The end of the knights and aristocrats began when the growing urban population began to deploy large armies of well trained infantry units in the later 1300s (see the battle of the spurs.) These urban areas could sometime raise 50%-75% of the military age males, already equipped and trained and alliance of a couple of cities or more could easily out raise even the kings of the time. If fending off an invasion on his own land in what was likely to be a couple of brief battles, nobles could sometimes scrape up 15% or more of the farmers but largely because the farmers wanted to fend off the plunder of the invading army. Prior to that, wars were races to see who could get the most men to battle field before everyone dropped dead from dysentery, plague or whatever. WWII was the first American war in which more soldiers died of enemy action than disease. 2/3 of soldiers died of disease in unsanitary camps with little food and constant exposure. Neither did it help that well into early 1800s, military service of any duration beyond a couple of weeks was looked on as a death sentence. However, save for the rare chance at plunder in a foreign land, peasants didn't get paid so they had little incentive to comply with their feudal obligations (which forced upon them by conquest) so getting enough men to show up was a constant struggle. That would be roughly 15%-20% of the total population.But even in summer, no more than half the available man power could be done without on the farm so more like 7.5%-10% In theory, the nobles could require all peasant males in a certain age range, usually 17-50, to provide 40 days of military service a year during the summer. In Winter time, armies could not travel so war occurred in the narrow summer months. Around 5% were clergy, artisans, traders etc and largely considered non-factors in warfare.ĭuring the harvesting and planting seasons, essentially non of the farmer population could be called up out wrecking the nobles own fortunes worse than loosing a war would. The European military warrior class the so-called "nobility" comprised roughly 5% of the population. They called up a few farmers as possible and forced them to provide their own weapons from converted agricultural tools and whatever armor they could improvise.įarmers that got to skillful on the battlefield tended to end up mysteriously dead. Medieval societies were societies built upon the military oppression and exploitation of the farmers (peasants.) They could never allow the peasants to become to well trained, armed or coordinated or they could defeat the aristocracy. Of the two, the latter is the most important. There are two factors limiting the amount of man power a society can deploy, overall population and internal political cohesion. This relationship ended with the start of the Infantry Revolution, when simple to use weapons and tactics (crossbows, pike formations, pole arms) were introduced, allowing a mass of peasants or yeomen to take to the field and effectively fight against mounted knights, so if your setting is in the mid 1400's or beyond, then the percentage of effective armed manpower increases, although the amount of time that they could take to the field will decease (since they still need to carry out farming, crafts and other daily tasks to stay alive and prosperous). This could be made up in part by a levy of the peasants to provide foot soldiers, hiring of mercenaries and the arrival of brigands who would be happy to serve for a share of the loot. The other reason the ratio of fighting men to the others included the high demands of time for training for war, and the resource bill for the man, armour, weapons, horses etc. So in addition to being able to fight and supply a set amount of fighting material (coming with horses, armour and weapons), they also adjudicated disputes, supervised the harvesting of corn (wheat), the milling and distribution of flour, ensured markets ran (with their percentage of the cut) and so on. Since the web of relationships was often theoretical above a certain point (certainly too difficult to enforce effectively), much of Europe during the Middle Ages (or Japan during the period before the Tokugawa Shogunate or China during the Warring States periods) was divided into much smaller polities run by minor or "mid level" nobility. Based on historical data, the adult population in a typical polity in the Middle Ages could support one fighting man for every 15 adults maximum.Īs noted, fighting men didn't exclusively "fight", but were generally higher ranking Feudatories, who acted in administrative roles for those of higher feudal rank to whom they owed alligence.
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