Wondering about ideas on conscription.

[Bismark]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Conscripted 'peasants', as some of the previous respondents have mentioned, can be very different animals dependent on where they come from.

 

The classic 'useless, unreliable armed with improvised weapons' peasants are those from areas like the Holy Roman Empire, where the fear of peasant revolt was so great that they were not allowed to own weapons, let alone train with them.

 

A totally different kind of peasant is exemplified by the 14-16th c. Moldavian peasantry, which were required (on pain of death) to own a bow, a quiver of arrows and a sword. They were also required to practice regularly, but this was not enforced as ruthlessly (Stefan the Great of Moldavia was credited with being particularly keen to enforce all these regulations - not surprising given his run-ins with the Ottoman Empire).

 

'Conscripts but definitely not peasants' include (as an extreme example) the mediaeval Catholic Church's 'unfree' Knights - the ministeriales; they were effectively sergeants (not very good lancers, but very good with sword, axe and/or mace), but equipped by the church with the latest in serious hardware - often they were better armoured than most 'real' knights of the same era. They fought in a very close deep wedge formation, charging at the trot. Even the notoriously scary French knights had trouble breaking them (see the battle of Benevento, 1266AD).

 

Kievan period Russia also had conscripted infantry - they were mainly recruited from townspeople and were often pretty well-equipped (classic Rus gear of big rectangular shield, mail or scale corselet, spangenhelm, long spear or 2-H axe, broadsword or 1-H axe, plus dagger). Some had bows instead of close-combat weapons and they supported the spearmen from the rear (they were usually somewhat lighter-armoured).

 

Going far afield, the T'ang Chinese even conscripted the majority of their cavalry in their early years.

 

All of these examples ram home the point even more that 'conscript' and 'peasant' are nothing like the same thing.

 

Hope this helps.

[Badger]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Instead of that being 5d of Unluck, maybe it was an example of "Luck of the Irish"

 

But, maybe it is glass half empty, glass half full kind of thing.

[Markdoc]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Conscripted 'peasants'' date=' as some of the previous respondents have mentioned, can be very different animals dependent on where they come from.[/quote']

 

All the examples you gave are good ones, (and just go to show that any statement about medieval custom is at best only right some of the time, in some places ) but part of the problem here is also exactly what you mean by peasant.

 

A lot of people seem to use it to mean "non-noble", but to the medieval mind (and to me!) it means something quite different. Peasants in most places (by definition) worked somebody else's land. That meant generally that they had the least income and the most work: which meant they had the least opportunities to buy expensive luxuries like weapons and armour, and to take time off to train with them.

 

The ministerales (who have been discussed in the parallel thread on titles) were not noble or gentlemen, but they most certainly were not peasants: they did not work with their hands, but were adminstrators and supervisors as well as warriors. As their rank became hereditary, they ended up forming the bulk of the German upper class by the late medieval period.

 

Likewise, the English yeomanry were not peasants - they were freeholders (the assize of 1235 specifies that only Yeomen holding land valued at 40 shillings were expected to attend armed). Basically, these are the guys hat *could* afford armour and weapons and could afford the leisure to train with them (in fact, by law, they were required to, as I am sure you know). But you didn't conscript these guys - they were already obliged to tender military service if called up. And once their service was up, they could (and did) refuse to serve further unless paid.

 

The scandinavian Hird system originally worked in much the same way: it was composed of small landholders, not peasants and over time evolved into contingents drawn from large non-noble landholders who fought as heavy horse, and a class of impoverished small landholders little different from peasants, who fought as poor quality infantry.

 

The same goes for Townsmen. They were not necessarily landholders but they were legally and socially distinct from the peasantry (there are plenty of preserved laws laying down the requirements to change your status from peasant to townsman). Most townsmen did not serve militarily but they either paid a scutage to hire mercenaries or they paid for a volunteer military contingent drawn from the town or district - again the crucial difference from the surrounding peasantry is that they had both weapons and training. Knights may have sneered at town militia, but that didn't stop them calling them out or hiring the best of them as mercenaries (mercenary companies drawn from Flemish town militias fought in almost every English conflict from the Angevin period through to the Tudor age - and drew high wages too).

 

Peasantry fought, no doubt, but the Norman invasion of Ireland gives a good example of how that usually ended: Strongbow, with a handful of knights and couple of hundred experienced welsh archers routinely defeated forces 5-10 times his number, and often took neglible casualties in return. The reason? Peasant (and tribal armies) can be ferocious when things are going well - but as soon as things looked iffy the peasantry would take to their heels, leaving the slower to be massacred. The Galloglach were imported (and soon thoroughly Irishicised) specifically to put some backbone into Irish armies (Bias warning: my own family - the Dohertys of Ballyshannon - are reputedly descended from imported Galloglach ) - which they did, even though they were never terribly numerous. And soon in fact the Kern (peasantry) in Ireland became a secondary part of irish armies, playing very much a secondary role to the Galloglach (full time professionals) and Bonnachts (part-time militia and/or mercenaries).

 

It does seem to be a good general rule that peasants of the time were generally not considered much use in the field.

 

cheers, Mark

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Perk: King

Bureacratics

Persuasion

 

That's how.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

 

Peasantry fought, no doubt, but the Norman invasion of Ireland gives a good example of how that usually ended: Strongbow, with a handful of knights and couple of hundred experienced welsh archers routinely defeated forces 5-10 times his number, and often took neglible casualties in return. The reason? Peasant (and tribal armies) can be ferocious when things are going well - but as soon as things looked iffy the peasantry would take to their heels, leaving the slower to be massacred. The Galloglach were imported (and soon thoroughly Irishicised) specifically to put some backbone into Irish armies (Bias warning: my own family - the Dohertys of Ballyshannon - are reputedly descended from imported Galloglach ) - which they did, even though they were never terribly numerous. And soon in fact the Kern (peasantry) in Ireland became a secondary part of irish armies, playing very much a secondary role to the Galloglach (full time professionals) and Bonnachts (part-time militia and/or mercenaries).

 

It does seem to be a good general rule that peasants of the time were generally not considered much use in the field.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Your statement about pesant and tribal troops being inclined to take to their heels is dead on... and it was one of the reasons the Irish and Scots both eventually got tapdanced on by the English. Strongbow's invasion is a good example of the Irish getting soundly whupped... but then again Strongbow was a bada$$... IIRC, the main reason he was sent off to subdue Ireland was that William was worried about leaving him idle in peacetime.

 

I totally understand your bias... MacAodha of Antrim here, from the Abrach MacAoidhs of the Isles. Galloglaigh families are the "good" Scots-Irish in my reconning

[Curufea]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Lets face it - most players of fantasy roleplaying games get all their medieval history from Hollywood movies and leave it at that.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Lets face it - most players of fantasy roleplaying games get all their medieval history from Hollywood movies and leave it at that.

Do you mean I can get rid of my library of reference books?

 

Over my rotting corpse!!!!!!

 

 

*my precious*

 

BTW, everybody... if you want a killer book about the English Millitary in the Renassiance period, I STRONGLY recomend "Elizibethean Millitary Science". I'll be digging my copy out of storeage tomorrow.

 

A good overveiw of the Irish can be found in "The Wars of the Irish Kings" which is all excerpts from primary sources. Everything from Mythic age through the Nine Years War.

[Markdoc]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Lets face it - most players of fantasy roleplaying games get all their medieval history from Hollywood movies and leave it at that.

 

And if they play D20, that's probably good enough . *

 

I had to supress my wife's tendency to ask sensible questions when we joined our current D20 game. Like:

 

Wife: "Why does this tiny village have a huge stone-built inn with multiple pivate rooms? Is there a major trade route?"

Me: "All villages have inns like this in D and D."

 

Wife: "Why is there a huge complex of buried rooms and traps under the farm's barn? How did you know to look for it? Who built it anyway? Why doesn't it fill up with water?"

Me: "Oh, you come to expect these sorts of things after you've been adventuring for a while. I think they're built by gods - that's why they don't fil up with water even though they're 30 metres below the water table. Besides, I'm an illiterate barbarian - why are you asking me?"

 

cheers, Mark

 

 

*I'm mostly joking, but not entirely. Some of the D20 games I've played in make Braveheart look like a masterpiece of medieval simulation. They can still be fun, in a stupid video-game sort of way, though.