How many commoner soldiers was a single knight worth?
Around 4 in 1 vs 4 scenario.1-2 try to fight him head on, while other tackle him from back/sides
>>64880901All of them.
>>64880912Why are knights fighting like it's a brawl at a bar?>>648809015-50 based on actual battles.
>>64880912>1 commoner for each limb
>>64880924Can be separated during shifting battle, or fall from horse during charge.
>>64880901A knight is worth like a thousand, if not tens of thousand common (militia) soldiers. There is a reason why the way the Roman Empire did things, no longer worked. There is a small caveat, because the Romans could actually give their soldiers good equipment. But besides that Knights are just so much more economical, efficient and don't require a huge corrupt Empire, which sucks the life force out of it's people to support.The Normans conquered all of Sicily with just a few dozen knights, later a few hundred. They almost beat the Byzantine Empire and created a Latin Empire early. The Leper-king of Jerusalem completely demolished a vastly superior Muslim army with a well-coordinated charge. NOTHING can beat a Knight's charge, if they manage to pull it off properly in good terrain. You have to understand that the nobility are not "fat arrogant rich quasi-Bourgeoisie" like always portrayed in media. They are a WARRIOR CLASS, who were bred, born and trained in the arts of combat. They had a more thorough and complete training than Olympian athletes, who specialize in a single discipline. They can do it all! Western nobility is unique! They stay in rural fortifications OUTSIDE the cities. They hunt all day or fight in minor disputes, basically private wars, if they are not called to fight in an actual war. Their profession is war. They are not urban city dwellers, who degenerate over time like all the Chinese or what happened to conquerors in the middle east. They are descended from Pagan Germanic warriors and always retained a foreign morality and attitude compared to the Christian Latin people they conquered. it's still the same Furor Teutonicus burning inside them. Medieveal Europe was the perfect fusion of what made Europe great. Germanic warriors finally having the resources to make their fighting style into the unbeatable combination it always had the potential to be.
>>648809011 or 2 peasants must be willing to eat a few sword strikes while the others grab the knight from the flank and back and immobilize him.Finding the volunteers who will get chopped off is the hard part
Five. No more, no less.
>>64880901the value of a knight is how many commoners from his fief he brings with him and how well armed and trained those commoners are
>>64881055Commoners belong to lords. Knights were only given a small plot and maybe a few serfs if their lord was generous.It's lords who decided when and where knights and serfs alike went to war. Except a few rich ones knights were only honorary nobles. They were still vassals to their lord and had to obey him.
>>64880901Two: one commoner to hold a shield and one to flank the asshole papist knight and stick him with a spear.
>>64881223It's impressive that you actually managed to be more wrong than the guy you were correcting.
>>64881236ok you poke at him with the spear but it does nothing. Your shield guy got disemboweled after the knight just walked up and ripped the shield out of his hands.What now?
>>64881236that's gammadion not fylfot
>>64880992based
>>64881055So were knights more like officers, or where they actually expected to do fighting?
>>64881432https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_fournie
>>64881432Its partly the knight's resources plus you have all your knights next to you in a heavy cavalry formation to make something that's essentially unstoppable to all but the most hardened of spear formations.
>>64880901Realistically, they're worth whatever ransom you can get out of him + his gear + his horse. They're worth more alive.
>>64880992Please take this bait to /his/ for an easy you farm or no reply thread
>>64880992Yeah but you still had them dying from stupid shit and disease. Deploying knights was always high-risk, high-reward since dying in combat was actually one of the less likely ways to attrition in war, even for levies and plague doesn't care a bout how many crunches you can do.
>>64881432They were both; each knight controlled his own personal retinue consisting of a handful of guys (typically a bowman and a spear or pikeman) that were expected to link up with all the other men-at-arms in their class while the knights did all the heavy cavalry things like charges and flanking and routing the enemy.Sergeants arose as officers whose job was to wrangle all these dissipate soldiers from a hundred different places into cohesive units.
>>64880940Battles are dense affairs, you aren't putting four peasants against one knight for the same reason you aren't putting four defensive linemen against one offensive lineman.
>>64881240Spear does plenty and the papist knight is not ripping any shield away cause his hands are full.
>>64881899>Spear does plentyNo, it's gonna do literally nothing to plate armor.>cause his hands are full.Full of dead peasant ears he collected from you and your retard friend.
>>64880901Think of them as a tank compared to infantry.Tanks are very expensive and can do things infantry simply can't, and can shrug many more kinds of battlefield danger.But tanks are not invulnerable, require lots of support, and infantry can do things tanks can't.
>>64880901Pay ratios for soldiers in medieval England was very consistent. Daily wages around the 14th-15th century (wages changed with time and need but the ratios remained roughly the same on purpose):Archer: 3dMounted archer: 6d (since they fought the same way as foot archers on the battlefield this reflected their increased strategic value and the cost of feeding the horse)Hobelar (light cavalry, quickly replaced by mounted archers once they came into vogue): 6dMan-at-arms, squire, sergeant etc: 12dKnight: 24dBanneret: 48dNote that for knights and bannerets, pay rates reflected social standing and leadership skills, so you can't assume it reflects an appreciation of their fighting ability. As it wasn't technically necessary, you can expect some knights fought with the same equipment they had before being knighted, while other knights were equipped better. And of course while bannerets would be among the richer men in the army while not being counted as among the super-rich and hence equipped to match, it's dubious to expect them to actually be worth 4 men-at-arms in personal combat.There's a few things that can be gleaned from this. Simply giving a man a horse doubled his perceived value and logistical burden. Simply armoring a horse (hence qualifying as a man-at-arms) doubles the value of light cavalry. Social standing affected wages that in no way was representative of their personal combat value on the battlefield.
>>64880901Depends. You can reliably engage and defeat up to five or so people who have poor or no armor at a time if they're 100% willing to stand and fight. More if they're spread out or not committed, and a LOT if you're holding a wall or door. In a force on force encounter we have a recorded instance of around 24 knights routing HUNDREDS of parisian militia (who'd have real weapons and some armor) plus the entire local town during the siege of meaux. They did this by charging across the castle bridge into the streets of the town - ideal circumstances for the commoners. They lost one man, killed hundreds, and burned the town. Knights literally started learning to fight as soon as they could walk and talk, and their preferred methods of recreation were mostly hunting on horseback, or fighting each other in tournaments. They were EXTREMELY skilled, and the simple reality is that it isn't like modern war where militia spamming bullets can take down operators through volume of fire- a man in full armor isn't to allow you to span strikes into his gaps, and even if you manage it, nothing will happen unless you know EXACTLY how to capitalize on it. To the point where we have serving techniques for knocking a spear clear of your armpit, because just landing the hit wouldn't breach the mail under it. They could be killed, but it's very, very difficult, and they're better than you with much higher 'fight iq'.It's also a very class based society, with peoples bodies only really being used for day to day activities - there's no gym. and we have surviving commentary on the physical differences - if you wanted someone to carry heavy shit, get a farmer. If you wanted someone who could explode into motion, vault an obstacle, roll, and come up swinging, get a knight. If you want someone who's kind of shit, grab a burgher. Also our monkey brains fear people in armor. It changes posture and body language in a way that screams >Get the fuck out of the way
>>64881236Two commoners with quarterstaffs, the knight can focus on one but he's just going to get his knees spanked by the other one.
>>64882312>smack his knees >does literally nothing>you suffer life altering injuries (at best) every time he swings his weapon of choicegood luck with that
>>64882325Quarterstaff is 8 feet of straight grain ash that can put a whole lot of force into a blunt tip, knock his helmet, or remove his head depending on the man swinging it
>>64882330>that can put a whole lot of force into a blunt tipOk>knock his helmetoh boy you made his helmet go clank. This accomplished nothing, and as he has no need to parry your blow he is entirely free to disembowel you in return.>8 feet of straight grain ashhe has 6 feet of straight grain ash with a spear, an axe, and a hammer on it. I like the knight's odds better.>or remove his head lol
>>64882336If he has a poleaxe he doesn't have a shield. He's also going to overheat and tire out while his two friends goading him with quarter staves might knock him off balance or jab his helmet. English knights would have trained with the quarter staff as well.
>>64882356>If he has a poleaxe he doesn't have a shield.yes, that's right. Knights quit using shields basically entirely when plate armor became a thing, because it served no purpose. His entire body is the shield.>He's also going to overheat and tire outHe's going to kill you immediately.
>>64882356You can use a shield with a two handed weapon. Look at the picture in the OP. Real medieval shields are supported by a strap around the neck, not held in your hand like larp shit.
>>64882356>Y-you can just beat him with staffs! Muh sticks>He'll get tired I swear Ah, yes, this must be why peasant rebellions near universally ended in mass slaughter of the peasants, right?This is why we have accounts of duels where individual knights took dozens of poleaxe hits - weapons that deliver far more force than a staff- and kept going, right?
>>64882376>Real medieval shields are supported by a strap around the neck, not held in your hand like larp shit.Depends on the time and place.>larp shitReal medieval shields were also held by just your hand.
>>64882379One knight vs multiple armed peasants or a knight contingency vs a bunch of unarmed peasants?If you're a lone knight and the village brought torches and pitch forks to see you done, you're not slaughtering your way out of it.
>>64882408Yes, it fucking is. It's going to stop a mace or warhammer blow. You're a tard.
>>64882388>t-technically bucklers are held in one hand!Okay, bro. Have a gold star.
>>64880992Delicious pasta.
>>64882429No nigger, round shields were just held, no strapping or other bullshit. That's the most common shield for hundreds of years worth of the medieval era.
I saw a video on YT where some Renaissance twats beat on a man in armor with a staff, just went at him like Babe Ruth and this guy didn't even feel it. Every solid hit glanced off his pauldron/breastplate.
>>64882434They were strapped to your forearm, only a buckler would just be held in your hand loosely.
>>64882450No, they were not. They were held by a grip in the center.
>>64882393Yes, an entire village can take a knight. Two retards with quarterstaffs would die in seconds. Out of armor.In armor he'd likely be sufficiently nonplussed that they'd live for a minute while he tries to process how insane they have to be to try to fight him.
>>64882444if youre gonna swarm him, just grapple him instead of striking. the armor doesnt make his muscles stronger. pin him down and have your way with him
>>64882434Since the thread is about knights and everyone is talking about knights, I thought it was fairly obvious that we weren't talking about the 9th century. Enjoy your gold star.
>>64882460Glad you looked it up and learned round shields were generally not strapped.>I thought it was fairly obvious that we weren't talking about the 9th centuryRound shields were used well beyond the 9th century, and more importantly knights existed before then as well. The concept of a class of nobles dedicated to warfare on horse is literally pre-historic, and attested in writing as early as the Roman Kingdom.
>>64882458No, it just means his fists, knees, and elbows can be lethal, and some locks and holds literally just won't work. You literally CAN'T break his joints if he's wearing riveted limbs. And he's harder to hold onto. And the flanges on his knees and elbows will cut you. And he can headbutt you, full force, possibly with a pointed visor, all he wants. Also he's stronger than you, better at this, and at least one if you is getting a dagger in the guts right away. You really don't want to rush him. Which is why common soldiers fought in tight blocks with very long weapons.
>>64882471I'm not >>64882450.>Knights are exactly the same as the concept of an equestrian warrior class and when people talk about knights they're talking about Alexander's CompanionsExcept that's wrong, and you fucking know it. But I know you're only pretending to be retarded to win an internet argument, so I'll let you have it. Enjoy.
So what it sounds like is that chainmail and brigandine armor was just kinda shit, since that would be commoner armor and knights would have no trouble killing someone in them.
>>64882485>Except that's wrong, and you fucking know it.I know no such thing.>uh the socio-economic status of a knight and the word used to describe them changed through history!Don't care, and more importantly irrelevant to the main point: knights, as in medieval European land holding equestrian nobility, used round shields for hundreds of years before the kite shield existed.
How the fuck did medieval knights fail 5 crusades against these guys
>>64882530God is a Protestant.
>>64882507Brigandine is a pretty broad term, some of them were shit and some like pic related were basically breastplates covered in cloth. Mail hauberks disappeared pretty quickly once plate armor came into play, though.Look up the Battle of Visby as an example of what happens when professional soldiers in early plate armor fight peasants in whatever armor they scrounge up.
>>64882507Brigandine is excellent armor and was used interchangeably with plate curiasses depending on where you were in Europe. Mail is also great, but it can't stand up to things like poleaxes, and is vulnerable to maces or even long swords. More importantly it's fucking slow to make, so once plate is common, it's cheaper and faster to get plate than mail if you're talking about new armor. This is to the point where Italians were able to pull THOUSANDS of sets of (partial )plate out of storage in a single city at one point. You could conceivably have a full suit made in days in some places. Either way, you're not wearing a full suit of mail, which means the guy in plate can just go around it and hack your limbs off.
>>64882530Can't beat the wagon.
>>64882549Yeah if you were too poor to afford full-plate you just had to make due with brigandine which left enough gaps to be exploited.
>>64882558>Yeah if you were too poor to afford full-plate you just had to make due with brigandineNobles frequently had brigandines as well.
>>64882562Yeah but it was sorta the budget shitty option in comparison. You could buy a full set of brigandine armor for about two months salary on a yeomen archer's pay, whereas a set of custom-fitted full plate could take several years pay, and that's not even counting the horse.
>>64882565>Yeah but it was sorta the budget shitty option in comparison.There were REALLY expensive brigandines, and cheap breastplates. Commoners in the Holy Roman Empire often had breastplates. >You could buy a full set of brigandine armorWhat is a full set of brigandine armor?
>>64882562The ones nobles wore were built like >>64882538.
>>64880901depends if there is a single knight, ten or a hundred.
>>64880901Depends on how many the knight can protect and save.
>>64882572>What is a full set of brigandine armor?Well that's hard to specify given different regions and periods, but we know they had 'munition armor', basically mass produced plate and brigandine armor that wasn't quite as good as the custom-fitted armor of a knight but was able to be pumped out in the thousands for troops
>>64882558Brigandine doesn't have gaps. Nobody would buy it if it did.
>>64882150What's a banneret?
>>64883120A knight leads a lance, a banneret leads multiple lances.
>>64882530German knights were shit and most couldn't even properly couch a lance by the 15th century. Really by the 15th century only French and Spanish knights were actually good horsemen, English had nearly abandoned mounted warfare and Germans were just bad at it.
In a tournament, skirmish, not many. Two, three?But in formation, supported by regular troops, when the fully armoured knight might well break an entire enemy unit, where no individual enemy wanted to fight a knight at all, where what you call a heroic action was called for, many. 15, 20.And in this period small armies, minor actions being the norm, several knights might make up half your effective force, as it was in the ancient Greek period with hoplites. Your one night might just be tanking the missile fire of 50 peasants while you broke into their tower, garrison. And the knight typically being synonymous with cavalry, perhaps a bigger part of the question is the value of cavalry, and the value of a knight against light cavalry. If the enemy had no armour, ponies, lances, bows, and the knight didn't care particularly about either, your one knight could counter charge enemy cavalry by himself and just plough them all over with a war horse and hack them down. While unable to give chase, a core reason for heavy cavalry was to protect formations against lancers. Doesn't really matter who's horse is faster if your lance is the same length, you've just got to get in front of them in time.
And the other feature of knights was that they were officers, trained in the art of war to at least some degree. They might order a hundred levee troops not to charge into a gully after fleeing enemies, or to advance at a steady pace not break formation. Or to take a better position, or not to advance into ground they couldn't defend. That's the distinction missed in the Roman comparison. Roman cavalry were equestrian, warrior class, but regular cavalry who fought as a cavalry unit or bodyguard unit. Knights, post Rome. Actually minor nobles. Had their own troops, had command, were officers. Had captains under them even if only one. When a medieval army mobalized the knights were responsible for levee troops and drafting peasants, organising supplies, feudal armies. Even if you were shaemas o' bogson, night of the shitty marshland, you were expected to hire mercenaries, conscript a few peasants, bring your household guards, maybe you were the only one with a horse at all, brought mules with a weeks ration. But though histories shittiest army, it was the period of shitty armies. Rather then a cavalryman the knight was still an officer, warlord, general. So if a knight was a good commander, 1000 men. If his 30 men could charge, hack down, terrify a thousand enemy peasants who all surrendered or ran away, and you just looted one hamlet after another (see: Norman conquest) shit you might as well be a king and damn the horse
>>64882598Based and noblesse oblige-pilled.
>>64880901six or seven
>>64880912no knight is gonna win a 1 v 4 unless it's against opponents with 0 armor and inadequate weapons
>>64880901depends how well armored the knight is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-RO1AjRNA
>>64883292as if charging directly into a wagon would have helped them at all
The golden age of knights was honestly in the early medieval ages, when they still relied mostly on chainmail and when battles typically consisted of very few troops and none of the commoners could be considered “elite”By the late medieval ages, the power of the kings had grown enough that regular soldiers were starting to become more important on the battlefield, and plate armor being invented meant that heavy armor could be mass produced and distributed by a centralized bureaucracy.Plate armor wasn’t the golden age of knights, it was ironically their death knell. Plate armor would continue to be used well after knights fell out of fashion.
>>64883986The choreography on this leaves a little to be desired, but it reminds me just how fucking brutal combat was in the melee-centric eras. Bashing a guy within arms' reach with a metal club until he stops moving wouldn't be for the squeamish.
>>64880992I mean it helps that the nobles would have their extra kids intermarry with those of the Men at Arms, ie their hired thugs. Thugs unironically make for a less corrupt elite than pretty much any other system. You can even get them to stop having gang wars(jousts) in the local peasantry's pig pen if you convince them that other thugs will look down on them for doing it. >>64880992Look I'm also a noblessaboo but stop capitalizing shit. I makes you look like zoomer faggot.In all seriousness the knight and his posse of less than a dozen men could probably defeat over three hundred others. Mostly because nobody wants to be the first asshole to rush the professional warriors and get their head staved in. You can't enjoy the money/land if you aren't alive after all. So unless it is a matter of protecting local privileges, which was a matter of fiscal life or death, most peasants and local hired thugs are unlikely to stick around if the fight becomes disadvantageous. It also needs to be said that the Catholic Church is almost wholly responsible for transforming knights from mere sanctioned brigands to actual respected nobles who in certain times and places really did try to live up to most chivalric ideals. After shaking saint's bones in their faces and berating them for knocking over a dirt-farmer's cottage during a brawl didn't work they commissioned works of song and literature to convince the nobles that certain behaviors were valorous and respected as well as fun. That's also when every noble started appending their title with "-knight" to the point that kings proudly defined themselves as knights whereas during the early middle ages it wasn't even truly considered a noble title. It's funny because I'm confident that if there were real goblins and ogre's to slaughter, dragons to rob, and fey maidens to bang that knights would be almost pacifist against the peasantry, foreign peasants and heathens excluded.
>>64884149>kings proudly defined themselves as knights whereas during the early middle ages it wasn't even truly considered a noble titleI like how they model this in CK3. When you start a game in the early medieval era all your knights are just random lowborn assholes named "Mud" with high prowess and nothing else. By mid to late medieval times they're all either your vassals or unlanded nobility and some of them might even be good generals too.
>>64884056https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Patay>1300 cavalrymen of whom under 200 were knights defeat a force nearly 4 times their size and kill more enemies than they had soldiers present while only suffering three total deadIt's only with the Italian Wars that you see knights reduced from being the juggernauts of the battlefield and it's only with the usage of extremely dense and manpower heavy pike kiel that they were able to be reliably defeated. Most other defeats of knights prior to the widespread adoption of pike kiels entailed them attacking entrenched infantry across open ground (Golden Spurs, Crecy, Agincourt) or being lured into unfavourable terrain amd swarmed.
>>64882557>mess with the flagon>you get the wagon
>>64884058It's no choreographed. The guy running that channel just fights people, typically until someone is knocked out, or is on the ground with a dagger in their armpit. Everyone in that video is actively trying to win from the moment the crossbowman comes running.
>>64884892The most fascinating thing to me about these are the behind the scenes talk and posts he does. Dude has been through absolutely countless injuries.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmaM-_pAkVELike look at this shit. He took that hit directly to the visor. I get that wasn't a full charge or anything but jesus christ. Doesn't hit that weird shield thing. Straight to the dome.
>>64884909Yeah and then retards in here discount his opinions because he "isn't hitting that hard" and other nonsense. I love dequitem, and wish I could afford to fly to Europe and fight him. It is amusing how EVERYONE who owns plate and uses it for anything but very sturdy reenactment nonsense (aka the type of fags doing rugby scrum "push of pike") are all the same kind of moron. Makes finding friends easy, just find the idiot with visible wear on his plates and start drinking.
>>64880901Depending on where you draw the line on "commoner soldiers" (and ignoring the cost reduction from levels in Leadership), between 53 and ~6.
>>64883292The English cavalry might had been a minority, but by God were they a stubbornly persistent one.
>>64883704So who determines whose captains get to control whose troops? It feels like something like Agincourt would be chokingly officer top-heavy given knights turned up in the hundreds yet the armies themselves were only thousands strong.
9 No.648809011 knight to 100 men easythe favor shifts if they have bows thoughbecause few knights knew proper shield defence stragies in the middle ages compered with ancient times.but most knights where heavily trained 100 is just lowest end.a knight who is veturn could mow down thousand as armor manuving and sord and sheild skill increased and fitness etc.but these take timemind you most medievil combot where rarely large scaleand few times did i see enemies out side of lether or cheap iron.most civies just surrender when they saw a knightit wasn't worth it.they knew they where heavily armored but if they had bow men it was a different story.
>>64880901I'm no longer sure what a knight is."Knight" meaning an aristocratic soldier preferably with a horse is really a modern English word, and english sources will simply say that medieval France or Germany or wherever had "knights", neglecting to go into detail the exact word used in the contemporary sources being used as evidence for a knight's existence. But they didn't use the word knight, and if you briefly research pop-history books etc will say the French used "chevalier" to mean the same thing as knight, and Germans used "ritter". Except that's not really true: Chevalier referred to a body of cavalry at first, then by the 13th century began to refer to someone who embodies certain ideals, but it wasn't a hard term like "Lieutenant" but instead an ambiguous label like "hero". And "ritter" meant literally rider, cavalry, any soldier on a horse.So this distinct noble-class of mounted soldier doesn't seem to have existed. There were definitely titled nobles that fought on horseback, and in certain times of medieval European history they definitely were never called a "knight" but people today will say they basically are a knight.But then there were also untitled men rich enough to fight on horseback, and people will argue they aren't a knight.But I don't think there was a word used at the time to distinguish between the two until the Hundred Years War and only in England. I don't think France in that time even had a distinction.Any non-English speaking anons want to give their opinion?tl;drElton John is a knight.A medieval mounted soldier is "cavalry" or a "man at arms".
>>64880901bout three fiddy
>>64885411As for Germany: you are partly right with the term Ritter. Originally it meant any warrior (usually heavily armored) on a horse. But during the high middle ages a destinct knightly class (Ritterstand) established itself; this class were esentially petty nobles. And since the high middle ages being a Ritter wasn't exclusively linked to martial service, as the title of Ritter could be bestowed upon anyone who was in good graces with a higher noble.>But then there were also untitled men rich enough to fight on horseback, and people will argue they aren't a knight.In medieval latin there was the destinction of milites nobiles (noble knights) and milites gregarii (non-noble knights). In german there is also the term Waffenknecht, which translates to armed servant in english.
>>64885468Knights would be wearing plate armor with surcoats displaying their heraldic arms and very often be mounted. Nobility and high ranking knights would have pennants as well. Peasants would mostly be wearing cloth armor in solid colors, probably dirty, with a simple helmet. There would also be a class of professional soldiers equipped similarly to knights, but without arms to display. Take all of this with a grain of salt, since we're talking about a relatively nebulous concept spread across hundreds of years and an entire continent.
>>64880924>Why are knights fighting like it's a brawl at a bar?Because that's how they fought? Reading most any contemporary knight fighting manuscripts involve judicious use of wrestling.
>>64881236neopagans are so funny
>>64880901varies by economic complexity of the civilisation historical evidence is that the ratios range from 10 infantry to 1 cavalry (Roman Republic, Napoleonic armies) to 3 infantry to 1 cavalry (high medieval mercenary and expeditionary forces)>>64880992idiot>>64881055this guy gets it>>64881223>Commoners belong to lords. Knights were only given a small plot wrongthe vast majority of the feudal structure involved subinfeudation and enfeoffment, not tenants in chief, and most knights were drawn from these lower-ranking mesne lords>serfsonly if you're Balkan and Slavic, as serfs were rare in medieval France and England>>64881805>Sergeants arose as officers whose job was to wrangle all these dissipate soldiers from a hundred different places into cohesive unitsNoOnly knights could command other knights and their retinues, as evidence, we have the contracts of temporary feudal service they made whenever such companies were formedSergeants arose when some knights could form retinues of more than 10 peasants (but could not afford to have more knights / men-at-arms ennobled, this happened as estates were merged and expanded, and noble families died out) and found they couldn't command them all effectively in battle, and they had to make a commoner a non-noble officer i.e. an NCO
>>64882150informative post>Simply giving a man a horse doubled his perceived valueother way round, because these people brought their own horses to war; the higher pay is to partially compensate him for his capital outlay on purchasing a horse>Social standing affected wages that in no way was representative of their personal combat value on the battlefieldyes and nonobody was going to pay a retard in armour less just because he could be out-duelled in sword-fighting by a yeoman archer; however, since in order to qualify for higher wages a minimum standard of arms and armour was specified and inspected, higher wages did in general mean the campaign leader bought a soldier of nominally higher "combat value">>64885356>who determines whose captains get to control whose troops?good question. answer: the campaign leader. "campaign contracts" of temporary fealty were signedTL;DR using Agincourt as an example,when recruiting for the campaign Henry V specified he wanted a men-at-arms:archer ratio of roughly 1:3, specified how both these classes would be armed, armoured, equipped, horsed and fed and waited for people to sign up at assembly pointswhen they came and signed up, he put them in companies of 20s and 100sat one end of the scale, you had e.g. Duke Ponceypants with 25 knights and 75 archers, forming one 100-man unit all on his ownat the other, end, you have Sir Midclimber with 3 knights and 9 archers, Sir Averagemanor with 1 knight and 3 archers, and even Sir Poorfag with 1 knight and 1 archer, and Gentlemanranker Esq. and Mercenaryhans, both archersin this case, the campaign leader would assign Sir Poorfag to command Gentlemanranker and Mercenaryhans, and Sir Midclimber to command the whole unit of 5 knights and 15 archersI find this campaign interesting because the surviving records give evidence that poor nominal knights were not above taking service as archers, as salaries of soldiers were above-average at the time
>>64882557>>64884404You won 2 internets.
>>64885468In some periods, every able-bodied man, who could be mustered by his lord, was mandated to own a minimum acceptable panoply as ordained in his lord's edict. In many cases this tended to be quite varied, but burghers generally had similar equipment, since it was mass-produced by the town (or bought on bulk order from a manufactury). I guess that, in some richer villages, the men could also pool their money for a bulk order of weapons/armor.
>>64885508>Sir Poorfag with 1 knight and 1 archer Pretty shit retinue tbdesu. A 'proper' knight was expected to have a squire, a page, a man-at-arms, and a bowman (or crossbowman, depending on regional traditions).
>>64885411>I'm no longer sure what a knight isthat makes you a wise man.>"Knight" meaning an aristocratic soldier preferably with a horse is really a modern English wordin theory it descends from Roman "equites" which refers to a rich cavalryman>this distinct noble-class of mounted soldier doesn't seem to have existedit did, because for most of the medieval period, only the noble class could afford horseswhere it gets murky is the edge cases; there were noble knights too poor to afford a horse and full plate, and also wealthy yeomen farmers or merchants rich enough to afford a horse and armourfurthermore, it was not uncommon for mounted knights to dismount and fight on foot.regardless, for general purposes, it is useful to define a "knight" as a noble cavalryman, up until about the 19th century (where in the European mass-conscript armies of the Napoleonic era, and the heyday of the British Empire, a cavalry regiment could be 50% commoner or even more)if edge cases are being referred to in a particular context, they can be specifically noted as such.>>64885468>what was the actual difference between peasant levies and knights in terms of equipment?according to Agincourt records, it was specified that a knight needed to be equipped with full plate (gambeson, mail, and plate), four horses, and be proficient with spear and sword; whereas an archer had no minimum armour requirement, no horse requirement, but needed to bring a bow and spare bowstrings, and be proficient with a bow, meaning able to hit a target with a certain number of shots per minute, I forget how many>>64885522in the border marches the number of personal weapons ownership (i.e. at least a sword, spear or bow) goes as high as 50% of manpower
>>64885532>Pretty shit retinue tbdesuyep, representative of the lowest quartile of knightly retinues>A 'proper' knight was expected to have a squire, a page, a man-at-arms, and a bowman (or crossbowman, depending on regional traditions)yep, and this is borne out with statistical analysis of recordsa 1:1 ratio of knights/men-at-arms and foot soldiers (whether armed with spear or bow) was the Continental standard, contrasted against the British 1:3pages and other camp followers weren't usually counted as part of the muster
>>64881908>do literally nothing to plate armor.If the horse stops, the spear did its job, forcing the cavalry to hack at the footmen like they were overgrown bushes instead of shatering the formation and allowing for panic and confusion to neutralize numerical superiority.If the horse doesn't stop, then the spearman is fucked but the knight is up for the medieval equivalent of rushing your bike against a wall. You'll live but your bike is fucked and the locals aren't friendly. And they got ways to go around all the metal you are wearing.
>>64885808Yeah, all that happens there is they'll either go around and maul your flanks, or do fun stuff like ride along your line killing people until you DO break. Infantry only very rarely managed to stop cavalry charges. Even if you get them all to stand firm, a bunch of trained, ungelded warhorses won't always stop just because you point a spear at them, especially if the horse is armored. The Byzantines specifically had to arm some of their men with shorter, heavier spears to deal with the heaviest turks being perfectly willing to just ride through the longspears.
>>64880901100
>>64881432they were more like special forces
>>64884367>Most other defeats of knights prior to the widespread adoption of pike kiels entailed them attacking entrenched infantry across open groundWhat's wrong with that? Open ground is ideal terrain for knights, and your "entrenched infantry" is nothing more than a ordinary block of cohesive infantry. Patay was an ambush on a virtually helpless enemy strung out on a road, and yeah, they killed a lot, but that's only to be expected when you spring cavalry upon a fleeing enemy.
>>64885508>other way round, because these people brought their own horses to war; the higher pay is to partially compensate him for his capital outlay on purchasing a horseYes, of course, but it should be self-evident that the only reason to specify X amount of men with certain equipment and compensate for it was if it was considered worth it. This doesn't apply to the ranks paid above the 12d wage specified for men-at-arms because they were required to have the same equipment as a man-at arms. While their equipment could be higher quality and more expensive than the ordinary man-at-arms it would not had been to a degree that would had massively affected their combat capability, and certainly not to the 2 or 4 times the power of an ordinary man-at-arms that the wage gap would imply.>and waited for people to sign up at assembly points>when they came and signed upNo, Henry V would not had waited around and signed people up as they appeared, and then assigned them their positions like you're implying. That would be chaos. Instead, it was more formal, the indenture system would had contracted a few men (e.g. the indentured portion of the army that entered Gascon in 1345 was indentured to 5 men for the total of around 1100 men), and then they would in turn contract men however they wanted, who would then in turn contract men however they wanted to fulfill the specified requirements. Duke Poncey might had hired Sir Poorfag directly, or he might had hired Sir Mid who then hired Sir Average etc.As an aside, these chains of contracts would had also formed the basis of the chain of command (although this depended on attitudes at the time, the early Hundred Years War was generally a lot more loose with the general concep). These indentured groups and their sub-groups tended (just a tendency) to stick together as a unit, and culturally they would had been considered to be in the retinue of whoever was paying them, and whoever was paying that payer too, and so on.
>>64880901in close combat they could take 4 at once.Legendary amazing knights could take 6.But wars do not work this way. Superior tactics win wars. Knights were best for when dudes would just mash together or taking castles. After all, castles were how you would make your claim in medieval Europe.
>>64887170
>>64880992I'll send a (you) your way.
>>64885532There was no standard retinue. Other times and places had different sized and compositions of a 'proper' retinue. The idea of a standard retinue originated in France during the Hundred Years War, with the standardized standing army of the Compagnie d'ordonnance, which everybody then copied but added their own twist and changed with the fashion of the times. Even then, this only applied to those in an army under such regulations. Outside of that army you could have anything in your retinue.It can be said the minimum retinue included a squire, because culturally a knight was expected to mentor someone and continue the cycle, and unless dirt-poor a non-combat valet to look after horses and equipment.
>>64881236Neopagans are basically Judaized Germans , it is embarrassing .You have literally zero connection to the Paganism you jerk off , fag .>>64882531Which explains why Protestant countries are doing so well religiously and socially and why none of the have their Protestant populationHow can God be Protestant when hating God is integral to Protestantism .
>>64883292>French (...) knights were actually good horsemenAnd yet they managed to totally fuck entire Crusades by themselves .Like at Nicopolis in 1396 .
>>64887639They were the only reason the crusades were successful in the first place.
>>64887662Not even remotely , they left Spain before entering battle literally every time a Crusade was called .
>>64887631Prot countries have always been better and stronger than cath nations.
>>64887672>stopped the Muslims from advancing beyond Iberia>reconquered sicily>literally the entire reason the first crusade worked>continued to hold and defend Jerusalemthank the French you aren't Muslim
>>64887677We need another Charles MartelAnd a Santiago Matamoros>>64887163>the only reason to specify X amount of men with certain equipment and compensate for it was if it was considered worth itOkay then we are in agreementI only objected to the wording of>perceived valuewhich seemed to imply that a horse was a mere indicator of status rather than a battlefield assetAlthough 1 of your points is wrong, in that mounted or not, an archer was paid the same>it would not had been to a degree that would had massively affected their combat capability, and certainly not to the 2 or 4 times the power of an ordinary man-at-arms that the wage gap would implyTrue, hence I agree that the higher pay was for their status, command abilities, and various ancillary benefits they brought on campaign (barons and dukes often also provided extras such as finance, food supplies, smiths, farriers, etc)>Henry V would not had waited around and signed people up as they appeared, and then assigned them their positions like you're implying>Instead, it was more formal, the indenture systemI am describing the indenture systemThere was a mustering period involved, and yes, this was how small parties and individuals were signed into the indenture system>These indentured groups and their sub-groups tended (just a tendency) to stick together as a unit, and culturally they would had been considered to be in the retinueI think it is clear that it was not just a tendency or cultural habit, but outright specified in their indentures that they would fight as a company / retinue for the course of that campaign
>>64887676Which clearly shows .The British Empire totally did not collapse from inside .The Hispanic Monarchy totally did not need external sabotage in the form of secessionist rebellions in the early XIXth century to decline .Protestant countries have always had an inferior quality of living , Culturally , Spiritually , Socially .I would kill myself before ever living in one .Go to Sweden and ask a Swedish friend if he would let you eat with his family .Protestantism is like the Germanic world it spawned from: almost everything it did right , it did so through stealing .
>>64887677I am not a Muslim because my ancestors fought while those faggotard French pussies ran away before battle ever took place , like before the Battle of the Navas of Tolosa .
>>64887704Just not even close to being true. Name the great Cath countries of the last 300 years.>The British Empire totally did not collapse from insideHow did Rome die? Germany, England, and America have been at the top of the pack forever. Now we are dying from the inside but so is everyone else.
>>64887704>Protestant countries have always had an inferior quality of livinglol>Go to Sweden and ask a Swedish friend if he would let you eat with his family .Go to an Amish family without even knowing them and ask to eat with their family. Anabaptists win again, Protestants and Papists are both cringe.
>>64887698>Charles MartelTHE HAMMER
>>64887717>Just not even close to being true. Name the great Cath countries of the last 300 years.Spain during the XVIIIth century prior to Anglo infiltration , France mid XIXth century , early reunified Italy .And even if we ignore about imposition of power externally, the cultural reality in those countries are still and always has been infinitely superior .And your ilk literally sabotages actually civilized countries but then you bitch and moan now that you are a tributary vassal of Israel .>How did Rome die? Germany, England, and America have been at the top of the pack forever. Now we are dying from the inside but so is everyone else.Except Roma Antiqva had an actual culture and an actual empire , not an parody of a culture and imperialism (Different from empire) utterly incapable of producing a people with an ethnic identity .When your country collapses , you would be lucky if it managed to produce a couple of principalities .
>>64887721Squealing because living in a Protestant """"""""""nation"""""""""" is worse than death and you know it .
>>64887754A whole lot of people in those Protestant nations fought to the death to keep them from being Catholic nations, so that doesn't add up.
>>64887758It does , if you consider that what happened for Arabic Islam applies to Germanic Islam (Protestantism) .
>>64887762>applies to Germanic IslamPretty sure that was Arianism.
>>64887763No , that was , at most , a Proto-Islam .Protestantism is Germanic Islam .Makes total sense when you study both .
>>64887766Why do you type like a retard?
>>64887771Because it is the way non-fags type .If you ever want to stop being a fag , type like this .
>>64887773if I ever get a bit more brain damage and can accept a heretic pope, I'll consider it
>>64887777A Germanic Pagan/Muslim calling anyone a Heretic is a seal of approval everyone should seek
>>64887753you need mental help ong
>>64887779I respect Mexicans too much to insult your lineage
>>64887782I do not unironically defend the US , England or Germany , so , I really do not .>>64887784Being Mexican would not be bad , it is a good country , if you remember to nuke the United States and you fix up every issue the US caused .And they have an actual fucking culture and national identity .
>>64887777HOLY TRIPS OF PAPIST PWNAGE
>>64887790Closest thing to luck a Protestant will ever get
>>64887798What's the matter, minnow muncher? Have we touched a nerve?
>>64887809Not asocial enough to know what that means so I will just dip .
>>64887812Another crossback vanquished.
>>64887639>Decide to be passive and let larger enemy army dig in>French decide to actually attack>Begin to push back best enemy troops>Don't support them and just watch as they're overwhelmed>Proceed to blame them when your shitty Hungarian soldiers immediately collapse when the larger enemy army that defeated your best troops when you provided them no support regroup and counterattackThe French were the only ones who were remotely competent at Nicopolis, well them and the Serbians who also fought as knights.
>>64886991>What's wrong with that? Open ground is ideal terrain for knights, and your "entrenched infantry" is nothing more than a ordinary block of cohesive infantry.Except you know with stakes and trenches and various other fortifications. Look at their defeats, Crecy and Agincourt the English just dug in and sat there waiting, at Golden Spurs they withdrew their infantry to attack entrenched enemies with cavalry.
>Prot v Cath bitchfightingWithout Protestants we'd still be selling indulgencesWithout Catholics we'd have as many cults as there are churches Live and let live, in fact work together, since it's not like there are that bloody many of us in the world today that we can afford all this infighting
>>64887838this
>>64887825At the Battle of the Golden Spurs the French won the crossbow duel and prematurely withdrew their crossbowmen because they thought they had disordered the Flemish infantry enough. The Flemish used no fortifications in that battle, you just made that up. In the English battles the English were a lot more dynamic than just hiding behind some stakes, and in any case spending a few minutes hammering some stakes into the ground was hardly a big deal. You're talking like as if "entrenched infantry" was a rare and unique thing when in the pre-Swiss era literally just standing there to receive a cavalry charge was all that was expected of the infantry.
>>64887877That's probably the same noir-francais nigger who shits up every medieval thread ranting that because longbows were used in concert with other types of weapons and tactics (as with everything in every battle across history, because combined arms has always been a fucking thing) that means they were actually shit
>>64880901I remember reading once that the bare minimum required to equip and support a knight and his retinue was roughly equivalent to the labor of 50 serfs. So, worth enough to make that good value, at least.
>>64887887you are probably thinking of me because I pointed out that the longbow is part of combined weapons approach an not some Wunderwaffe that won battles on it's ownthis clearly rustled your jimmies enough to start ai "hallucinating" me as a frog nigger, the sign of a weak and feeble mind.this is the first and last post I'll be making in this tread
>>64888239he's that guy who makes the "longbow is a literal unbeatable wunderwaffe wielded by impossible strongmen superhumans" fanfiction. haven't seen him around since his last two threads majorly backfired and he got mocked for it. it's easy to figure him out because he always defaults to calling you a frenchman or an algier when cornered.
>>64888216>the bare minimum required to equip and support a knight and his retinue was roughly equivalent to the labor of 50 serfshistorically, 30 to 50, yeswhich is not so far off from today, so it might be argued that certain broad relationships appear to hold true
>>64887887Longbows were actually shit though.>relevant in on war in all of history>losesLongbow veneration is a Victorian cope.
>>64883966That's pretty much what your common soldier looked like in most cases
>>64884058When you see how much blood someone has and you hear Livy's "yeah dude they drowned in blood at cannae it was wild" you start to realize that might not be an exaggeration. I mean just imagine some naturally small defilade with a herd of ~50 guys huddled together in terror fighting for their lives while slowly getting whittled away. Bloods gotta go somewhere.
>>64887631Catholics have had multiple popes and put their own power before god so many times
>>64888694People have less blood in them that can leak out than a proportion of their body. I'd doubt very much an amount of people can be in an area and bleed quicker than it can drain away to the point you can drown in it
>>64880901>How many commoner soldiers was a single knight worth?Somewhere between three or four.
>>64880901I just want to say that mantles are cool
