>Military procurement system: Buy your own gear. Why the fuck did early medieval europe, feudal japan, bits of the middle east, and ancient greece thought this was a good fucking idea?
Seems highly fucking irregular: what if everyone just wanted to be crossbowmen? What if niggers were too poor to afford armor? How did the militaries of these period societies ever even get organized if everyone buys their own shit holy fuck. How did Rome and China pretty much managed to not be this fucking stupid?
Angel Rogers
Rome and China were centralized societies?
Anyway even for them it wasnt easy running a uniform standard army. Rome's legions were armed both at a provincial and even private level. China is also the same, in addition to allowing private military entities such as posses of armed peasants and professional bodyguards in the military.
Adam Thomas
Specialization did not exist much in the feudal period and their small wars. A lot of people multiclassed when the situation demanded it. Though I guess archers and knights were the only groups with a specific skill set. Everyone could perform infantry roles or hold a pike/shield wall fine though.
Samuel Martinez
>Seems highly fucking irregular: what if everyone just wanted to be crossbowmen? > How did the militaries of these period societies ever even get organized if everyone buys their own shit holy fuck Just because you had to buy your own stuff doesn't mean there weren't any requirements for what you had to to buy and how you were going to fight. They still trained and drilled and prepared for war even if they weren't professional soldiers.
>What if niggers were too poor to afford armor? People that couldn't afford the required equipment simply didn't fight unless things got direly desperate. Of course that came with the caveat of your social status being linked to that.
Luis Butler
>what if everyone just wanted to be executed immediately if they're captured
Jordan James
There simply wasn't a state with a strong enough government/administration to raise and equip a standing army under central control in Europe until the 17th century. >Don't worry, your vassals and bannermen show up and be your army
Alexander Adams
There was Rome, dude. Unless your definition of Europe is the Latin/German synthesis, or Christendom.
Elijah Peterson
You dumb as hell.
Leo Moore
We are talking about the medieval Europe, Rome was long gone by then. Check the OP you retards.
Zachary Diaz
And Rome collapsed in large part because the state sponsored standing army could and did install whatever ruler it wanted. Even before you get to the expense of the state training and arming entire population segments, it's politically extremely dangerous to keep standing armies around, which is why Feudal and Renaissance Europe very rarely did so.
Dominic Long
>There was Rome, dude. No there wasn't, not in medieval Europe.
Ian Jones
>dude lets just give our un-propertied serfs weapons and assemble them in a large group with you the richest guy they know as their boss in the middle
The only people who could be trusted with weapons were the people who had their own skin in the game, who had a chance of profiting from the outcome of the fight. If a person can't afford to buy their own armor chances are they don't like their position in the world.
In the middle ages every feudal lord had the right to arbitrarily withdraw from the battlefield of his own volition with all of his men. Armies were not like they are today where people are spooked into doing their duty to the larger state. They were like like enormous mobs assembled to go steal from the neighbors.
Andrew Diaz
Odly enough, in many regions in medieval England or HRE it was mandatory to own a weapon for commoners.
Evan Lee
>In the middle ages every feudal lord had the right to arbitrarily withdraw from the battlefield of his own volition with all of his men. Way to generalize dozens of cultures across nearly a millennium.
Luke Rivera
Standard here, most fags that start "medieval military" threads couldn't tell when the middle ages started and when they ended. >theres a reason we call them /k/retins
Austin Richardson
A peasant hoed the fields. Taxation went to nobleman. He in turn served his Liege. Taxes yes. Military aid as well. When you won, you were showered with land to govern. Or loots.
If you were a random guy who wanted to knight it up, you were doing so for position. A king would not just send equipment to a random guy so that he could then award him land. Nobility existed for a reason in the feudal age
Levi Gray
Nice satan trips. Also, you are wrong, you are referring to medieval England, as not other nation had taxation back then in Europe.
Hunter Sanders
>Its much cheaper than outfitting an army, and often outperformed standardized armies in some situations.
Hudson Wright
>How did Rome and China pretty much managed to not be this fucking stupid?
Roman soldiers also bought their own gear for some time.
Elijah Green
Taxation in England during the middle ages wasn't anything like taxes now, the king would have to ask parliament to grant a one off tax (something like 1/20th of all movable goods or equivalent value) and this would almost always be to fund a war, in return parliament would get to ask for certain things, which war hungry monarchs would usually grant.
Towards the later middle ages during the later half of the 100 years war they'd be doing this very regularly, and granting a lot of concessions. With the splitting of the House of Lords and House of Commons this started to slowly lead a sort of democratic system, taxes in exchanged for having the wider populations concerns and problems answered.
When they tried to implement a straight up poll tax though in the late 1370's, the middle class got pissed off as hell and started the 1381 peasants revolt. Trashing London and executing high up government officials.
Taxes were pretty weird and arbitrary back then when you look at them with a modern lense
Eli Powell
The Medieval era started with the fall of Rome and ended with the fall of Rome, that's how I remember.
Joseph Butler
>middle class >peasants revolt Is this a contradiction?
Zachary Hall
It's a common misconception that the Peasant's Revolt was actually performed by the peasants. They slapped that label on it to discredit the people who took part in it, who were often Yeomen, lower middle class, townsfolk with a trade, and a few of the better of peasant class who had enjoyed better tenancy deals than the vast majority of other peasant class.
You had examples of knights joining in and even a couple of the clergy. It wasn't even supposed to be a rebellion against the king, mainly his advisers and especially his uncle John of Gaunt, the way it was organised and the causes they were aiming for show that the people who took part in it had an understanding of law, government and taxation above what the average peasant tied to some knights piece of land would know
