Reasons for joining

[Boyar Son]

British army were all volenteers?

When did the medieval style of forcing people into the ranks stop?

(plz dont say it went out with the medieval period, explanation or a least a little plz ...)

[ajaxfetish]

British army were all volenteers?

When did the medieval style of forcing people into the ranks stop?

(plz dont say it went out with the medieval period, explanation or a least a little plz ...)

Um . . . what medieval style of forcing people into the ranks are you referring to. I'm not familiar with the idea. I know of the French arriere-bans and similar ancient recruitment options, but those only applied to vassals, who had already voluntarily obliged themselves to provide military service to their lords. Armies such as the English armies of the Hundred Years War were mostly contractual volunteers or mercenaries. If I'm not mistaken, ministeriales in early feudal Germany were often serfs employed as soldiers, but that would be a limited use in both time and place. Do you have a specific society in mind where forced recruitment was the norm? Sources?

Ajax

[NagatsukaShumi]

Um . . . what medieval style of forcing people into the ranks are you referring to. I'm not familiar with the idea. I know of the French arriere-bans and similar ancient recruitment options, but those only applied to vassals, who had already voluntarily obliged themselves to provide military service to their lords. Armies such as the English armies of the Hundred Years War were mostly contractual volunteers or mercenaries. If I'm not mistaken, ministeriales in early feudal Germany were often serfs employed as soldiers, but that would be a limited use in both time and place. Do you have a specific society in mind where forced recruitment was the norm? Sources?

Ajax

You are correct about the Englih, one of the reasons the Wars of the Roses happened was that nobles had their own standing armies on contract basis'

[Marshal Murat]

I believe that the Prussians had something akin to a 'national militia', where all the citizens and junkers were technically in the army as either foot-soldiers and officers, but could buy replacements. I don't know if the re-organization changed the order of the army or how they recruited, but that is my understanding.


Most of the time, British citizens were drawn into the army through sergeants and officers making a big show about the valor of battle. Most were probably to escape poverty, earn some money, get out of the gallows.

Maybe I've been reading to many Sharpe novels, but thats how I always understood it.

[Didz]

British army were all volenteers?

When did the medieval style of forcing people into the ranks stop?

(plz dont say it went out with the medieval period, explanation or a least a little plz ...)

I think others have already answered this question in part, but to be more specific. I would say that the biggest two events which changed the relationship in England between the people who raised the armies and those who were needed to fight in them were:

a) The Black Death (1347)
and
b) The Peasant Revolt (1381)

Although both were linked, in that the later was caused primarily by the attempts of the English nobility to retain (or reinstate) the concepts of feudal servitude that which had been rendered unworkable by the losses suffered during the former.

Prior to these events peasant labour was largely tied to the land owned by a specific noble, who in turn could demand military service from you when required. This could still be considered a form of contractual volunteering, in that the peasant knew the score when he accepted the land, but it did not require persuasion to obtain his service, and he could be punished for not complying.

This system was still in use in Scotland at the time of the 1745 rebellion as part of clan hierarchy and presumably died when the clans were subjugated. Not sure when it ended in Ireland, probably after Cromwell's invasion in the 17th Century.

After the Black Death and the peasant revolt labour in England became far more mobile and based upon wages and benefits rather than land allocations. Therefore, those raising armies found it difficult, if not impossible to insist on military service as a consequence of providing land, and the need to attract volunteers by propaganda and financial incentive became a necessary process.

I would have thought that similar changes occurred right across Europe at this time as most trading countries were affected in the same way.

[Furious Mental]

Those who owed military obligations based on land tenure- knights and sergeants- were not serfs. That system of military obligations- feudalism- was on the way out when the Black Death happened because it was already well known to be unworkable by that stage, and far inferior to using contracts of indenture.

What the Black Death really spelled the end for was manorialism, and the Peasant Revolt was one event in the long process by which it decayed.

[Didz]

@Furious Metal
Well you obviously know more about it than I do, but hopefully we have given K Cossack an answer to his question.

[Boyar Son]

[QUOTE=Furious Mental]Those who owed military obligations based on land tenure- knights and sergeants- were not serfs. QUOTE]

Thank you both for answering, knights owed the obligation, but I think the sergeant were the sign up soldiers, like todays style of wanting a soldier career.

[Furious Mental]

I don't know much about military obligation in countries other than England. But in the context of English history a sergeantry is a military obligation related to land tenure, like a knighthood but with a lesser property interest and consequently less onerous obligations (i.e. sergeants were not as well off and didn't have to serve as fully equipped mounted men-at-arms). Someone who lived solely off fighting wars and had no other source of income (knights and sergeants had land or a financial interest in land like a money fief) was a mercenary. Some people also took time out of their normal occupation to fight in wars voluntarily especially in the later Middle Ages but they are generally referred to as contract soldiers or indentured retainers.

[Didz]

I believe there was a class of Knight which had no land and who lived entirely off of the proceeds of his martial skills. I think they were dubbed Knight-Errant, and frequently served a Landed-Knight as a sort of goffer, or champion in return for bed and board.

[Boyar Son]

I believe there was a class of Knight which had no land and who lived entirely off of the proceeds of his martial skills. I think they were dubbed Knight-Errant, and frequently served a Landed-Knight as a sort of goffer, or champion in return for bed and board.

Complicated eh?

why'd they move to armies that they know would be dominated by heavy cav (nobles, not to mention killing them off) instead of following Romes example.

Jeez poorly trained militia armies are overrated and they shouldve known this, and tried to train their troops to become professionals, like Romans.

the nobles can read, they can read history.....