Paying for Armies in Fantasy

"The wages for the campaign were to be paid quarterly in advance" - so a lot of gold, but not all the gold at once
Yep makes sense! Same as you don't get all monies for a contract upfront today....

Re Social Origins of the Medieval Soldier:

"The prospect of earning 6d a day was also attractive to those of higher social rank. Many of Henry V’s archers were yeomen, farmers and minor landholders with incomes in the region of £5 a year, who could afford to equip themselves with a horse and basic armour; some were even younger brothers or sons of gentry whose family purse was not deep enough to provide the king’s host with more than one man-at-arms. For them, military service in France offered the prospect of advancement, and a number of men who were initially recruited as archers would later be found serving as men-at-arms."

Note especially the part about the horse. The vast majority of archers in the Agincourt campaign were mounted when not fighting, which meant they needed to be able to afford a horse (even if they only cost £1 by the values of the time), and needed to be able ride the thing. In both cases, that means money and leisure time - something beyond the resources of the average peasant (although having googled working hours of a medieval peasant they may have had more spare time than I thought).

Well, here's the thing. The Agincourt campaign was an aggressive campaign for Henry V to gain the French throne. Can that be said about all the various campaigns of the English kings? I don't know. Plus farmers and minor landholders aren't craftsmen, could be very "peasant-y" if you look at it from certain angles (See below...) . :)


We also know that some of the archers were probably everyday members of noble households ("From their names, which sometimes occur elsewhere in the accounts in a professional capacity, one can guess that many of this last group were members of the earl’s household: William Coke (the cook), Nicholas Armourer, William Sadelyler, John Foteman, John Fysshelake. One archer is even specifically referred to as a tentmaker.")

Yeomen, I believe, were originally bowmen that were retainers in noble courts. Should have been really good bowmen, I think, 'cause they should have been bowmen and nothing else.

Now this is one specific bit of a very large period and I'm not saying that there were no peasants or escaped serfs or what not in Henry's army. But in this case at least, this is what at least one historian says. The whys of this are speculation, but that it happened this way isn't.

I suppose it depends on your definition of 'peasant'. You might be thinking that peasant is the 'lowest of the low' but I believe there was a great deal of different levels of peasant. And some could be quite rich., So, a farmer could easily be lumped into that class. And I'd guess that plenty of the noble knights in Henry's army would have deemed a great deal of the army with them as peasants (or some other label that is close to that definition!)

(and I'm not sure mercenary captains would buy their archers bows).

Erm, why wouldn't the contract also involve them replacing wear and tear? I.e. the expense of maintaining good weapons? A mercenary unit that required that soldiers applying to their unit had to buy and maintain their weapons would drive away recruits I feel!

And in terms of the broader picture - the link between resilient predominantly urban communities and good infantry in this period is a fairly common one. Vebruggen makes it, I think Contamine makes it, this paper from De Re Militari makes it. Sure, they were a fair few examples of levied infantry, but they were very rarely good. And there's a few examples of good infantry that don't fit this model, but the link is generally sound. And by and large, most commanders didn't use levies when they could. I think this one from DRM gives a good rundown of why it was never really the norm even early on (and also shows quite clearly the early existence of mercenaries - the Varangian Guard got about 135 grams of gold a month).

So this is a big topic....essentially I'd argue that it's nothing to do with urban communities providing troops, in Europe armies shrank from Late Roman times, partly because there wasn't massive armies invading and a number of other issues, and therefore they could rely much more just on retinues and mercenaries. Interestingly I think DRM seems to argue what I pondered before: "More important, I think, is the evidence which suggests that a distinction was made between service in defence of the country and service on offensive campaigns" i.e. you try and get your best for a pillage or invasion, but if someone invades you...you get everyone involved.

Then the same paper states "At their best, however, the civic militias of urban Europe were part-time fighting men. Their tactical skills were correspondingly limited."

Further more:

"In northern Wales and the border counties of England, boys began learning to use the bow almost as soon as they could walk. The genetours of the Iberian Peninsula and the stradiots of the Balkans might be part-time laborers or farmers, but they drew much of their personal identity, and an increasing amount of their civil status, from their military proficiency."

Very good article, the DRM one, reading through it all BTW. Very thought provoking!


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I think some thought ought to be given to the problem of logistics - paying for, and transporting, all the things required for an army. The biggest part being rations, probably, but I imagine having thousands of arrows ready for those barrages would also be a strain.
 
This has all been very good coverage, complete with citing sources (the historian in me smiles). I can think of a couple of aspects to add. One would be to look at crusader armies. We have some very good studies of those, and a good many of the armies were not raised by kings, so that would give a different perspective.

Somewhat related, kings did not generally directly raise and pay for an army. Instead, they had any number of "men" (I resist using the term feudalism) who in turn could raise knights and men-at-arms. So, a king would put out a call to assemble on such a date in such a place and pretty much hope everyone showed up (they rarely did). Among those would be his direct retainers plus any mercenaries he'd hired (mainly by borrowing the money). But a large chunk, even most, of the army would be men raised not by the king but by various counts, earls, margraves, dukes, and the rest. I realize that just sort of punts the question downfield a bit, but it is worth noting that the king wasn't directly paying, always.

Which circles me back to the crusades. We have fairly detailed information about the Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France. Joinville tells of multiple cases where the various nobles along on the expedition eventually ran out of funds--Louis was in the Holy Land for four years--and the king covered for them.

Great thread, folks. Logistics are always worth a look!
 
Kings in fantasy novels tend to be able to recruit soldiers or hire them without much difficulty. In Renaissance Italy and Germany, the mercenary system was very well-organised, and the banking system was getting going, so I find it hard to believe that everything was done by handing over huge bags of coins.

In short, if a king wanted to hire a group of mercenaries, would that literally involve chests full of gold, or would some more sophisticated system of promises and debt be used? Thanks!

There's always the possibility of bank drafts, promissory notes, gifts in kind (not least lands and titles for the leaders with the associated taxes). Or even the promise of easy plunder. Possibly a mix of everything.

15th century Italy is a bit of an anomaly because you have an unusual mix of elements, not least soldiers of fortune left over the Hundred Years war, very powerful and rich city states in competition with each other.

If you want to look deeper into the period, Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman eBook: Frances Stonor Saunders: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store tells the story of an Englishman who ended up leading mercenary bands in Italy, and might provide useful information.
 
Well, here's the thing. The Agincourt campaign was an aggressive campaign for Henry V to gain the French throne. Can that be said about all the various campaigns of the English kings? I don't know. Plus farmers and minor landholders aren't craftsmen, could be very "peasant-y" if you look at it from certain angles (See below...) . :)

The campaigns of the English medieval kings post-defeat of the Vikings can be broadly broken down into aggressive campaigns of foreign conquest (or defence of said foreign parts) and civil war. Its very rare that they fought other major invading armies (particularly post Anglo-Saxon) and most of the time that was linked to civil wars anyway. I think the Scottish invasion that ended at Neville's Cross might be the only non-civil war linked major invasion to occur in this period.

Alas, I sacrificed my War of the Roses collection when I moved, but playing compare the difference between that and Agincourt would be fascinating - and then again with that and the Great Anarchy.

Yeomen, I believe, were originally bowmen that were retainers in noble courts. Should have been really good bowmen, I think, 'cause they should have been bowmen and nothing else.

Their surnames state pretty clearly that these men weren't bowmen and nothing else; also, I haven't heard that before and Wiki (fwiw) says otherwise - "In early recorded uses, a yeoman was an attendant in a noble household "

I suppose it depends on your definition of 'peasant'. You might be thinking that peasant is the 'lowest of the low' but I believe there was a great deal of different levels of peasant. And some could be quite rich., So, a farmer could easily be lumped into that class. And I'd guess that plenty of the noble knights in Henry's army would have deemed a great deal of the army with them as peasants (or some other label that is close to that definition!)

I was dealing mainly with the lowest of the low type peasant, yes. People who can't pay other people to labour in the field for them. Which is a nebulous concept at farmer, but not at minor landholder imo although I'll freely admit that when we get into the social history side I start to get out of my depth. However, since the historian in question I'm quoting put farmers directly after and linked to higher social rank, I'm going to go with them being of a slightly higher rank than ye average peasant.

And while there would have been a certain amount of snootiness on the nobles' parts, yes, in this part of the period the lines start to get blurred and there is a lower gentry/middle class in evidence. The standard definition of mounted armoured warrior in Henry's army was Man At Arms, not knight, because most of them weren't knights. Scrope brought 4 knights and 26 esquires. And sure, not everyone could be a esquire either, but things are clearly getting a little wobbly (not to mention that as already quoted, there were family members of esquires serving as archers).

Erm, why wouldn't the contract also involve them replacing wear and tear? I.e. the expense of maintaining good weapons? A mercenary unit that required that soldiers applying to their unit had to buy and maintain their weapons would drive away recruits I feel!

Replacing wear and tear and buying new equipment when they join are two different things. I don't know for sure how this part of it worked but its worth looking at.

So this is a big topic....essentially I'd argue that it's nothing to do with urban communities providing troops, in Europe armies shrank from Late Roman times, partly because there wasn't massive armies invading and a number of other issues, and therefore they could rely much more just on retinues and mercenaries. Interestingly I think DRM seems to argue what I pondered before: "More important, I think, is the evidence which suggests that a distinction was made between service in defence of the country and service on offensive campaigns" i.e. you try and get your best for a pillage or invasion, but if someone invades you...you get everyone involved.

Then the same paper states "At their best, however, the civic militias of urban Europe were part-time fighting men. Their tactical skills were correspondingly limited."

Further more:

"In northern Wales and the border counties of England, boys began learning to use the bow almost as soon as they could walk. The genetours of the Iberian Peninsula and the stradiots of the Balkans might be part-time laborers or farmers, but they drew much of their personal identity, and an increasing amount of their civil status, from their military proficiency."

Very good article, the DRM one, reading through it all BTW. Very thought provoking!

The Stradiots and Jinetes were both horsemen and therefore outside of the remit of what I'm saying :p

But yes, you can see communities other than predominantly urban ones producing the level of social cohesion needed to overcome knights in the middle ages. That doesn't change the fact that it was Flanders and Northern Italy (i.e. high level of urbanisation) that did it first. Maybe the causation is off but that is definitely how it went down.

And, limited or not, the best of them were able to take knights.

Finally, even when invaded, most armies still didn't call in mass levies of peasants. It happened in places, in periods, but pretty much every place you have a decent pool of professional soldiers, feeding levies are more trouble than they're worth. And even what we do think of levies, things like the Fyrd, were generally organised in such a way to try and a few good fighting men rather than a ton of crap ones.
 
I'm the complete opposite of an expert where weapons are concerned and have no personal experience of any kind, but viz-a-viz the English longbow I don't think it's quite as clear-cut as that.

Simply being able to draw the bow repeatedly, let alone shoot several arrows a minute (I have six in my head, but I've no idea where I got that from) would require extensive practice. Butts were set up on fields outside towns/villages and almost certainly -- we're talking male pride and competitiveness here, after all -- there would be prestige attached in hitting the butts, and even prizes at festivals and the like, and derision for failure. So all but the useless are going to learn to hit the targets over the years, even if not the bullseye. And even if as a military leader you use your archers to pour death down on the approaching army from a distance, you'd still want them to be able to hit things they were aiming at as the other side got nearer.

Among the Mary Rose armaments were bows which experts think would have been used to shoot some kind of fire arrows, which would presumably have been aimed at specific targets, not simply shot at random into the opposing ships' hulls, and some bowmen would have been deployed to target individuals, though lighter bows might then have been used.

So, not all marksmen of the Robin Hood legendary sort, perhaps, but not simply brute-force inepts, either. Perhaps like C20th professional soldiers with guns -- everyone trained to a certain standard to hit the enemy, with a few deadly accurate snipers.

Interesting point about Native American prowess. But as far as the bow is concerned, I'm assuming it wasn't simply a weapon of war, it was a tool with which to feed one's family, and accuracy could be a life-and-death matter, hence the need for marksmanship. I can well imagine that it was the same -- and also regarding weapons of war because of the frequency of attacks from warring tribes -- in Europe in much earlier centuries.
The crossbow sword, that's what you need
FB_IMG_1556959929394.jpg
 
Ages ago on Twitter, I saw a fantastic picture of a meat cleaver. Which was also a pistol. And had a calendar of saints' days engraved into it.

For when you need your butchery, firearms, and holy duties in one handy tool.
 
Peasants and conscripts are never good options as soldiers. Poorly trained, ill-equipped, and lack the spirit and motivation. Plus, most lords and kings rightfully feared a full scale revolt from these quasi slave troops. Look what happened to Russia in WW1. The Czar and the landed nobles conscripted millions of warm bodies with little training and motivation, and the casualties piled up. The only thing slave soldiers got the Romanovs was one last family photo in the basement.

America, too, suffered a similar problem in Vietnam. You had the ranks filled with barely legal kids with mediocre martial training and little motivation to fight this conflict besides not getting shot up.

Soldiers are like toilet paper and cars: you get what you pay for.
 
Yes and no.

The archers of Henry V had far less costly arms and armour (not the same as wages, but still a cost) than French knights. Agincourt then proved spending the most doesn't mean you necessarily have the most effective military equipment.
 
There are so many variables in an individual battle--topography, weather, leadership, chance, as well as training or weaponry. It is, imho, a mistake to isolate one or two as being decisive. In any case, we appear to have wandered far from the original post (the responses to which were very interesting).
 
I agree. My original question really boiled down to "Could someone just steal all the money used to pay the army?" I think the answer is probably "no", but the loss of a chunk of money (a wagon containing coins, say) could be possible. Of course, getting the money away would be a problem, but that's another story.

In practical terms, the question is surely "Could this be made to work in a story?" and I think it just about could. The aim is often not so much absolute realism as not breaking the illusion of credibility for the reader, and I think this occasion would work.
 
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>Could someone just steal all the money used to pay the army?

More often it was a case of not having the money to deliver in the first place. There were also cases of plunder that ought to have been shipped back to the capital or king, but somehow disappeared. And, much later, we get payroll robberies all over the place in the 19thc.

It totally could work. My skepticism might kick in if it were presented as if the army only got paid once. Most times--and I'm thoroughly medieval Europe here--an army was paid in part through plunder and through taking profits from the battlefield (ransom). By the late MA we see some provisions for a per diem sort of arrangement, but I can't think of a case where we know exactly how that payment happened. If the army were in foreign territory, I'd expect the payment would happen once back home; or, one payment up front with the balance to be paid on return.

The lord would very likely have money with him, though; that money would be for ongoing expenses. I can think of examples here from the Crusades. Stealing that would create a serious problem, though the army could probably operate on credit for a while. But if the lord knew he'd been robbed, he'd for sure go after the thieves, once military operations were over.
 
On the specific stealing point, one of (the?) biggest, ahem, acquisitions in history was committed by Quintus Servilius Caepio who acquired a not inconsiderable sum in gold.

"The riches of Tolosa were shipped back to Rome, but only the silver made it; the gold was stolen by a band of marauders, who were believed to have been hired by Caepio himself. The Gold of Tolosa was never found, and was said to have been passed all the way down to the last heir of the Servilii Caepiones, Marcus Junius Brutus. "

Quintus Servilius Caepio - Wikipedia
 
Yup. Covered nicely by Colleen McCullough in her Masters of Rome series. Can't recall in which volume.

Also, somewhat relevant, I'm reading a medieval maritime history, specifically about the naval aspect of the Norman invasion of England. There I read that the English had a system by which each shire provided the funds for the men that shire levied. So, it would have been several smaller chests of coin (and letters of authorization), rather than one big one, for the Saxons. There was no mention of funding on the Norman side, but the Conqueror famously sat for weeks with his entire army before sailing. Thousands of men and horses, and it's said that William paid for provisions out of his own pocket, so he must have had a fair bit of coin.

Another fun place for stealing silver would be ransom payments. In the case of paying off Viking invaders, this allegedly came to thousands of pounds in silver. What a great opportunity to raise a ruckus, to have the Viking pay-off money stolen on the way to Fiercebeard Killemall!
 
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In a text I read a while back, regarding Yoeman - there was an Elizabethan law passed, saying all smallholdings had to be a minimum of 8 acres - because that was the minimum size that would support a family, and had produced so many good long bowmen - so well fed, self-reliant and fit.

In Barbara Hambly Ladies of Madrigyn, there is a nice wrinkle on mercenaries getting paid - the silver content of the coins was specified in the contract, and trying to pass off adulterated coins could result in a tribunal judged by neighbouring city states.

End of English Civil War, Parliamentary Army wouldn't go home until they'd been paid - not sure they ever did get paid in full.
 
Montero, that raises another good point which is that things changed a lot over time.

A thousand years ago, Saxon and Viking leaders had housecarls who were regularly rewarded with gifts and formed a core of professional soldiers. Later, fealty and feudal armies came in (Alfred's burh system was an interesting development too). But feudal service could be avoided by paying scutage (shield money, a tax to pay for mercenaries rather than serving in person and something much abused by King John). A couple of centuries later feudal armies declined and were often replaced with mostly mercenary troops, leading to indentured service (indenture at this time was a good thing because it meant a contract specifying what the leader would pay and how compensation for war horses [very expensive] would be handled).

Even using history as a firm guide, there's a lot of scope for different systems in fantasy.
 

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