Some questions about medieval knights

[Watchman]

"Knight" outside the social significance of the title is interchangeable with "man-at-arms", ie. a fully armed and trained cavalryman also capable of fighting on foot. A lot of these guys were of the "armed household retainer" status rather than estate-owners per ce. Heavy cavalry in particular only works worth a crap when properly trained in at least small-unit level group tactics, and obviously the warriors attached to the same lord (or whatever) mostly trained with each other. That forms a natural basis for a tactical sub-unit when feudal contingents are amalgamated into larger battlefield formations; but it doesn't really make much sense to use them "as is", as such individual contingents might well vary in size from a couple to dozens of men; in other words, they would need to be organized into smaller, more manageable "squads". The specific size and constituent of these would of course vary by time and place, tactical preference and any number of other onsiderations, but AFAIK about five horses has been a very common size the world over (as well as decimal multipliers, which have been particularly popular for infantry) presumably because it offers a reasonably optimal balance between numbers, flexibility and manageability - large enough to be an effective combat unit, but not too large to become clumsy and unmanageable in the typically rather confused and fluid circumstances where it becomes particularly important.

[Furious Mental]

Well five may have been the optimal number but to then go on and conclude that it was therefore standard is just conjecture. If we went over other military forces through history we could come up with all sorts of numbers. The only thing we know for sure is that tactical units have always been based on the chain of command and with medieval knights there was no chain of command akin to that which exists in modern armies. The chain of command was essentially the same as the chain of military obligations, that is, orders were taken from whoever the man served under. Take the English.

- A list of knights serving John in 1215, mostly foreign mercenaries, had them grouped into constabularies of 25.
- A document from Edward I's reign showed cavalry of the royal household grouped in 10 man constabularies led by the lord who provided them.
- In the fourteenth century there are a couple of references to ten man conrois, e.g. Froissart wrote that the Black Prince's marshal ordered the army to form into conrois for an assault, and In the same year Geoffrey of Harcourt's army broke up because they did not maintain their "conroi".
- The vast majority of references are simply to retinues, which could be any size. In 1300 Robert Clifford had a retinue of four knights and eighteen squires, John de la Mare one of two knights and eight squires, while Arnald de Gavaston had a mere four squires. Larger retinues were led by bannerets, which varied in size over time. The Histoire of William Marshal took his army to have about 200 men because he had 15 bannerets, which would suggest about 13 to each. The average size of bannerets in Edward I's army in Scotland was 13 to 15. Then bannerets got bigger and bigger and by the late fourteenth century there were about 200 to each. Presumably they had their own internal organisation, but how that was done was probably the discretion of the banneret.

For all we know five might have been the optimal number but all the evidence indicates that was not accepted wisdom, in fact that there was no accepted wisdom, hence the wide variation in numbers.

[Watchman]

Yet as you might note the above can also be described as "multiplies of five plus sundry". Decimal chains-of-command which neatly sub-divide into tens or, if necessary, further down to fives have also seemed to be inordinately common particularly among "horse peoples", such as various steppe nomads and the ancient Persians.

...although of course in practice the units would of course tend to be understrenght thanks to the usual suspects, but them's the breaks. Commanders fought their battles with what they had, not what they would have liked to have or what prevailing military theory regarded as preferable.