Please correct my understanding of a feudal army

[NewJeffCT]

Please correct my understanding of how assembling an "army" in a feudal system would work. I have a few other questions at the end in how it relates to keeping order after the army has been assembled.

But, this is how I think it works, from the bottom to the top. But, I'm not expert, so if I'm way off base, please let me know.

Sir Stanley is granted a parcel of land on Baron Boris' land. In return for the land, Sir Stanley pays taxes he gets from his land to Baron Boris. Additionally, if there is a need, Sir Stanley is obligated to provide Baron Boris with a minimum number of fighting men. For my example, let us say that it is one knight (Sir Stanley), two mounted men-at-arms types
(maybe some nephews and/or a son of Sir Stanley), and maybe 10 men on foot, at least 2 of whom should have either a short bow or crossbow. The knight typically has the best armor and weapons, and a barded warhorse. The men-at-arms likely are well equipped, but not up to the knight's level (maybe chain mail vs the knight's half-plate, and a leather or unbarded horse, vs the knight's chain barded one), while the footmen will have leather or studded leather, and lesser equipment.

Nine other knights have similar obligations to Baron Boris, who should expect a minimum of 10 knights, 20 mounted men-at-arms and 100 footmen, at least 20 of whom will have bows or crossbows. Boris would then have his own men to add to this total, so let me double the totals to 20 knights, 40 mounted men-at-arms and 200 footmen, with 40 having bows or crossbows. Additionally, the Baron will send 20 of his elite footmen.

Baron Boris, and 5 other barons, all have obligations to Duke Dunderhead. Each baron will send a similar contingent to Duke Dunderhead, meaning the Duke can expect 120 knights, 240 men-at-arms, 1,200 footmen, including 240 with bows/crossbows, and 120 elite footmen. Dunderhead then adds his own contingent to effectively double the force to 240 knights, 480 men-at-arms, 2,400 footmen, with 480 bowmen/crossbowmen and 240 elite foot. To further supplement his forces, the Duke adds in 60 elite longbowmen and
20 more mounted men-at-arms.

Dunderhead, and 3 other dukes, all provide similar contingents to King Krusty. The king can expect 960 knights 2,000 mounted men-at-arms 9,600 footmen, including 1,920 with bows/crossbows 960 elite footmen And 240 elite longbowmen.

The king then adds in his own troops and we end up with something like: 2,000 knights 4,000 mounted men-at-arms 20,000 footmen, including 4,000 with bows/crossbows 2,000 elite foot And 500 elite longbowmen The king would then add in some mercenaries to round out his forces, and some men for operating catapults & ballistae if a siege is expected, etc.

Assuming the kingdom is big enough to have that many soldiers, is my general understanding correct? Would the knights, barons, etc send all their available troops? Or, would they leave some behind to maintain order on their own lands? How was order generally maintained in feudal times? I had thought standing armies were rather small during Medieval times, though that started to change towards the end of the Medieval era. Were there things like the stereotypical D&D town guard around back then, or is the town guard just a Medieval offtake of modern police? If there was a town guard, were those part of the armies that were raised, when needed?

 

[Celebrim]

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.

 

[NewJeffCT]

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.

Thanks - I appreciate the detail. I didn't need it earth specific - which is why I used longbowmen as an elite force. However, I could always say elite archers or crossbowmen instead of longbowmen.

Not entirely on topic here, but didn't the Mongols, and a few others, have a version of the longbow that they used on horseback?

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Not entirely on topic here, but didn't the Mongols, and a few others, have a version of the longbow that they used on horseback?

IIRC, they had horn, recurve bows. Very few other cultures were quite as good at killing things with a bow as the Welsh. There's just something terrifying about a 120lb yew wood self bow.

As to your OP, my admittedly limited, understanding of feudal armies is pretty much in synch with what you described.

 

[Celebrim]

Thanks - I appreciate the detail. I didn't need it earth specific - which is why I used longbowmen as an elite force. However, I could always say elite archers or crossbowmen instead of longbowmen.

Not entirely on topic here, but didn't the Mongols, and a few others, have a version of the longbow that they used on horseback?

The Japanese and the Chinese had longbows. The horsebow of the Mongols is a composite recurved shortbow. What it lacks in distance of the draw, it makes up for in the steady application of power through the release.

What really made the Mongols dangerous though was the professionalism and discipline of thier army, which far exceeded that of any other medieval era force. At a time when almost every other culture's battles where being determined by whether or not units would make thier morale checks, whether or not the officer was an incompotent heriditary noble, and whether or not the various units could be trusted to not change sides, the Mongols had a merit based officer corp, strict small unit discipline, regular formations, and a very well thought out command and control signal system to allow the commander to maintain control during the battle.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Remember that when determining how much military someone can provide, the real question is how much can their land support?

A feudal manor could be described as enough land to support a knight, his armor, his weaponry, and his horse. The knight probably came with a servant or three to take care of him and his horse, depending on how well off his land was.

A second-tier feudal lord would have several parcels of land that he doled out to his men so they could support themselves as knights. Effectively, if Lord Rathbone was required to show up with himself and five other knights, there was a decent chance that the five other men were serving in exchange for land he granted them.

In older feudal times, men served for a fixed amount of time. So, there were cases of a group of knights going back to run their lands after their three months of service owed that year, even if the war wasn't over. According to history books I've read, most lords did not actually want to go off to war regularly because it meant they couldn't be looking after their holdings. (I've seen exceptions noted as well. Sometimes, spoils can be profitable too, and there are causes that are supported.)

The time limit is part of why as more money was used in the economy, they slowly shifted from a model of paying taxes in goods from the manor and service to the lord to a model of paying taxes and service in cold, hard cash. The upper tier lord could then hire an actual army and know they were going to stay in the field (as long as he could pay and feed them).


If you are still in an older feudal economy where service is provided instead of coin, there is one thing off in your example. You have Baron Boris and other higher tier lords call up their forces and then double them from their "own" men. However, Baron Boris is more likely to get his knights and such from land he doled out to people, not from a personal "staff" of knights that are around the house. Only the most wealthy of lords could keep "house knights", which is what non-landed knights were called in ... Britian I believe it was.

Of course, D&D really messes with this economic model. If the Baron doesn't have troops at his easy beck and call, even on a small manor, the adventurers tend to get uppity. Remember that as long as it doesn't hurt your head and your players don't mind, the lords can have whatever troops you want.


For the foot troops, they were often levied from the general population, as another poster mentioned. From what I've seen in the histories I've read, it was not uncommon for them to have little more than padded armor, a knife, and some kind of pole arm. Their training was minimal. They really weren't much more than fodder on the field, but you had to have them because the other guy did and because it's hard to hold a field and maintain positions when all you've got is 12 guys in heavy armor.


While most lords could not marshal large bodies of troops, there were armies in the feudal days that mustered a thousand or more soldiers. There were some significantly larger than that, but that's generally only if the whole country is going to war.

Remember that one of the limits of army size is that you have to be able to feed them. Another part of that is that if you pull all your able bodied men into the army, who is going to run the farms?


The wars between Britain and the mainland of Europe, as well as wars throughout Europe, are some very interesting reads if you get the right books. There are also numerous historical resources on the web. In fact, a Google search for "feudal army" turned up several helpful documents in the first page.

Just remember that the "feudal" period covers quite a bit of history and a number of countries; sources can give contradictory information because they are talking about different time periods and different regions

And when it's all said and done, it's about having fun. If the research isn't fun for you, go with what makes sense in your head and that the players can accept.

 

[Banshee16]

The Japanese and the Chinese had longbows. The horsebow of the Mongols is a composite recurved shortbow. What it lacks in distance of the draw, it makes up for in the steady application of power through the release.

What really made the Mongols dangerous though was the professionalism and discipline of thier army, which far exceeded that of any other medieval era force. At a time when almost every other culture's battles where being determined by whether or not units would make thier morale checks, whether or not the officer was an incompotent heriditary noble, and whether or not the various units could be trusted to not change sides, the Mongols had a merit based officer corp, strict small unit discipline, regular formations, and a very well thought out command and control signal system to allow the commander to maintain control during the battle.

Morale was a big part of it. I've read accounts in more modern books, as an example, that the reputation the Templars had for being bloodthirsty, and being motivated to capture cities etc. in order to capture treasure, was more of an aspersion cast against them by the lords of the regular, non-Templar troops in the Crusader armies......they had morale issues, whereas the Templars were more of an elite force, due to their experience. Since they didn't tend to flee as quickly, and were better disciplined, by default they ended up being the first ones into many cities, etc.

My understanding was that a big edge the Mongols had was the horse archers. They had the ability to easily run in at velocity, unleash a wave of arrows, and then get out of range before a counterattack could be mustered. Because they were more lightly armoured, they could repeat this all day long without getting exhausted, unlike the European troops, who were generally heavily armoured, and couldn't fight for long periods.

I saw a show on the history channel which showed that on one hand, men in plate armour were much more flexible, and mobile, than current myth would have us believe....yet at the same time, particularly with their visors down, they really couldn't fight for long periods of time. Maybe 1.5 minutes or so before exhaustion would set in. Of course, the guy they used to test it was not in bad condition, but I'm not sure if he was in the condition a medieval knight would have been.

Banshee

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Thanks - I appreciate the detail. I didn't need it earth specific - which is why I used longbowmen as an elite force. However, I could always say elite archers or crossbowmen instead of longbowmen.

Not entirely on topic here, but didn't the Mongols, and a few others, have a version of the longbow that they used on horseback?

The Japanese longbow can be used on horseback. In fact, it was the primary arm of the samurai until they figured out how to make decent swords. It is a composite longbow.

 

[Mark CMG]

Please correct my understanding of a feudal army

The word "Feudal" has become so broadly used as to mean some very different things to different people in varying circumstance. Already in this thread, the discussion includes medieval Europe before and after coinage came into common usage, as well as some aspects of non-European societies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism

It might be worthwhile for you to take a look over how the word is defined and determine if you can add some qualifiers as a way to narrow down your options (and allow you to more easily describe things to your players). I think for a lot of people their setting flavor follows the High Middle Ages (European) with magic added on and real world religions replaced by whatever pantheon the setting dictates (and, perhaps, some addtional pagan religions on the fringes of society). For others, a Late Middle Ages, or even early Renaissance, (European) society is used and it is assumed that magic is prolific enough to make things much more progressive and pseudo-technological. Still for others, a High Fantasy approach has magic so copious that Feudal arrangements are unlikely to exist except as a veneer in some areas to allow for the trappings of Middle Ages Europe to be imitated. In the case of the latter it is best to just decide how you want things to look and then rationalize the trimmings retroactively.

 

[Steel_Wind]

To the above I would add three critical points in the feudal contract:

1 - the Lord was obligated to protect his vassal's lands when called upon by the vassal with a just complaint. Like many things, it was honoured as much in the breach as in the observance, but a failure to protect your vassals was the surest way to ensure that when called upon, your other vassals would have pressing business elsewhere or claimed to have never to have "received" your summons;

2 - the service owed to the Lord was for a set period of time. It was not an open-ended contract of service. This meant long campaigns were hard to manage without incentives (plunder, more lands, titles, marriage offers and other heriditaments - (which is why the Hundred Years War became very much concerned about these things); and,

3- the Lord was obligated to feed the men contributed by the vassal when they were called upon for service. This was not a small point; in fact, it was the trickiest point of all. Honouring that more in the breach than in the observance means your men ended up spoiling your own lands or just plain going home.

Given the limited nature of medieval agriculture, lack of preservatives for food and poor transport, the simple presence of an army moving across the land and spoiling it to feed itself was an economic disaster that could take a decade or more to recover from. It was worse than any plague of locusts.

As agriculture improved in Europe as it moved into the modern era, by Fredrick the Great's and later Napoleon's times, the land could support many more soldiers marching through a given portion of it. Napoleon's method of breaking up his armies and marching his troops across the land through several paths to then unite them at their destination was mostly about spreading the load of feeding that army as they moved across a far larger area of land.

The problem of logistics and supply are not too terribly heroic. They are, unfortunately, what medieval warfare was very much about.