Out of the ordinary, but certainly not unheard of. They wouldn't necessarily be fighting, but a woman with a title and vassals might have felt it important to be present for a battle fought by her forces, and armor for protection from stray arrows would be a reasonable precaution even if you didn't plan to be on the front lines. I think I read somewhere that Eleanor of Aquitaine wore armor when she went on the Second Crusade.
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Out of the ordinary, but certainly not unheard of. They wouldn't necessarily be fighting, but a woman with a title and vassals might have felt it important to be present for a battle fought by her forces, and armor for protection from stray arrows would be a reasonable precaution even if you didn't plan to be on the front lines. I think I read somewhere that Eleanor of Aquitaine wore armor when she went on the Second Crusade.
On a related note, there were a series of early saints who were women who disguised themselves as men to get admitted to a monastery or other exclusive community of male worshippers. Read an interesting book on it earlier--I think this one. There are also documented cases of women passing as men to get education and work as doctors or other prohibited professions.
Note in these cases these are lifelong frauds, not just a campaign season or four.
Note in these cases these are lifelong frauds, not just a campaign season or four.
A few years ago there was a female journalist who went undercover as a man and one of the things she did was become a monk.
The Alexiad details how the wife of Robert Guiscard, Sikelgaita, wore armor to the Battle of Dyrrachium (1081) and took an active role in the battle. She was notably a commander in her own right, fielding her own troops and the book details how she rallied a group of retreating Norman troops with nothing but her fierce persona.
Also, Arsinoe III wife of Ptolemy IV rode in front of the Egyptian army to battle at Raphia.
That would be Norah Vincent.
Quite a few prussian soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars were found out to be women (smth about 20, IIRC)
A lot of women joined the French forces in the early years of the French Revolution (both on the Revolutionary and the Royalistic sides). But a couple of years later they outlawed women being soldiers, so they had to do it (semi) clandestinely. One of the most famous is Madam Sans-Gêne, who managed to server through most of the Napolenoic wars as well.
Nadezhda Durova rode in several Russian cavalry regiments in the Napoleonic Wars ending as a Captain with the Lithuanian Uhlans, and wrote about it in her memoirs, The Cavalry Maiden.
I heard in the US civil war this happened alot and was well documented by the doctors back then.Numbers been in the thousands, especially in the south.
Another interesting question would be how many men disguised themselves as women to avoid the draft
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On a related note I suggest reading Monstrous Regiment from Terry Pratchet. It deals with that topic :laugh:
Monstrous Regiment is about the horrors of attrition wars and their effects on a country. It also examines the psychology of a soldier - how ordinary people can become sanctioned killers.
The only reason that Polly, Maladict and others are women is to drive home this point - so many men have died that only the women are left to sign up.