above all, most school lessons don't manage to convey that there was not "the" feudal system, acting as a blueprint for everything else.
It would be really good if you could narrow your area of interest down a little bit.

P.S. "Peasants" are not equal "Peasants". in most societies, serfs (non-free peasants) were exempt from service, and the use of peasant levies (consisting of free men or landed gentry) quickly fell out of use.

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

Rep to all of you, thanks.

I know it's hard to provide an answer due to the Middle Ages being somewhat long, and it differed a lot from region to region. But mostly I think about France, during the 100 years war.

[Farnan]

Well the point being its hard to generalize the Middle Ages.

[Manco]

You also have the city militia's, which in Northern Italy, the Low Countries and several other major urban centers were pretty much full-time soldiers who could also hire themselves out as mercenaries in peace time.

[hellheaven1987]

You also have the city militia's, which in Northern Italy, the Low Countries and several other major urban centers were pretty much full-time soldiers who could also hire themselves out as mercenaries in peace time.

Ya, and we also have semi-professional Englishs that signed contracts with English lords during Hundred Years War - they were neither mercenaries nor pressed-levies.

[konny]

This question is indeed impossible to answer in depth without specifying the century and region.

Speaking of the regions of the (former) Carolingian Empire, that is France, Germany and N-Italy, we would need to differentiate between:

Peasant Levy: This formed the backbone of the Carolingian armies, while "peasant" in this case also included richer landowners that would have been able to afford better equipement than just spear and shield.

It fell out of use during the 12th Century. The last battles in Germany I know of that would have included larger numbers of peasant militias would have been taken place in the Saxon & Controversy Wars in 1070s/80s. In remote regions like Dithmarschen or the Swiss vallies it continued to play a role, and the Swiss of the 14th Century became famous for their levy infantry (while the majority of the later Swiss forces would have been mercs).

I case of emergency the levy might have been still raised later everywhere, like in Southern Germany against the Swiss. But that always was exceptional and the peasant levy in fact ceased to play a significant role since the High MA.


Urban Militias: Literature sometimes gives the impression that there had been some kind of 'standing conscript armies' inside Medieval cities composed of the urban miltia. This is wrong. Urban militias were used to man the walls in case of a siege, fight off enemies that appeared close to the city walls (probably within a day's march distance), but otherwise you would see the urban militia being raised only in very rare exceptions; and always when the liberty of the city was directly threatened.

In all other occasions when a city needed armed forces the council would have hired mercenaries. In Germany, for example, the cities hired neighbouring knights. This was usually done in the way that they were hired for a fixed term (for example, a year) and payed for that time regardless whether they were needed or not ("Wartgeld"). As a result in northern Germany, for example, the majority of the nobility was on the payrolls of Lübeck or other Hanse cities, including the Duke of Meklenbourg with all his knights.

In Italy, as another example, the feudal nobility lived inside the city walls anyways. That way it is impossible to clearly differentiate between them and the urban militia. That is, not everyone who left the gates of Milan in arms was a militia man.


Urban Volunteers: These are attested since the early 11th Century. They were mostly, but not only, crossbowmen, often organized in special guilds or similar kinds of organization. These paid citizens would have preformed armed duties, such as guarding the gates and markets, providing escorts and stuff like that. In case the urban militia in general marched out, the members of the shooters guilds usually recieved extra payments, donating their semi-professional status.

These men would also be the most common sight when "militia" was part of feudal armies, for example the French militias at Bouvines. But it is always difficult to differentiate between them and true mercenaries.


Feudal forces: These would be first of all the knights, but not only. Knights would not travel alone but would be accompanied by their squires and a number of "war serveants". These serveants would all be armed and often mounted, so they would be able to preform secondary military duties (scouting, guarding the camp, shooting in battle etc).

In the Late MA this was fixed as the "Lance" or "Gleve". Each one was composed of one knight and a number (usually 3 to 5) of armed serveants. But war serveants on campaign and in battle are attested also for the earlyer periodes, and would in fact have been needed as soon as the knights started using different horses for travelling and for battle since the early 12th Century.

These feudal forces would have been the standing armies of the Middle Ages.


Mercenaries: The term "mercenaries" would have included a couple of completly different kinds of warriors fighting for payment. We would have knights hiring themselves out together with their retinue, specialists from outside western Europe being hired (like horsearchers). And we would have large bodies of armed groups (hardly individuals) travelling up and down through Europe searching themselves a profitable fight.

The later could have ranged from bands of marauders to full armies, including knights and nobles to command them. During the Middle Ages the regions where the majority of the mercenaries came from changed from the poor border regions to the densly populated regions in northern Italy and along the Rhine.

The problem with these mercenary bands was that they were complete freelancers who did not have another trade than waging war. This meant that in case there was no theatre of war to employ them they started their own wars, often conquering castles and cities and devastating the lands. This was in particular a problem after the HYW, or in the phases of its ceasefires, but also in Italy where the some 10,000 German mercenaries had been left unemployed after the collapse of the Staufian rule.

As soon as a war started somewhere the mercenaries headed there, and in fact some wars were last but not least started to get rid of marauding mercenaries.

[Odovacar]

What a chaos!

Depends on where and when.
But recruitement usually went as follows:
The king determined a place and a time schedule to gather. He sent messengers to his vassals. The vassals informed their own vassals. To every owned land there were numbers of recruitable fighters attached. A knight had to arm himself, and carry with himself attendants. Lords were required to muster a certain amount of armed followers, usually knights.

For this or that land this or that number of warriors must be recruited. Specials privileged groups or cities either collected money for the war efforts or recruited their own bands.

Mercenaries became widely used from 12-13th century onwards. They were a common place in 14th century.

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

That is very good Kenny I would give you lots of rep but I can only give one. Can someone explain me then how could those armies of 30000+ armies could be mustered? Were they in general a collection of lots and lots of knights plus their servants? For example 5000 knights with their 4 or 5 armed men could provide an army more or less that size no?

Thanks for the answers so far : )

[konny]

Can someone explain me then how could those armies of 30000+ armies could be mustered? Were they in general a collection of lots and lots of knights plus their servants? For example 5000 knights with their 4 or 5 armed men could provide an army more or less that size no?

5,000 knights is of course a plenty. Barbarossa's armies in Italy probably reached this size, as well as his crusading army (which some authors set at 100,000 - a sheer impossibility). But he was the emperor, the most powerfull man in Western Europe.

In case of his armies it worked that way that a campaign was announced a year and a day ahead. The dukes were ordered to appear the specified day at the gathering point (usually a city in southern Germany) with their contingents. The contingent of a German duchy in that periode seemed to have been about 600 knights. This was not the total number of knights of those dukes but rather their "expeditionary amry".

Additional to that were the emperor's household knights (vasalls of the imperial possessions and of his Swabian and Franconian family posessions).

We know of reinforcements called during these campaigns. These orders went to individual nobles, and (more frequently) bishoprics and abbeys to send knights across the Alps. We also know of dukes returning to Germany with all their knights in the middle of a campaign. But this seems not have been part of some regulated rotation system.

The knights deployed by the clerical lordships were mostly hired ministeriales; legaly serfs, that served as knights, castellans and such. So, these would have been de facto mercenaries. Ministeriales that stayed in Italy despite no longer being payed by the bishop or abbot who originally employed them, would have formed the mass of the German mercenaries in Italy.

All knights recieved a fixed payment per day by their lord in Italy. If this lord fails to pay a knight the knight was free to return to Germany (or search himself another commander who was able to pay).

Other groups of mercenaries would have been hired in Italy. Friedrich II, for example, hired large numbers of Muslim mercenaries for his armies in Italy. There also would have been the contingents deployed by the allied Italian communities. These could have included militias, in particular when the fighting took place near one of these cities, but otherwise these would have been knights and mercenaries too.


Indeed the mass of these armies would have been composed of knights and their retinue. The knights did have tactical training thanks to the melees fought on tournaments. Their war serveants didn't (serveants didn't take part in tournaments). This would explain why the infantry of those armies was rather useless (a random collection of armed men), save for mercenary footsoldiers and occasional urban militias, who might have some tactical training.

Therefore, when the sources speak of "soldiers" (milites) they usually only refer to the knights as the "true soliders". This can be misleading because those knights only made some 20% to 25% of the army. But in fact the auxillary troops often didn't participate in combat, in particular in battles in Germany, and it was fought out by the opposing knights alone.

[Angrychris]

mercenaries played a role in alot of cultures particularly european.

[wowbanger]

In Anglo-Saxon Englan recruitment for the fyrd was based on land. Each group of 5 hides (a measure of land capable of of supporting 1 family) had to provide 1 soldier to serve for a particular period of time, typically 60-90 days. However, many of the thegns (basically semi-professional soldiers) would have owned this land then the obilgation rested with them. A fyrdsman served because his land grant said he had to, and failure to serve led to a fine.Responsibility for equiping and paying the fyrdsmen rested on the hides that provided the soldier.

During peace time thegns would have to serve typically 1 month in 3 resulting in them becoming quite a professional force, they were primarily warriors that farmed when not in service as opposed to farmers who fought.

At the begining of the 11 century there also appeared a body of professional landless warriors, the huscarls. These acted as personal bodyguards to the King and the major nobles and as such were better trained and armed than the fyrdsmen.

The main organisational unit was the shire, while below that there was the hundred (a group of 100 hides). This meant the fyrds basic units would be 20 men led by a 'hundredeolder'.

More detailed information on the Anglo-Saxon fyrd can be found on this webpage:
http://www.regia.org/warfare/saxons2.htm

[MrMofo]

Check out Agincourt by Juliet Barker. Historians have the actual recruiting lists from Henry V's invasion. It details who the men were, where they were coming from, what weapons they brought, and what they got paid for their services. Rather interesting.