How were real medieval armies composed?

[CBR]

During the HYW it was two-thirds. The ratio became 2:1 during the Wars of the Roses as the pool of trained archers got smaller because of casualities.

Is'nt two-thirds and 2:1 the same?

AFAIK the retinue and equipments lists I have seen from the War of the Roses gives us anywhere between 1:1 and 2:1 for archers:bills/spears.

In HYW the Welsh at Crecy IIRC were 2:1. At other times most infantry recruited where archers. The overall ratio between archers and men-at-arms also varied but in the later years we hear of 3 or 4 archers per man-at-arm. (Agincourt had around 4.5 archer per man-at-arm)

The main difference between HYW and WotR is that WotR had militias involved. We have a ratio of 8:1 archers:men-at-arms when Edward IV recruited an army for an invasion of France in 1475 (10,173 archers and 1,278 men-at-arms) If anything it shows that it certainly was still possible to recruit large numbers of archers. It might have been the pool of men-at-arms that was shrinking.


CBR