How to Raise a Medieval Army - SandRhoman History Reaction

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Welcome back everyone. SandRhoman History has How to raise a medieval army because if if your cousin in Savoy, I don't know, is making a fuss and you want to teach him a delicate lesson, well, you got to have arms.

[00:00:21]Or if the Pope's like, "Yeah, we got to go to to the Levant."

[00:00:28]Well, you got a lot more need for arms then.

[00:00:33]I don't know. Let's jump in SandRhoman History, how to raise a medieval army.

[00:00:36]Glad you guys are here. Let's learn some history.

[00:00:40]Contrary to popular belief, armies in the Middle Ages were not just made up of knights in shining armor who brought a No. No, those are just the rich people.

[00:00:48]along their small retinue of peasants to the battlefield.

[00:00:51]The reality was that medieval armies were assembled in a variety of ways, depending on their purpose and various other factors. This video explains how to raise a medieval army in Europe for an offensive campaign outside one's own borders.

[00:01:08]The first crucial step was to start >> What is this?

[00:01:12]It looks like Skyrim, but Mhm.

[00:01:15]Graphics look even different. I don't know what this is.

[00:01:19]planning ahead of time. A wise king would begin to organize the next year's campaign as early as in autumn or winter. Then, at some point late in the year, Talk about premeditation. let's say a court held at Christmas, he would gather the men he would be going to rely on for planning and executing his campaign and tell them about his intentions. These men would then bring the news of the impending war to their estates so that preparations could be made.

[00:01:43]Usually, they had all winter to prepare because war was seasonal in the Middle Ages.

[00:01:49]Ancient, Middle Ages, even a little bit into like modernity, right? There's you know, there's a lot of people that did not want to fight during the winter times. It also depends on where you're where where where are we talking? Like Europe for sure. Middle East might be different, you know, might be different.

[00:02:07]Might be more evergreen in some cases.

[00:02:10]Because the weather made logistics more difficult and diseases posed a severe threat in winter. Campaigns were carried out in spring, summer and autumn. For these [snorts] reasons, medieval armies tended to assemble no sooner than in early May or even later. The composition and organization of an army varied widely depending on time, place and purpose.

[00:02:29]Private wars, feuds or border raids, for example, differed fundamentally from what we are looking at here. Because of this great variety, we need to simplify things and highlight the central features of raising an army in the Middle Ages. This is to say, please be aware that in the next few minutes, we will provide you only with a Late antiquity, early Middle Ages, high Middle Ages, late Middle Ages, early modern period.

[00:02:52]So, obviously, late antiquity is like we're getting out of the Roman uh hegemony and we have all of these different barbaric tribes intercepting Europe.

[00:03:05]Early Middle Ages, this is kind of like leading up to the Crusades. So, this is like your Anglo-Saxon England, your um Charlemagne era, etc. High Middle Ages, this is like where you get a lot of the Crusaders, the Hospitallers, etc. Um up to about where the Mongols have controlled most of the steppe and up to that point. This is also right before the Ottoman Empire forms.

[00:03:36]Late Middle Ages, this is where things get very interesting, especially with gunpowder and artillery. And then early modern period leads up all the way up to the French Revolution, which is going to be more gunpowder, more different types of formations, etc., etc. a general overview of the techniques of recruitment in the high and late Middle Ages. To do so, we streamline the findings of modern historiography.

[00:04:03]In most cases, an official call up was issued by the royal chancellery about 2 months before the start of the campaign.

[00:04:10]In this royal order, time and place of gathering were announced to the most powerful people in the realm.

[00:04:16]Visualized as a pyramid, the top layer consists of archbishops, bishops, counts, masters of orders, barons, abbots, princes, and royal officials such as sheriffs, seneschals, and magistrates.

[00:04:28]As soon as these men received the king's order, they began to prepare and gather their retinue. What did the clergy do during times of war?

[00:04:36]I'm curious.

[00:04:42]A king or prince drew mainly on three types of troops, namely feudal levies, mass levies, and external contingents, that is, mercenaries and the troops of dependents and allies. Most of the mounted troops, which were considered the most important part of a medieval army, were recruited through feudal levies. In feudal structures, some [music] lords, called tenants in chief, were granted lands or fiefs directly by the king. In return, they owed him a general assistance, had to advise and support him at court or at war.

[00:05:10]They owed him a defined contingent of fighters, usually between 5 and 500 men-at-arms, depending on the size and significance of their fiefdom.

[00:05:19]Often, they would bring even more than what was required to win the favor of the king or to show off their power and wealth.

[00:05:25]Yeah, because it's all, you know, we saw this we saw this also when we were looking at ancient China. You know, a lot of these systems are very parallel to each other.

[00:05:34]It's it's, you know, very opportunistic for a lot of these individuals who want glory and power. Strictly speaking, the term feudal levies can only be applied to the late Middle Ages, when most medievalists agree a feudal military structure actually existed. Guy Halsall, for example, one of the leading researchers on the transitional period from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, has coined the term vertical recruitment to better encompass all forms of recruitment based on lord-vassal relationships. Using this term allows us to include all different kinds of relationships that were used to summon soldiers in the Middle Ages. We will get back to this again in the next chapter of the video.

[00:06:11]When a tenant in chief was summoned to join an army, he had his work cut out for him. He had to raise money for the upcoming venture and make preparations for his absence. After all, he would be away from his lands for a long time, in some cases even longer than half a year.

[00:06:26]I mean, obviously we know campaigns that have taken decades even in some weird unforeseen cases, but it would be not Yeah, it's obviously not uh uncommon for things to take two to three years just because things get bogged down. Obviously, sometimes things just do not go as planned. Besides this, a magnate's most important task was to assemble his retinue. While he would be taking pretty much any man fit for service in the case of a defensive war, a more careful choice was made for an offensive campaign. He needed capable men at his side, but even more capable ones to manage his lands in his absence.

[00:07:03]Moreover, the selection of the retinue often had a political dimension because the potential participants were also the constituents of the magnate. Therefore, he was obliged to look after their interests. While some were eager to go to war with him, others preferred to stay at home. These wishes had to be taken into consideration.

[00:07:21]Normally, the war household of a prince was composed of men from his immediate environment. On one hand, there were non-combatants, such as servants, wagoners, cooks, or scribes. There were also doctors and surgeons who were usually recruited from outside.

[00:07:36]On the other hand, a significant part of the combatants of the retinue was recruited from the household. Some of them were professional fighters such as soldiers of the household troops, bodyguards, or weapon instructors, but also the So, this is where the class system comes into place. holders of non-military offices such as administrators, advisers, or hunters who were expected to provide armed service because of their social status or office. Only few tenants-in-chief had sufficient household troops to fulfill their duty to the king with those alone.

[00:08:04]This was not a problem, however, because they in turn had lent land to lesser magnates who owed them support in return.

[00:08:11]They could now fall back on these men, so that the whole procedure was repeated on a lower level and on smaller scale.

[00:08:18]So, the king called upon his tenants-in-chief for allegiance. They summoned the magnates who were subordinate to them. And the magnates in turn called upon, for example, the knights residing in their dominions.

[00:08:29]Theoretically, this could go on for a long time, but according to the historian Clifford Rogers, cases in which more than four orders summons were issued were rare. In many cases, however, even this was not enough to fill the tenant-in-chief's contingent, so that they had to resort to troops outside the feudal chain of dependency.

[00:08:47]In most cases, And I guess what would be the penalty if you said, "No, I don't feel like fight."

[00:08:55]Would you I mean, because I don't know how many time how many jails there are out there, you know, during this time.

[00:09:03]Is it just a death sentence if you say no? His relatives and acquaintances who were not masters themselves volunteered to fill the ranks. If a vassal had the wherewithal to recruit additional troops, in addition to the costly task of raising and equipping his retinue, mercenaries were a possible solution, too. These were often needed when local lords refused to fight wars abroad because venturing beyond one's country was quite the adventure in the Middle Ages. Even though it could make a soldier incredibly rich, it was very risky. Avoiding all the risks, but getting all the benefits from going abroad has become a real possibility today with NordVPN. Oh my. Good. Good.

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[00:09:49]While the call-up was passed down the feudal dependency pyramid, the men-at-arms began to prepare.

[00:09:54]They usually had to provide and finance all their own equipment, including mounts, weapons, armor, and personnel, since they had already been paid in form of their fiefs, just like their lords.

[00:10:03]Although the men-at-arms were considered an essential part of a magnate's retinue, they usually made up only a fraction of it. An important lord would lead dozens or hundreds of men into war.

[00:10:13]According to the historian Clifford Rogers, the contingent of an average baron might have included about 100 horses and 50 men, of which about three were knights and nine squires. 100 horses and 50 men?

[00:10:26]So, that's interesting. Each of whom, again, [clears throat] brought their own servants and retinues.

[00:10:32]In a Yeah, that's called the baggage train, right? The camp followers.

[00:10:36]>> addition to the men-at-arms. These included armorers, craftsmen, pages, cooks, stewards, clergymen, musicians, heralds, and many more.

[00:10:43]In most cases, almost all men, except the nobles, had a dual function. Many servants fought as infantrymen or archers in addition to their duties in the camp. Mhm. Interesting. Probably like, you know, on the edges or what do you call those people?

[00:11:00]Uh, it escapes me, but people that would fight either, you know, uh, not in front, but maybe like is like a is a is a superficial wave or like supplemental here or there.

[00:11:15]The feudal levies of the late Middle Ages and earlier forms of vertical recruitment were the core element in raising an army for an offensive campaign.

[00:11:23]They brought most of the men-at-arms and many of the soldiers to an army, but there were other ways >> I think the horse obviously the horsemen are probably the most important at this point.

[00:11:31]>> This over recruiting men as well.

[00:11:35]Horizontal recruitment.

[00:11:37]The second main source of soldiers was the so-called horizontal recruitment.

[00:11:42]This refers to all direct calls for service from the ruler to his free subjects rather than through the pyramid of lord-vassal relationships.

[00:11:50]The best known form of this are militias. Of course, a horizontal call to arms could not work by individual letters as was the case with feudal levies.

[00:11:59]Instead, they were proclaimed by royal officers within their jurisdiction. In the early Middle Ages, these were usually counts who at the time were not yet holders of a high noble title.

[00:12:09]Later, they would be. For example, sheriffs in England, bailiffs in France, or mayors or city councilors in the Holy Roman Empire.

[00:12:17]However, since such summons were often only used in an emergency, in many cases, there was no time [snorts] for formalities and the call was made in a very simple way. For example, by ringing bells or lighting beacons.

[00:12:30]Really?

[00:12:32]Okay. So, obviously, this would have to be done in some sort of mountainous frame like the Alps, if right? Well, vertical recruitment and feudal armies in general clearly revolved around mounted men-at-arms. Horizontal recruitment was primarily aimed at recruiting infantry, although neither was exclusive.

[00:12:51]The men recruited by horizontal methods were selected from an armed population.

[00:12:55]According to the historian Clifford Rogers, it was common from the 12th century or earlier that all free men fit for service were required by law to maintain arms and armor proportionate to their wealth.

[00:13:06]Yeah, they're very parallel to all the places in the world like this at the time. In order to check compliance with these requirements, there were musterings, competitions, and training sessions from time to time in many >> Keep them ready. Because of this, a king who wanted to raise an army was able to muster a large number of men in a very short time. However, the troops raised in this way were often poorly trained, motivated rather moderately, and inadequately equipped. So, their military value was often small.

[00:13:33]Coordinating them entails great logistical difficulties, which is why they were usually deployed only for a short time and mostly in their home region. In Spain, for example, each household had to provide a soldier in the case of a so-called apellido, a call by the king, but he had only to be provisioned for 3 days. Though limited in range and capability, such mass musterings could bring together a large number of infantrymen quickly. Thanks to that, this type of recruitment remained very important until the late Middle Ages and beyond, especially in frontier areas.

[00:14:04]However, there were also cases in which troops for offensive warfare were raised in a similar way. In 9th century Francia, for example, all freemen who owned three or more farm plots, so-called mansi, had to enlist Mansi, three or more farm plots.

[00:14:20]Okay. when the king planned an offensive campaign.

[00:14:23]Those who owned less lands had to pool their resources and equip one man for every three mansi by pro- Um, okay. So, I understand the quota system here.

[00:14:34]Interesting stuff. proxy. Similar systems So, like, depending on how much you own, you have to give.

[00:14:40]>> existed. For example, among the Lombards in Italy and the Anglo-Saxons.

[00:14:44]Those who were selected had an important public duty to perform and were therefore supported by their local community.

[00:14:50]During the 10th and 11th centuries, royal authority declined in favor of the power of nobles and towns. The idea that subjects should support their king in offensive warfare declined, and in many places disappeared altogether. The notion that the obligation to participate in a military expedition could only come from a personal or contractual relationship, that is, precisely by feudal ties, for example, quickly gained a lot of attraction after the 12th century. Yeah, okay. This probably also has to do with the the rise of towns and cities of influence like uh, democratic as well as like mayors and and you know individual city dwellers probably do not associate themselves as much to their monarch comparatively to like people that live in the rural countryside that depend on crops depend on it's probably like a mindset thing for the most part.

[00:15:42]Obviously monarchies will be from it shows that there's a decline. I'm not sure if that's correlating to that time graph specifically.

[00:15:51]But monarchies obviously going to be a thing up until like the 18 uh 20s to the 50s I would say. I mean in some cases it goes longer some cases it doesn't goes long but in terms of like outright rule at least till like 1400 for sure there's you know total rule and uh total monarchy rule in a lot of these parts.

[00:16:17]By the 14th and 15th century even those with hereditary fief were no longer always obliged to serve outside the borders of the realm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean Yeah.

[00:16:28]That makes sense you know. You start to look through history and say is it worth it to leave my family for a decade because sometimes you know especially like between 1000 and 1200 when you got like the crusades going on of course that's obviously not called by king as much as it's called by the pope and for Christendom etc. Still service was sometimes offered to the king in hope for rewards or because of promising benefits if a campaign was going on.

[00:16:57]>> Climbing that ladder. Yeah. But service could no longer be demanded.

[00:17:01]Sometimes the ruler's right to conscript subjects could also be authorized by a representative assembly. For example the English Parliament or the Catalan courts.

[00:17:09]One ruler who made frequent use of horizontal recruitment for offensive warfare was Edward the III of of He repeatedly recruited large contingents for short service periods of 40 days.

[00:17:20]One of the orders he issued to his so-called commissioners of array, who mustered the troops on his behalf, illustrates the mechanism of summoning armed people. Edward ordered, quote, "To array all men aged 16 to 60 in the county of Nottingham 16 to 60?

[00:17:35]>> horses as well as footmen, and put them into thousands, hundreds, and twenties.

[00:17:40]And from them, select 500 archers and 200 hobelars, light horse A hobelar are light horsemen. Come on. from the strongest and fittest of the men of said country.

[00:17:49]These men were then to be equipped and sent to fight the Scots in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

[00:17:54]While normally the summons intended that only the strongest and fittest be mustered, quite often those who actually enlisted were the most willing. This could happen for a variety of reasons, but mainly because the men selecting the recruits were themselves involved in local society and therefore were considered of the wishes of the potential combatants.

[00:18:13]The king's interest of finding the best fighters wasn't by this, because men fighting deliberately were almost always a more valuable addition to the army than those compelled to serve. Knowing that unmotivated soldiers weren't particularly useful, it was sometimes even possible So volunteers really kind of like give you a little bit more.

[00:18:30]possible to pay a fee in lieu of personal service. This could then be used to pay for a capable and motivated >> Very common.

[00:18:37]Especially with the >> as does Bradford Rogers, that the majority of those recruited horizontally serve voluntarily or at least willingly.

[00:18:46]The troops selected this way were ordered to report at a specified place near the border of the country or region, where their equipment was completed and improved by the county community, who either provided it directly or paid for it. In addition, the men received pay for the march, and in many cases were provided with a coat of uniform colors as a distinguishing [clears throat] mark. For example, red and white for the men of Norwich in 1385. With these horizontally recruited troops, the second important component of a medieval army was ready and on the march to the assembly point.

[00:19:16]Tell your ranks.

[00:19:19]Since in many cases even vertical and horizontal recruitment wouldn't score sufficient troop Mercenaries. for an offensive campaign, it was advisable to tap into other resources. These included mercenaries and troops of dependents and tribute payers and the contingents of allies. The contingents of allies and dependents were in most cases composed of vertically recruited troops, too, and were rarely supported by militias. This was due to the fact that a ruler had little claim on the support of his population when fighting a so-called voluntary war than when defending the interest of the homeland.

[00:19:49]>> Wars of choice, basically.

[00:19:52]As of the 13th century, sometimes even before, rulers would also hire mercenaries off the shelf, which means in the form of already existing companies. The individual mercenary was thus usually recruited by a mercenary captain and not directly by the ruler.

[00:20:06]In some cases, the mercenary captains also recruited additional fighters specifically for a particular commission.

[00:20:13]Mercenaries could be some of the most efficient troops, but they were also very expensive and had a tendency to spark quarrels.

[00:20:20]Still, if one could afford them, they were a valuable addition to any army.

[00:20:25]When did mercenaries kind of like go away?

[00:20:30]You know, obviously there's mercenaries even today, you know, fighting.

[00:20:34]For example, my most recent conversation is like there's mercenaries fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war.

[00:20:39]But I guess I don't know. I guess mercenaries have never gone away, have they?

[00:20:48]When did they start to fall out of favor with like some of the other things when they fell out of favor?

[00:20:53]With these additional troops, all major sources of soldiers had been tapped.

[00:20:57]Now, [clears throat] the men called up and recruited prepared themselves as best as they could and marched to join the army. After what was often a long and arduous march, they arrived at the place of assembly and reported for duty.

[00:21:09]If everything had gone according to plan, the king would look upon an army of men who had flocked together for a great many, yet very similar motivations. His vassals and retinues, the militia men, mercenaries and support troops were ready to go to battle. If you are planning to raise your own army anytime soon, be aware that modern tenants are you Very cool.

[00:21:29]>> [cough and clears throat] >> Very cool stuff. Uh love these illustrations. I guess he does a lot of these illustrations and stop motion stuff himself.

[00:21:38]You guys got to go subscribe to him if you haven't seen Invicta Roman History.

[00:21:41]Always in the description will be the original content. Um yeah, it's a different time. Obviously, there's no professional army, I guess, at this time.

[00:21:50]Um professional army just means like a standing army, someone that's at will.

[00:21:54]I guess at this point, they are going to be like the households and like the feudal levies, but that's pretty much all you got and everybody else is just on standby. But mainly because of the you know, the social services and the systems that are created at this time would not warrant someone to be full-time a soldier because guess what?

[00:22:11]They got to tend to their crops and they have families and they got all this system that has to be manually worked. I guess like after mechanized farming and other things start to come around, um that won't be a problem, but mechanized farming isn't a thing until the 19th century, so I don't know.

[00:22:28]A lot of crazy stuff going on here, right? Uh appreciate you guys always. Leave me some comments below. Peace out and bye-bye.