In most of these early medieval realms, when a king called up the militia,
each manor, or country estate owned by a rich noble, was expected to
contribute a certain number of men. hat local group of soldiers was
called a retinue. With very rare exceptions, the number of infantrymen
in a retinue was considerably larger than the number of cavalrymen.
For example, surviving records show that in an English campaign in
1359 the Duke of Lancaster had a retinue that included 90 knights and
423 archers. (Archers were the most common form of foot soldier in
England in this period.) Another nobleman on the campaign, the Earl of
Richmond, contributed 35 knights and 200 archers. Later, in the campaign
leading to the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the Earl of Salisbury
supplied a retinue of 3 knights and 80 archers to the English army.
h e foot soldiers in such retinues usually lived on farms or in small
villages located on the estates of wealthy landed nobles. But though the
number of soldiers a local lord could raise was frequently impressive, it
was nearly impossible to keep them in service for extended periods. Military
historian Terence Wise explains: “h e length of service in the i eld
owed by these forces varied slightly from country to country but on average
was limited to forty days. Service could be extended by paying the
troops, although many were reluctant to stay away from their farmlands
for long periods and this made it exceedingly dii cult to keep an army in
the i eld for any length of time. h e peasant levy was under no obligation
to serve outside their own country.”6
h us, unless a given military campaign was fairly short, a ruler could
easily i nd himself with too few soldiers to achieve success. Another widespread
problem with raising infantry locally was that, because these soldiers
were rarely professionals, they were often inadequately equipped
and lacked proper training. To overcome such shortcomings,
it became common to supplement an army’s
infantry ranks with mercenaries.
In medieval Europe mercenaries were well-armed,
well-trained professional i ghters who hired themselves
out to kings, military generals, or others in need of their
services. Some worked alone or in small groups. But
many mercenaries formed large bands, often called “free
companies.” One of the most famous medieval mercenary
bands was the White Company, led by Englishman
John Hawkwood. Made up of some two thousand
archers and a large number of horsemen, the White Company most often
worked in Italy, variously i ghting for the Italian kingdoms of Florence,
Pisa, and Milan.
Over time, these and other European kingdoms grew larger, richer,
and better organized. As a result, in late medieval times they took the
crucial step of creating their own permanent national armies in which
soldiers had to serve for extended periods of time. A confederation of
Swiss city-states in the early 1300s became the i rst to do so. Some eastern
European kingdoms followed suit in the early 1400s, as did France,
Hungary, and Germany later in that century.
World History
