Why were there so many wars back then

if you go and read stuff during the middle ages or before, its just endless amounts of wars and conquests all the time. why? its bizarre. you'll be reading about a major war, say, the Hundred Years War, and immediately after its over there will be another war like the War of the Roses. People were just endlessly fighting all the time. I don't understand how that even works. Did people really want to give up their lives for some shitty resource grabbing or a succession conflict? Were pretty much all young adult men in combat all the time?

war was the only way to improve upon livelihood in those days

grab more land for more wealth

War = land and plunder = I'm now rich


Now war is just an arm of resource politics

Not much has changed. Historians have a tendency to narrate history, to draw attention to interesting arcs and patterns, and to develop theories. It's much more random than that. See John Gray's review of Pinker's "Better Angels" book, and the (more technical) paper by Nassim Taleb and Raphael de Cirillo on the tail properties of violent conflicts.

those cocksucking neighbors of ours sound fucking retarded, and their customs or nothing short of barbarism

cmon man they look like abunch of pussies lets take their shit

Pasqual Cirillo. Sorry, fucked up his name.

No tv or internet, people were bored

People back then were too stupid to solve things diplomatically and resorted to beating each other with sticks like cavemen.

A better question is how much longer can this current lull in hostilities last. Not much longer from my perspective, judging by how quickly the Spanish became willing to brutalize each other.

>People were just endlessly fighting all the time
The united states alone has basically been at war since like 1942.
Hell, for all the shit it gets France is engaged in a number of serious conflicts right now
and the middle east might as well be glass

A war without conscription isn't a "war".

Unless you were a member of the military already, or in a military family, the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan feel invisible. The closest that 95% of Americans will get to the war is seeing a casket come home in the news and seeing the National Debt go up.

France founded the Foreign Legion specifically to isolate the French people from the human costs of France's colonial wars. The US simply just pays lip service to its veterans and goes back to ignoring them once the national anthem stops playing at a ballgame.

Because they weren't total wars. Only a tiny portion of the population would be affected compared to modern conflicts.

>A war without conscription isn't a "war".
TIL war wasn't a thing until the 18th century

Name 5 total wars before the thirty year's war

"Conscription" extends to "Levies" as well, and lots of pre-18th century wars were fought with levies.

Farmland. And Farmland only. (And religious) With very few exceptions.

Well a lot of countries, especially those that fight a ton of conflicts, have conscription. It's honestly not that much less violent today.

Honestly the 20th century could easily be called the most violent in human history.

>full plate made of animenium
>gets pierced by peasant bow archers

War a political interaction between two political and social entities. If there is declared open hostilities its a war.

Your headcanon is shit.

Nah that was the cloth dyers fuckup. He's sitting there counting his loot.

It's been like that during the middle ages and after the middle ages.

Difference is wars back then weren't total wars but feudal wars. You could be a peasant living in wherever and no postman is gonna come to your house to deliver you a letter from >t. The Government ordering you to show up at some military barracks for conscription. Because literally none of that shit even exists.

Ofc your local feudal lord could gangpress you into his troops to go fight somewhere then go back home. Or a raiding party might come your way.

It also depends a lot what specific period and what geographical area we're talking about. Germany f.i was relatively war free during the XI-XV centuries.

Wars didn't last as long back then. They called it the Hundred Years War but it wasn't a hundred years straight.