Medieval militia

Arm the peasants ! ------ So,lets put aside, for a moment, knights in shiny armours, and discuss about role of medieval militaman. He is everywhere,guarding the castle walls,roads,he is the most noumerous part of every army.How can it be implemented in this game?This game needs realism so it needs lots of durty,hungry,poor equiped,and poor armoured people who must fight for the interess of their masters…:DHow important is their role in early 15 century ?

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I guess you mean their military importance… :wink:

They were quite important in sieges. When defending a city/town everyone had to fight, even women. Every inhabitant usually tried to prevent the besieging army to enter the town or climb the walls with whatever weapon they could find.

But they had almost no importance in open field battles. In those usually only regular troops and mostly mercenaries with good equipment, armour and weapons were used. In late 14th century or early 15th century big parts of the armies in central Europe consisted of mercenaries, heavy cavalry from Germany and France, crossbowmen from Italy, light auxiliary cavalry from Hungary, infantry from Switzerland and southrn Germany and so on. You couldn’t really use the peasantry in open battle. And you also have to think about the fact that you need the peasantry during a campaign and also of course afterwards to feed the population. It would have been suicidal to let your peasants be slain on the field for no apparent reason.

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Okay you gotta make a big distinction between urban militia and peasant levies.

A peasant levy was basically every peasant obliged to 40 days of military duty under their feudal obligation. Since they were supposed to arm themselves with their own money there is a big chance they would look like the picture you posted. Converted farm tools and things scavenged from previous battles. However since they will lack military discipline they are not really fit for front line duty (unless you have a really competent commander or religious zeal). They are obliged to only serve for 40 days which is not enough time to effectively drill them and then take them into enemy lands to attack an enemy. You also really couldn’t call upon them in spring and autumn because you would risk a bad harvest.

Really they were not that often used and even if called upon rarely put on the frontlines as canon fodder. A small portion could do scavenging/foraging/camp duty for the army on the move and if the enemy was routed they could act as light infantry finishing off the wounded and persueing the fleeing enemy. You had quite a few peasant rebellions in the middle ages but not many worked out that well. The Hussite wars are a prime example of a good force of peasants but you have to remember that the army was strengthened by professional troops, religious zeal, a good command and unorthodox tactics that worked really well.

The second group which would fall under the non noble non mercenary group would be the Urban militia.
They were the military force of free towns (read up on town/city rights to learn what those were). Usually middle and upper class citizens who volunteered for duty or were at least required to own arms depending on their wealth. Some of these guys trained on set days (weekly or such) and had good equipment.

But the lines blur a lot depending on the country you are talking about.

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