.Most of the swedish laws (from around the year 1300, most of them) specified helmet, some kind of armour (usually mail) and some kind of weapon (sword, axe, crossbow, etc.) for the militia.
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.Most of the swedish laws (from around the year 1300, most of them) specified helmet, some kind of armour (usually mail) and some kind of weapon (sword, axe, crossbow, etc.) for the militia.
They were probably passed down the generations (and weren't neccessarily full suits either)
Serfdom per se didn't really exist in Sweden, but yes, these were probably "storbönder" (lit. "Big farmers")
Note that Gotland was a mercantile hub, and the gotland peasants had been quite involved in the baltic trade. (until Visby built a wall and essentially cut them off, the peasants were completely unable to deal with the stone wall)
EDIT: It's also really hard to make serious figures for this kind of stuff, but the majority of the farms during the middle-ages were owned by self-owning*, free** peasants. This doesen't include the landless, thorpers, day laborers, servants etc. but it *seems* like those were a minority of the village populations durin themiddle ages.***
* To the extent that the any ownership of land in the middle ages qualifies.
** Again, for the middle-ages.
*** Lars Magnusson, Sveriges Ekonomiska Historia, p. 73
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Well not to get into that debate, Medieval Warfare is so difficult to understand since it came between two periods of largely huge warfare between well-organized states in Europe that was ended in the Migration period as warfare went down in size. It's hard to picture it for most people. It's a combination mostly consisting of sieges and guerrilla raids with classic pitched battle a rarity (in terms of occurrences), pitched battle is a tough investment, with it, you either lose a lot or gain. It's a risky proposition when raiding is better. Sieges are the same, either wait a long time or go in for hell depending on the size of the target.
The Hundred Years' War sure had nice romantic battles of great slaughter, but what really won was the raiding that destroyed the support of vassals and income.
CK2 can't do that perfectly, but hey, dynasty's are more of a selling point. Total War can't even do that. And that's the closet game to it.
I blame Franglaterra, for all these misconceptions.
The Hundred Years' War sure had nice romantic battles of great slaughter, but what really won was the raiding that destroyed the support of vassals and income.
CK2 can't do that perfectly, but hey, dynasty's are more of a selling point. Total War can't even do that. And that's the closet game to it.
I blame Franglaterra, for all these misconceptions.
But ultimately, it was the battles and the sieges that ended the war.France won despite being raided consistently.
Surely the other way around? England won almost all the battles, but still lost the war.
I'd say it was more because the French got more organised in terms of resistance, so it was no longer possible to march at will across the countryside looting and pillaging. Once war stopped being profitable and actually became dangerous, the English nobility lost interest.
Without manpower and support, the formerly pro-Plantagenet nobles in France switched sides, and the King of France gained ground. The sieges and captures of forts marked his progress, rather than being critical to the progress of the war in themselves.
Not in the final phase. In the final phase of the war, England kept losing pitched battles against the French. Most attempts to relieve besieged forts ended in pitched battles where the English get slaughtered.
Well, the mass graves after the battle of Visby is one of the greatest sources of coat of plate armor, distinguishing itself from chain armor.
You all need to be a lot more clear on what period you're talking about. You can't make broad statements about "the Middle Ages", when things were very different in the sub-periods, i.e. Early Middle Ages (~ 500 - 1000), High Middle Ages (~ 1000 to 1300) and Late Middle Ages (~ 1300 to 1500). I mean, you can't draw conclusions of how common plate armour was in the whole medieval period by what was worn in the battle of Visby in 1361 (towards the end of the era, in the Late Middle Ages).
And military equipment actually allows one to actually enjoy the fruits of one's labour, both if one ends up in a levy or just minding his own business in a significantly more violent environment. Considering that the whole village would never go fighting at once, the expensive stuff could be communal property or a few vets could actually invest into gear and go to battle when necessary. The lord or official raising the levy could also provide equipment.
A chain breastplate, a weapon and a heavy cloak should be enough to give a reasonable chance of survival.
I'm actually fairly interested in how did armies afford to pay for mass produced plate armour by late Middle Ages. From what I understand, the Duke of Burgundy was able to buy PLATE armour for even non-noble grunts.
Production become cheaper and states become more centralised, having a deeper war chest.
How much inferior are these mass produced plate armour compared to the ones bought and used by the nobility?
Well "grunts" is exaggerated, he didn't have that many gendarmes. Also, I personally never heard about the cost of plate armors. By that time, it was the cost of cannons and handguns that was the main item on a military budget.
A few interesting facts and figures: we have the accounts of an armourer's workshop in Greenwich,. England from 1540.
Total running costs per year included £21 per year for charcoal, £15 for steel and iron, and £5 for leather; apprentices received a yearly wage of £9 each, armourers £15 and the Master £17.
A full suit of plate armour, without decoration, cost £12; a field harness cost £8; a coat of plates cost £4 and a breastplate £1.
By comparison, in 1539 King Henry VIII placed a bulk order for 1200 sets of full harness from the Cologne armourers for a total of $451, which equates to £0.38 each (or 7/6d). More than an order of magnitude difference.
The main differences with mass-produced 'munitions-grade' plate would be:
Total running costs per year included £21 per year for charcoal, £15 for steel and iron, and £5 for leather; apprentices received a yearly wage of £9 each, armourers £15 and the Master £17.
A full suit of plate armour, without decoration, cost £12; a field harness cost £8; a coat of plates cost £4 and a breastplate £1.
By comparison, in 1539 King Henry VIII placed a bulk order for 1200 sets of full harness from the Cologne armourers for a total of $451, which equates to £0.38 each (or 7/6d). More than an order of magnitude difference.
The main differences with mass-produced 'munitions-grade' plate would be:
- It was made in standard sizes rather than being tailored to fit an individual.
- It wasn't decorated, etched, gilded or polished.
- The helmet was normally open, or with a fixed face-guard, rather than an expensive hinged visor.
- Limb protection was generally less or lacking altogether - because articulated joints and fully-enclosed arm and leg armour is only practical if it's custom-fitted to a specific individual.
- In other words, munitions plate was generally just a helmet and cuirass to protect the head and torso, perhaps with strapped-on plates for the limbs.
- As far as I'm aware the quality of materials used was the same. Metallurgy hadn't really advanced to the point that people could purposefully distinguish between different grades of steel, other than knowing that certain regions tended to produce a better quality of metal.
well the coat of plates was a function of the time - also the 'peasants' of Gotland (well, shouldn't italicise, I guess they were) were relatively wealthy as Visby was a trading hub. Pretty much all medieval armies were only a small proportion of the population (unless they liked starving)
A lot of assizes either applied in practice to a percentage of the population (eg urban militias may be citizens, but there were a large number of generally poorer 'non-citizens' in many towns.) or were never going to be meaningfully enforced (especially late english ones - by the HYW England's army was voluntary & paid (ie effectively mercenary) so the necessity to check everybody had all that stuff would not have been high. Still. especially near the end of the period, armor could be mass-produced in large quantities when necessary.
Probably the same reason why lots of soldiers buy lots of their own equipment (I even heard of people who spend upto 3 months earnings on body armour). Because if it makes fighting easier/safer its probably worth it.
Well equipped peasant militias were a major factor in Sweden up until Gustav Vasa and the end of the Union wars.
A German landsknecht in Danish service named Paul Donlnstein made some drawings showing the Swedish peasant soldiers he fought.
They are shown equipped with kettle hat as well as chest plates. Not really modern, but still pretty substantial. These pictures are early 1500:s, I think from 1502.
Some quick numbers from 'The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road' by Geoffrey Parker: "In the 1590s a pike and body-armour cost 30 florins, a musket cost 10 florins and a 24-pounder cannon cost 1000 florins." The armour cost the equivilent of bread for the wearer for a year. It is worth noting that the cost of the musket was a third of the cost of the pikeman's equipment - part of the reason the shot armed soldiers made up more than 2/3rds of most European infantry in the late medieval/early moden period.
The further back in time you go the greater the cost of equipment as a proportion of disposable income. Clear indication of the of the sort of equipment early medieval levies carried can be gleaned from the Bayeux tapestry. The Saxon fyrd are armed with shield and spears but no armour. The quality of the equipment of the lower class soldiers improved throughout the medieval period as states gained greater incomes, manufacture became cheaper and the armies became more professional. This process was neither uniform nor continuous but hold fairly well as a general statement.
The further back in time you go the greater the cost of equipment as a proportion of disposable income. Clear indication of the of the sort of equipment early medieval levies carried can be gleaned from the Bayeux tapestry. The Saxon fyrd are armed with shield and spears but no armour. The quality of the equipment of the lower class soldiers improved throughout the medieval period as states gained greater incomes, manufacture became cheaper and the armies became more professional. This process was neither uniform nor continuous but hold fairly well as a general statement.