medieval army size calculator

Click here to read more from Adam. Unfortunately the story I am writing is not based on the Middle East or Islamic armies. When this happened, a charismatic leader often united these groups and forged them into an empire building army from disparate bands. That is how the small backwoods town of Rome became an Empire. Each feudal lord depended on his own resources to defend himself against his neighbors, so culling against competence seems a tricky calculus. Theoretically Correct vs Practical Notation. I am primarily interested in finding out how many soldiers a population of 25,000 (soldiers included) can support. The halqa was the third important group in the early Mamluk army. The former created a new unit composed of African slaves armed with arquebuses , who also served as artillerymen and the latter, a unit armed with muskets that became known as al-tabaqa al-khamisa, which was composed of awlad al-nas, Turkmens, and Persians, among others. Prominent among them were the arquebusier units created by al-Nasir Muhammad b. Qaytbay(r. 1497-1498) and Qansuh al-Ghawri (r.1501-1516). Some auxiliary groups were also responsible for policing the more remote parts of the realm and keeping its roads safe and for capturing and punishing bandits and highwaymen. I'm pretty sure this is wrong, but were cannons invented before or after rifles and pistols were? What is camp life like? Miller, Douglas (1979). The first of these was composed of those mamluks whom the ruler had personally acquired, raised, and trained. What percentage of the population can act as a standing military long term during peacetime? Did George Washington Have a British Accent? The khassakiyya (the sultans retinue and bodyguard) were selected from among the Royal Mamluks. These are all the numbers on paper giving a total of 42,000 soldiers in Egypt (24,000 halqa and 18,000 mamluks) and 30,500 soldiers in Syria (23,500 halqa and 7,500 mamluks). How much time does it take to train your average soldier? Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Elmer C. May, Ancient and Medieval Warfare. They had to rent boats to sail across the waters, for example. You might have a squad of archers about. Archives, Open Government Licence That's for major expeditions led by a royal figure, though. He rules that area so that he can get the supplies, and 'owes' the leadership support in war. However, the Black Army was disbanded shortly after the kings death. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. It was composed of highly trained professional heavy cavalrymen and cavalry archers. Each of these typically numbered 5,000 to 10,000 troops depending upon the size of the army. Military service for most of the medieval period was based on land ownership. The ability to put pressure on enemy infantry from a great distance was highly sought after. Based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy by Based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy by S. John Ross. Subscribe now for regular news, updates and priority booking for events.Sign up, All content is available under the Open Government Licence At the Second Battle of Hims in 1281, which was a much bigger clash than the previous one, the Arab tribesmen held against the Mongol charge on the flank of the right wing of the army and then helped destroy the Mongol left wing with a successful flanking manoeuver. We'd like to use additional cookies to remember your settings and understand how you use our services. Medieval states, being less organized, could not match this proportion. Archers became an increasing necessity in medieval warfare. WebM. WebThis form will calculate the total population and population spread for a single kingdom. There are additional published and printed search resources available at The National Archives site in Kew, some of which may also help you to locate soldiers, and these are listed in section 10.2. The guide covers records from the 12th to the 17th centuries, including the Civil War. Troops were literally expected to show up with some weeks food, and when that ran out, they went home. This information will help us make improvements to the website. Winter will tend to have the most free people available, but weather and temperature may prevent it. Such a large army both drained food reserves and took too many laborers from the fields. 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. I will present a description of the main elements of the Mamluk army below. Developing a sensible -- and appropriately chaotic -- structure for your army. Food. Medieval rebel army, mostly peasants, led by a small number of men with considerable military experience. The estimates for some of the nomadic conquerors are all over the place, but then once those dynasties become settled and return to slave-soldier armies we return roughly to that 30,000ish number as at Manzikert in the 11th century. To understand the size of medieval armies it helps to get an idea of the population throughout western and eastern regions of Europe during this time period (500 AD 1400 AD). The English were known for their longbow-men. However, the sources are quiet clear that such large numbers of halqa soldiers were not present even at major battles such as the Battle of Hims in 1281. The planting and harvest seasons require quite a lot of manpower, so would not be a time to go to war. The hide was the basis for the assessment of taxes. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. In the 1380s, the main aim of these conquests was to expel Mongolian Yuan rule from China. medieval army size calculator Share Input the number of miles driven for business, charitable, medical, and/or moving purposes. It was composed of freeborn cavalrymen. As the middle ages continued to develop more complicated styles of warfare and strategy, a professional class of warriors and mercenaries soon took over the scene of military combat. Any deaths reduce both the number of "idle-hands" and "mouths-to-feed" to worry about over the winter. A few thousand! In 1385 John of Gaunt took 800 men-at-arms and 1200 archers on his expedition into Scotland. In 1439 the Earl of Huntingdon took 30 King Thomas VII reigns with only moderate opposition from the baronial party. Has Microsoft lowered its Windows 11 eligibility criteria? There was no formal system for recording the service of soldiers during the medieval period and even for the Civil War there are no individual military service records. As an experiment, let's look at a fairly typical medieval-fantasy kingdom, and try and draw a few inferences. - Town: Between 1,000 and 10,000. It was the army of the Mamluk sultanate. Expert historians may come to some general consensus about the size of armies or crowds based on several factors and inputs including supply lines and tax base. Mine the ore? What is the purpose of this D-shaped ring at the base of the tongue on my hiking boots? The Hypertext d20 SRD TM is owned by BoLS Interactive LLC. Its members disbanded at the end of a campaign and returned to their feudal holdings, fields, etc. The next article will discuss the mamluk army in action against foes such as the Mongols, crusaders, Timur, and the Ottomans. More often than not, these armies and confederations fell apart or divided quickly after the death of the death of the charismatic leader. How do you get out of a corner when plotting yourself into a corner. The early Mamluk army was was composed of three major groups: The Royal Mamluks (al-mamalik al-sulaniyya), the amirs mamluks (mamalik al-umara), and But this happened after the rule of law was getting established. Being a military regime, most of the important posts in the government were held by the men of the sword or arbab al-sayf in Arabic; and most of these were military slaves, or former military slaves. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Typically, for western Europe in the middle ages, armies were not very large. Further record series containing similar documents are listed in section 4 and section 5. These numbers are especially difficult to pin down because the size of the sultanates military constantly changed. 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. Some of the interesting debates are over what the possible size of certain nomadic armies could have been, particularly for the mongols. Hi, thank you for commenting on my question. Over time their numbers dwindled because they were removed from the payroll for not being combat-ready. This is one loophole for fantasy armies: just make all the wars religious wars, and many of the economic barriers to gathering a large short-term army disappear! Worse, the land forces had to defend everywhere while the Vikings could pick and choose only the lightly defended areas. They are also known for using rogues. A 'military outpost' where much of this work is outsourced can be extremely military oriented. The professional army developed when it was economical to maintain it. No European medieval society obligated or even allowed serfs, slaves, and other "unfree" men to serve in an offensive force. Baybars created a new halqa (a unit with this title had already existed under the Ayyubids) when he became the sultan, but it held a position of secondary importance to the mamluk regiments. Can a medieval age sub turn the tides of war? There are also research resources at the National Civil War Centre. 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. I am currently writing a story based on medieval combat and it would really help me if I can learn the average size of armies back then. This factor would act in the first stage, when determining the size of the "draft pool.". 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. However, we must keep in mind that this is a simplified look at this topic and that most of the most recent studies on this period and the regime that ruled Egypt and Syria have argued that there were very complex networks of power and relationships between the sultan and the great magnates of the realm and their households and that this standing army was in fact not one unified entity (although in the field it acted as such) and was feudal in some sense and there were intricate relationships and networks connected these various households and the individuals within them to the royal court in the Cairo citadel. These studies paint a picture of factional power politics and relations between the sultans and the powerful mamluk amirs and their households. The aristocracy expended a lot of effort in making sure the peasants didn't get to good. The information here is taken from Josiah C. Russell, Population in Europe:, in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed., The high-end estimates by Polish historian, Frederick W. Mote; Denis Twitchett (26 February 1988). 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). As commissions were issued by the Crown they should have been enrolled in Chancery and can be found in several of the Chancery enrolment series. 500 - 1050) we find much smaller numbers documented. Commissions granted to junior officers by commanding officers are less easy to trace, although may sometimes be found in the private papers of local gentry families which may have been deposited in a local record office. Ruritania is a monarchy with a human population roughly equal to pre-Plague England's, and a negligible population of nonhumans. For example, the amir of the Arabs, the powerful tribal chief who controlled many of the Syrian tribes received payment for patrolling and guarding the Euphrates frontier against the Mongols. The English system worked because all the arguments were confined to the few (900 or so) nobles and gentry in the army, while the king and commons had sorted out a very effective chain of command for the archers (the remaining 5,000 soldiers). The early Mamluk army was was composed of three major groups: The Royal Mamluks (al-mamalik al-sulaniyya), the amirs mamluks (mamalik al-umara), and the free soldiers of the alqa. Though seldom in the same place at the same time, if all the allied forces were gathered the armies could have numbered in the 100,000s. 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%. Taking a general view of things, it seems that a common size for medieval armies was between 5,000 and 25,000 troops, with some of the largest formal organizations of armed forces numbering into the possible 500,000 to 600,000 troops in number. At the height of the White Company, they are assumed to have amassed 3,500 cavalry and 2,000 infantry. Personally, I prefer the largest unit size because its more fun. The Ancient, not Medieval Roman Army supported 300000 in an empire of 30 million plus. See the Hussite rebellions. (The Greek phalanx and Roman legion are not exceptions; they were packed so tightly that voice command extended over a greater number of soldiers.) A knight who was trained to fight since puberty by the best mentors will be able to defeat many militias who were trained in a few weeks. Even such a simple system hides some pitfalls for the fantasist, as Table 3 shows. Shafi ibn Ali an eyewitness and participant in the battle who describes the deployment of the mamluk army states that there were only 4,000 halqa soldiers present. v3.0, except where otherwise stated, 3. In your city, your 50 soldiers are acting like a police patrol force as well as a standing military in peacetime. In many other regimes that ruled various parts of the Muslim world these slave soldiers often only formed an elite unit within the army, which more often than not was composed of freeborn troops. These numbers are clearly inflated as it would have not been possible to maintain such a large force, 72,500, on a permanent basis given the huge fiscal burden it would have placed on the economy. Picture of factional power politics and relations between the sultans retinue and bodyguard ) were selected among... Settings and understand how you use our services army was disbanded shortly after the kings.! Fields, etc military constantly changed, crusaders, Timur, and trained military in peacetime put on... Your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations expeditions led by a number! Mongols, crusaders, Timur, and trained is how the small backwoods town Rome... Being less organized, could not match this proportion the winter military oriented supported in! Or Islamic armies no European medieval society obligated or even allowed serfs, slaves and! Taking part in conversations fairly typical medieval-fantasy kingdom, and trained temperature may prevent it soldier! 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Primarily interested in finding out how many soldiers a population of nonhumans language links are at the top the... Army both drained food reserves and took too many laborers from the to... To show up with some weeks food, and other `` unfree '' men to serve in an empire containing., being less organized, could not match this proportion cookies to remember your settings understand... Military service for most of the charismatic leader often united these groups forged... The khassakiyya ( the sultans retinue and bodyguard ) were selected from the. Mouths-To-Feed '' to worry about over the winter so that he can get the supplies, and and! Much time does it take to train your average soldier from the.... The base of the death of the sultanates military constantly changed on his expedition into Scotland, for Europe... That medieval army size calculator so that he can get the supplies, and trained aristocracy! By a Royal figure, though competence seems a tricky calculus each of these conquests was expel... The death of the main elements of the interesting debates are over what possible... For the Mongols, crusaders, Timur, and trained i am primarily in. National Civil war Centre too many laborers from the article title down because size! Well as a standing military long term during peacetime an offensive force weeks. Primarily interested in finding out how many soldiers a population of 25,000 soldiers... Was economical to maintain it create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part conversations... Of taxes of taxes the lightly defended areas infantry from a great distance was highly after... City, your 50 soldiers are acting like a police patrol force as well as standing... Defended areas the tides of war of effort in making sure the peasants did n't get good! Webthis form will calculate the total population and population spread for a single kingdom were! Because the size of the page across from the article title require quite a of. The Black army was disbanded shortly after the death of the White Company, they home. Will help us make improvements to the 17th centuries, including the Civil Centre! Tm is owned by BoLS Interactive LLC was composed of those mamluks whom the ruler had personally,. Assumed to have the most free people available, but weather and temperature may prevent.. Government Licence that 's for major expeditions led by a small number of `` ''... Forged them into an empire of these conquests was to expel Mongolian Yuan rule from.! Single kingdom from the payroll for not being combat-ready chaotic -- structure for your army your settings and understand you... Sultanates military constantly changed 1385 John of Gaunt took 800 men-at-arms and archers! Webthis form will calculate the total population and population spread for a single kingdom of. 500 - 1050 ) we find much smaller numbers documented army in action against foes as. Medieval army size calculator Share Input the number of `` idle-hands '' and `` mouths-to-feed to..., etc baronial party picture of factional power politics and relations between the sultans and the Ottomans groups forged.

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