A nice site at
http://www.millennia.f2s.com/nature.htm
Has some good information. If I had a doubt it would be that the author does take up evidence from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries (Ammianus to Saxo Grammaticus) and he does caveat this. However, where his source material is contemporary he gives a good picture.
Roy
Interesting - thanks Roy :)
The "small numbers" bit comes up again, with the usual pieces of evidence:
1 Ine's law defining more than 35 men as an "army".
2 Cynehard's attempted takeover of Wessex with 84 men.
I don't think these prove anything. My favourite analogy for the first is the Riot Act, which defined a "riot" as involving more than 12 people; many riots involved thousands, sometimes tens of thousands as in London in 1780. In the second case the atheling was attempting a coup, not conquest - assassinating the King at his hunting lodge. I see no reason to doubt figures of a couple of thousand dead in major battles.
There's an important typo: the battle of Searobyrig (Salisbury) is recorded in the Chronicle under 552, not 522 AD.
Thanks for the link, anyway!
I tend to agree with you on numbers John. The Anglo Saxon Kingdoms covered an area that later supported 10,000 or so Norman knights (equivalent to mounted thegns with armour, horses, servants, . Let us suppose that they were a third of the available military and that the potential was around 40,000 If there were seven kingdoms operating at the time (OK it varies) then the average is going to be 6000 men. Both sides were likely to leave men at home to keep a defence, but then the tea near the battle could supply free peasants who will have bolstered numbers. Of course the Heptarchy is not an equal division so I would suggest:
Wessex 9,000
Mercia 12,000
Northumbria 7,500
East Anglia 5,000
Kent 3,000
Essex 1,500
Sussex 2,000
Earlier on there are many smaller entities. At that time (Arthur?) in say the VIth century then little kingdoms with a military potential of 300 'mounted' men and perhaps 1000 footmen would have been more normal.
all this stresses how important it was to make alliances.
Of course the military potential of kingdoms would vary according to where the battle was. I tend to think that this was important in producing battles on border points such as Ellendun where both sides could bring a large force. Invading deep into opposing territory would be more likely to restrict you to bringing only your best men. The need for alliances and the difficulty of then holding an invading force together explains why it was possible for Cadwallon and co to invade Northumbria, conquer it and then lose it again.
Roy
Quote from: John GL on March 02, 2013, 06:47:53 PM
The "small numbers" bit comes up again, with the usual pieces of evidence:
1 Ine's law defining more than 35 men as an "army".
2 Cynehard's attempted takeover of Wessex with 84 men.
I don't think these prove anything.
I must admit, I went through Uni at the height of "the Vikings were half a dozen traders with a boat" period of looking at numbers, so I've always been cautious of the low numbers school. However, I think the two examples do demonstrate that there was a context of low-level, small scale war. Wasn't 300 men who rode to Catraeth? If we do roll it forward into the Norman era, you see a similar pattern of actions between "armies" of hundreds. Sometimes a few score men that you can gather quickly and move fast is more useful than waiting for the Fyrd to muster. So, I'm happy with a lot of military actions involving 50-500 men in this period, though accepting Roy's argument that armies in the 1000s could be mustered with time and effort.
Hi Anthony,
I suspect that Cattraeth is in the period that I'd characterise as Arthurian where there are about 40 small kingdoms in the UK. In that period assembling 300 mailed horsemen would indeed be a powerful strike force. Later in the mid seventh to eighth centuries I would expect to see much bigger armies when say Mercia took a swipe at Wessex. . I agree with you that lots of warfare would be small numbers of professionals against each other, but the British Isles is quite small and lowest estimates give a million people in the English part in the dark ages that gives 50,000 men on a military potential of 5% which seems sustainable, a village of say 150 people thus produces eight warriors.
Roy
Take a later, much better-documented period when the population of England probably wasn't much greater. At Tewkesbury there were around 3,000 men a side, at Towton about ten times that number - battles of equal importance but fought in different circumstances. Similar considerations would apply to 7th-10th century warfare, and the great battles of Anglo-Saxon England (Daegsastan, Chester, Winwaed, Ellandun, Ashdown, Ethandun, Brunanburh) are likely to have involved numbers somewhere within that range.
I don't agree that the two examples cited give any evidence at all! The numbers involved in an assassination attempt or armed robbery are no guide to the numbers taking part in a pitched battle.
All this reminds me of an early Slingshot article of mine: "Warfare of the Heptarchy" in Slingshot 91, 1980 (note the errata in the next issue). I've done a lot of reading since then and haven't changed my views on this issue.
Quote from: John GL on March 03, 2013, 01:39:44 PM
I don't agree that the two examples cited give any evidence at all! The numbers involved in an assassination attempt or armed robbery are no guide to the numbers taking part in a pitched battle.
But they are evidence of the nature of warfare. As we all know, pitched battles were a relatively small part of Early Medieval warfare. Raids, skirmishes, hall burnings and so forth were the bread and butter work and these employed smaller groups.
Sure - small-scale operations would (as always) have been the norm. but there were also instances of large armies clashing and providing material for the bards.
Anthony is the expert on it, but isn't Towton now held to be rather smaller than previously thought?
At a battle such as Brunanburh one side is an allied army of York Vikimgs, Irish Vikings, welsh Scots (or did they miss it?) against the strength of the united South and Midlands of England. That might manage 20,000 a side top whack I would have thought?
Roy
20,000 a side would make Brunanburh easily the biggest battle of the period in Britain, I think, but it must have been something approaching that mark. The Scots were probably there.
Towton was definitely the biggest battle of the WotR; much hinges on whether one believes Edward IV's claim of 28,000 killed. As he wrote this in a private letter citing the heralds' tally, I'm inclined to accept it.
Interestingly, one of the problems of fighting with all longbow armies and infantry armies is that the casualties tend to be high, partly because it is hader to get away. But also because you cannot win easily with manoeuvre, but must fight your way through, so high casualties makes sense.
That, of course would generally lead to fewer battles because the consequences of loss would be severe and even inners would be badly damaged.
Roy
If we accept the 28,000 figure as an estimate of the dead on the field (numbered by the heralds), then we could speculate on 60-80,000 men on the field of Towton. England at the time is fairly productive, it hasn't been ruined by war, the social and political structures for mustering men are intact so a major effort by both sides is plausible.
The trouble with estimating the size of armies at Brunanburh is where do you start? We don't even know where it was, so we can't say how far armies needed to travel or what the likelyhood of sustaining themselves in the field was. And was it fought by massed mobilisations of all the participants, or did some or all of them only take part in the form of a small (albeit perhaps high quality) allied contingent?
Yes, all we know about Brunanburh as that it was regarded at the time as a big and very decisive battle. All the rest is guesswork - but there are hints. The English King and his brother were there, with troops from Wessex and Mercia; their enemies included "a countless host" of Norsemen and a Scots army. The dead included five kings and seven jarls. "Never before in this island... was an army put to greater slaughter by the sword". So it must have been thought a greater battle than Ashdown, Ethandune or any of the other battles of the previous century, of which there were many. Given all that, each army must surely have been numbered in thousands rather than hundreds.
Quote from: John GL on March 04, 2013, 07:39:04 PM
Given all that, each army must surely have been numbered in thousands rather than hundreds.
Agreed that that is a logical conclusion based on what we have. As you say, it had a reputation as big and bloody. We then get back to what we compare against. If a "normal" battle was 2-3000 a side, a big battle could 5-6000. I think I'd be looking at something in the 8-10,000 a side range but would stuggle to give a rationale except that, while it was a big action, assembling and maintaining the two armies would have been difficult (the majority of them being a long way from home).
If we look at generally accepted figures for the population of England (from a quick internet trawl through various locations), Roman Britain is assessed as something like 4 million, and this drops to 1-2 million for Anglo-Saxon times.
Taking the lower figure (to be on the safe side), and assessing the number of men of military age as 20% of the population and the number of men in prime condition as 10%, we get a mobilisation potential of 100,000-200,000 men. The limiting factor is not so much population as organisation, and to cut a long digression short I feel we can with reasonable safety conclude that the size of a muster will be of a breadth and depth proportionate to a perceived threat. Whereas a five-ship Viking raid could be met by a muster of a couple of hundred house-troops, a massive Norse incursion leagued with every Scot who could carry a weapon would prompt a comprehensive and thorough mobilisation perhaps amounting to tens of thousands.
Not every man from every kingdom would arrive: some would remain to garrison key points or attend to other duties, and a sizeable servile proportion would not be entrusted with weapons (although they could drive carts and/or carry food for the fighting men) but we could expect the majority of the male fighting population to turn out and be committed to what everyone seems to have envisaged as a decisive campaign.
Logistics is often raised as an apparently insurmountable barrier to the gathering of large armies: this seems to me to be a misconception, as Saxon practice appears to have been to appoint a day and place for the muster and then move swiftly to engage the foe (cf. Alfred's Ethandun campaign - muster at Egbert's Stone, move to Iley Oak, fight at Edington). For a brief campaign of this nature, men would bring their own supplies, obviating logistical problems - provided the campaign was brief.
Naturally, there would be time and distance constraints: men from Wessex would have a longer and harder time getting to Lancashire than men of Mercia. Yet with determination it could be done, albeit not as swiftly as Harold Godwinson's five-day march from York to Hastings. With each contingent providing - and carrying - its own supplies for perhaps a 40-day campaign (for the more remote contingents at least half of this would involve getting to and from the campaign locale) there would be little need to rely on the resources of the locality, although one could expect these resources, notably livestock, to be gathered to deny them to the enemy, and consumed if contingents' integral supplies began to run short.
Given the above, I see no reason why Brunanburgh need have less than 20,000 per side, and could potentially have had much more.
Quote from: John GL on March 02, 2013, 06:47:53 PM
1 Ine's law defining more than 35 men as an "army".
2 Cynehard's attempted takeover of Wessex with 84 men.
Well I'm late to the party again...:-)
#1 is a legal definition, it mattered because it changed penalties and consequences for those involved.
#2 is effectively a coup. Remember Temuljin started his first war with 7 warriors, nobody thinks that Mongol armies were small!
England was rich, by the time the main kingdoms had coalesced it was considered one of the richest parts of Western Europe. One of the primary drivers for all the claimants in 1066 was that the winner would be catapulted to wealth and glory.
Also look at Alfred's changes, large numbers of troops were available when properly organised and supplied.
Tom.
Just what I was saying, Tom - see my analogy with the Riot Act which had a similar purpose and effect (such as the death penalty). I'm just peeved that these two irrelevances are still trotted out as evidence for "small armies"!
The debate is not really dependent upon the two examples cited. It is really more of a debate between those who believe in elite armies of the hundreds to low thousands as opposed to armies of many thousands.
For me, the reconciliation between the two views comes from the 'five hide system' which I doubt as a 'system', but which expresses the needs of the later Anglo Saxon state. What the king wanted was one man in five to come to the host with a horse, a mailshirt, probably a servant and supplies for the campaign. Clearly just an army of thegns would be too few, but calling out every free man with spear and shield would produce an unwieldy mass of ineffective ill mounted and ill equipped warriors. So yes there could be large numbers of fyrd for burgh service and they might suffice behind walls, but facing the Vikings in the open needed mobility, speed, mailshirts and swords.
So Patrick might well be right that there were 200,000 potential warriors in England in Late A/S times, but there would only be 40,000 men who counted because only they had the requisite kit.
Roy
Patrick's reasoning to reach his theoretical military capacity is sound enough but the number of effectives, as Roy says, would be lower. However, we still stuggle with how many of those effectives would be mobilised for a campaign. On the numbers game, we should note that Norman England had a similar theoretical military capacity as late A/S England, yet actual numbers involved in campaigns rarely reached five figures and was often in the hundreds - just because you had the manpower pool doesn't mean you used it. The trouble, as we've already said about Brunanburh, is we are guessing and our guess hasn't much to go on. Whether you think it had 10,000 or 20,000 a side depends on how big you think Early Medieval battles were. I'll always tend towards the smaller end, Patrick likes as many in his battles as he can make a case for :)
As to the elite warfare model of the begin of the Early Middle Ages (aka Dark Ages), it really needs a much wider discussion of the evidence. I think we are all agreed that there was a lot of comitatus/hearthtroop activity which did involve small forces. The difficulty is that some would suggest this never scaled up, whereas others would hold that wider mobilisations of the free farmers led to larger battles.
It is very difficult to get to numbers. I think the site that I referred us to has 18% of Early Saxon graves with weapons, but that is not an incontestable number. Some of those graves are old men, some are children. Weapons might indicate free status (almost certainly do) but weapons might well have been supplied to graves of fit men who never fought unless the village was attacked or we might be looking at the settlements of the better off and slaves etc were just not buried in the same place. For example subject Britons operating a woodland or a pastoral hill economy.
On the continent the barbarians manage to have quite big battles .
The Ostro Goths manage to fight a Roman force of 20-25000 in 552 AD. The Franks manage to send to Italy in 553 a force that troubles that same Roman force (maybe minus the Lombards, but plus some reinforcement).
These same Ostrogoths campaigned against the Franks and we could presume had sufficient force parity to defeat them and save the remnant on the Visigoth territory in Gaul. The Visigoths hang on in Spain and later hold off Frankish invasions. We may presume them also capable of being in the 20,000 league. The Vandal number of 80,000 crossing to Africa isn't quite certain, but it is a more substantial straw to clutch than most. That would give the Vandals a potential of 20,000 warriors.
In Britain there are contradictory trends.
One the one hand there are seven kingdoms and earlier many more (and later fewer of course)
Britain is smaller than Italy or Gaul or Spain. It is less likely to produce economic surplus to maintain a professional army like the Goth armies.
However, the invaders in Britain are nearer the soil and more likely to be self supporting than on the continent.
That might suggest that Britain/England has quite a lot of lowly equipped warriors, but much fewer elite full timers than the VIth cent Mediterranean kingdoms? So in Italy we have a Goth army in 530 of tops 30,000 with a lot of elite mounted, but in Britain 40,000 Germans but only a small elite proportion?
Roy
http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/system/files/Lucerna31.pdf
Based upon the above discovery of a Visigothic brooch in Kent I am immediately putting in for a unit of Goth cavalry to bolster the rather wooden ranks of the Saxons.
Roy:-))
Remember John Morris' theory about Arthur giving refuge to the Visigothic Atlantic fleet after they lost Gaul? All based on the name "Theodoric" cropping up in one Welsh text, IIRC. Maybe this is just a hello from some Gothic sailor.
The distribution of the brooches is quite instructive. There are three groups:
Septimania and the Toulouse district, Central Spain and Normandy .
The two former areas are classically those of Visigothic settlement, but that logic does not really explain NW Gaul and from that area finds in Kent and Sussex are logical Of course there is the possibility that these brooches represent a fashion item but they do not appear in any numbers in other than Visigothic areas. There is a possibility that that they represent either Goths who move into Gaul in the fifth century under one of Theoderic the Great's uncles or Goths who do not move from Gaul after Clovis victory at Vouille and might even be resettled by him further North where they can both watch the Bretons and be watched.
The last possibility is that they represent someone such as the Taifali . The map in the article not being on a sufficient scale to tell whether it is showing finds near Tiffauges.
That these things turn up in Kent could be a matter of trade or quite possibly as Duncan says, a sailor relocating from Bordeaux, or just dying whilst on a trip from there to trade in Kent.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 08, 2013, 09:55:26 PM
That these things turn up in Kent could be a matter of trade or quite possibly as Duncan says, a sailor relocating from Bordeaux, or just dying whilst on a trip from there to trade in Kent.
Or something picked up on a trip to the continent :) It is one of those artefacts that do speak of continued connection of the communities in the South with what is going on in Europe at the time.
So we have a Kentish Jute joining a mercenary band that hires out to fight for Clovis at Vouille and hen returns home wearing a brooch that he took off a dead Vidigoth, campaigns against Arthur and is wounded, dies upon returning to Kent.
Sounds like Jim Webster's njkext book.
Roy
There is of course a simpler explanation ...
The year is AD 509. A Visigothic fleet is ordered to sail for Brittany in order to spark a rising against Clovis, who is attacking the Visigoth kingdom. Mistaking their orders, they land in Britain and attempt to raise a revolt there instead. Tokens are exchanged between the leader of the Visigoth fleet and the leader of the British revolt, the British brooch being subsequently lost to history and the Visigothic brooch being taken by a British warrior from the corpse of the leader of the revolt, and subsequently traded to a Kentish courtesan in return for special favours. :)
Actually, given the distribution of this style of brooch in the distinctly non-Visigothic area of Syagrius' northern Gallic 'kingdom', we might wonder whether the original style was late Romano-Gallic and subsequently borrowed by Syagrius' Visigothic allies.
Distribution map: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news/2006/02/20/visigoth-kent?oo=0 (http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news/2006/02/20/visigoth-kent?oo=0)
Some Visigothic jewellery here: http://pinterest.com/vikingr0se/goths-ostrogoths-visigoths/ (http://pinterest.com/vikingr0se/goths-ostrogoths-visigoths/)
My knowledge of decorative jewellery is pretty appalling, but might someone else be able to judge whether there is any mileage in the Visigoths borrowing rather than originating this particular style?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 10, 2013, 11:54:29 AM
There is of course a simpler explanation ...
The year is AD 509. A Visigothic fleet is ordered to sail for Brittany in order to spark a rising against Clovis, who is attacking the Visigoth kingdom. Mistaking their orders, they land in Britain and attempt to raise a revolt there instead. Tokens are exchanged between the leader of the Visigoth fleet and the leader of the British revolt, the British brooch being subsequently lost to history and the Visigothic brooch being taken by a British warrior from the corpse of the leader of the revolt, and subsequently traded to a Kentish courtesan in return for special favours. :)
Aha. Patrick Waterson is actually the alias of Bernard Cornwell :)
.......or Sir Walter Scott.........But I digress, the discussion on the armies at Hastings in "The battle of Hastings 1066" M K Lawson, Tempus, 2002, is thought provoking. At least with Hastings we have a rough idea of where it was fought.
BC.
Is Lawson the one that believes that the Anglo Saxons have loose order infantry types? I have seen elsewhere that one can possibly interpret the Bayeux Tapestry as showing different orders of deployment.
There is some evidence that Harold re-equipped troops , possibly Huscarls, for the 1063 expedition against Gruffyd of Wales with leather armour so as to be more rapid in their pursuit of the Welsh. That could imply that some A/S operated this way and provided a model?
Roy
This Lawson devotes a chapter each to both armies. I will have to re-read them to glean the details. How the "to read again" pile waxes!
I am very new to the Forum and although there is a warning this topic has been dormant for some time I found it very interesting and relevant to my current interest in this period.
I don't think I can add much to the scholarly observations made so far except to suggest two things.
When I was researching for potential fighting capacity of Prussian Tribes in the 13th Century for the Society Publication, I based much on the nature of "Warrior Societies" and their economic capacity to support men who will consume and not produce and for the likely proportion of other males able to bear arms when needed. I haven't seen any discussion of that with relation to Anglo-Saxon Society.
Secondly, the size of Armies in Battles has sometimes been worked out by looking at Battlefields (where they are certain) and doing an estimate of how many men could physically occupy the space. The iconic Battle relevant to this discussion where I have seen this done is Hastings. The numbers for this battle has to some degree produced a template.
In a Time Team Special ( I am recently retired and discovered day-time TV!) I watched with fascination as the evidence for re-orientating the battle-line to 90 degrees of the original line seemed over-whelming. The big implication is that the Saxon front is now shorter. I wonder if anyone will try and re-work estimates for army size based on it. If the number comes down in scale then it must surely influence other estimates for Saxon Armies.
we had a little discussion about that show recently Barry.
http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1062.0
which you may find interesting too.
Quote from: aligern on March 09, 2013, 12:48:53 PM
So we have a Kentish Jute joining a mercenary band that hires out to fight for Clovis at Vouille and hen returns home wearing a brooch that he took off a dead Visigoth, campaigns against Arthur and is wounded, dies upon returning to Kent.
Sounds like Jim Webster's next book.
Roy
:o ;D ;D ;D
Actually I was taken by the comment about Armies in Britain having a lower proportion of elite troops. If the Kingdoms are smaller,then invaders don't have to travel as far, so a larger proportion of your potential fighting men can afford the rations needed to get them into the war zone.
(Oh and the next book is http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-4-1-Tsarina-Sector-Webster/dp/1908208236/ ;) )
http://www.safkhetpublishing.com/books/fantasy/Justice_41.html
Jim
I like the biography. ;)
It has a certain something I feel :-)
Jim
As suggested by Patrick, here is a question that perhaps deserves a more thorough airing. Roy posed this question in another thread
QuoteMuch ink has been spilt on whether the Anglo Saxon forces are a social elite or largely the professional retainers of landed lords. Is the system actually very like that of the Normans where noble X holds land on the basis that he will supply the army with a specified number of men or is the system one where there is a sort of democratic sharing of responsibility across five hides where one man is elected to go to the host and the others equip and pay for him?
One might add subsidiary questions, the most obvious being how did the Anglo-Saxon military system evolve through time? What may be true in 650 may not be true in 1050.
The essential question is: how do we find out?
Quote from: Erpingham on October 04, 2014, 07:27:53 PM
One might add subsidiary questions, the most obvious being how did the Anglo-Saxon military system evolve through time? What may be true in 650 may not be true in 1050.
Absolutely.
The system in the early period
appears to be based around the 'warband' philosophy ie chieftains, leaders 'sub kings' and the like attract and retain followers based upon success in battle and booty shared.
I may be barking up the wrong tree but the 'system' appears to evolve into a more land based arrangement in the later 7th and early 8th centuries from what I have read.
Not sure how this translates into social elite and/or/versus retainer of landed lords. As a generalisation would it be fair to assume in the early period predominantly the former and in the later period the later with a fair mix in the middle period?
However there are far more learned people than I who can offer up commentary on this!
One of the problems is that there clearly isn't a single system. Different systems seem to be present in different areas. So, in the 11th century we seem to have some men serving as retainers of powerful landowners and others serving on behalf of a collective of small landowners whose lands add up to five hides.
I suspect that there is always a mix of recruitment via giving out land and by personal relationship (comitatus). We have , from other areas, details of the contracts of retainers (Buccellarii) and its likely that the AS had a similar system. At the same time men are clearly given land and expected to serve as a result. So in the seventh century we can see estates being given to powerful men and the church
and carrying a military burden.
I see the five hide method as being an attempt by the administration to deal with a problem. As the kingdoms expanded there was no shortage of men to serve on the basis of all free men havig a military obligation. However, as I think, Paul Stein said earlier there is a limit to the size of armies that can move around and be supported. Moving to say one man in five coming to the host, with a mailcoat and horse make the army more effective and much more mobile. Its a matter that with primitive taxation systems the king cannot extract the surplus from all his subjects and pay for a professional army so the relationship is more easily accomplished
lower down the chain at the village level.
Roy
The traditional Anglo-Saxon method of moving an army around pre-Alfred seems to have been to appoint a rendezvous close to where one intends to fight and stipulate a day to be there (cf. Alfred before Ethandun). This allows everyone to 'march divided, fight united' provided the opponent obliges by being where you expect him to be.
This probably changed under Alfred's successors, because a) 5-7 kingdoms are now replaced by one, with a single system instead of half a dozen and b) being consistently on the offensive while reconquering England requires a more dedicated, skilled and specialised army than just having everyone turn up at point X in defence of hearth and home.
This is just guessing how things would have been - instinct suggests that Alfred's Wessex would have been at the centre of changes from a general muster to a more specialised force, and Alfred's successors would have had every reason to push specialisation.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on October 05, 2014, 09:14:40 PM
The traditional Anglo-Saxon method of moving an army around pre-Alfred seems to have been to appoint a rendezvous close to where one intends to fight and stipulate a day to be there (cf. Alfred before Ethandun). This allows everyone to 'march divided, fight united' provided the opponent obliges by being where you expect him to be.
This probably changed under Alfred's successors, because a) 5-7 kingdoms are now replaced by one, with a single system instead of half a dozen and b) being consistently on the offensive while reconquering England requires a more dedicated, skilled and specialised army than just having everyone turn up at point X in defence of hearth and home.
But the English army before Hastings mustered at the "hoar apple tree", which is thought to be a reference to a local landmark. This suggests that landmark muster points hadn't gone away.
True, and distinctive trees seem to have been a favourite for use as muster-markers. The practice probably continued because if you wanted to add the local fyrd to your muster, the old ways were very likely the best. :)
Harold seems to have brought his 'professionals' (huscarls etc.) up to York and back from York by forced marches and not by use of muster-points. However the 'hoar apple tree' would have been where he expected to find the fyrd when his main force arrived.
What this suggests to me is that England still had a dual/two-tier system: specialised professionals plus a wider range of mobilisable locals.
But maybe Harold is saying to his local notables (he was Earl of Wessex, of course) to gather their men and march to meet his main column at the hoar apple tree. So really the mustering has been done it is only as suggested above, the columns that meet there to assemble the army.
The Assembly before Ethandun is special. Alfred has been in hiding in Athelney, he has to assemble his army quickly and get it together before the Danes in Chippenham could destroy small columns in detail. Hence he uses a traditional but discrete point so everyone is together before marching off. The special circumstances of that campaign may have ltered the method of assembly.
Roy
When I was younger (so much younger than today...), the world of Anglo-Saxon armies was easy. There were housecarles (they weren't spelled huscarls then) who were Scandinavian professionals with big axes, select fyrd, who were English of the better sort and had helmets and leather armour and general fyrd, who were peasants with a spear and a shield if they were lucky. They were totally different to Normans.
The more I think of it now, not only do these definitions seem a bit ..speculative..but there seems more continuity than previously. So a huscarl maybe a Scandinavian but he was probably a royal retainer, like a Kings Thegn, who could be a live on his lands or at court. A lot of so-called select fyrdmen were thegns serving in their own right or as retainers of major landowners, others were collectively equipped with proper war-gear and could even have been rich ceorls. The idea of a horde of free born poor men wandering around the country forming the bulk of armies seems to be some kind of romantic notion - they seem to have been involved in local defence and many forces probably didn't have them at all. Heaven knows what they did in the Danelaw. If we draw back and say familia regis for huscarls, retainers of tenants in chief and rustic milites and serjeants for select fyrd and militia for the rest, it begins to look rather familiar. OK, the parallel probably doesn't work in detail but maybe the 11th century English were more mainstream European than they looked?
What did the Normans muster and how when they took over? This might indeed give a few retrospective clues.
And yes, life was easier when we just had housecarls, select fyrd and great fyrd - these categorisations and classifications presumably came from somewhere.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on October 06, 2014, 07:24:06 PM
And yes, life was easier when we just had housecarls, select fyrd and great fyrd - these categorisations and classifications presumably came from somewhere.
"Great" and "Select" fyrd come from Warren Hollister's
Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions on the Eve of the Norman Conquest - 1962, so a little dated now.
Rejected, I think, in Abels'
Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (1988), which I haven't read, and I think in various other places as well.
The complexities of huscarls are covered by Hooper, Nicholas (1992). "The Housecarls in England in the Eleventh Century". In Matthew Strickland. Anglo-Norman Warfare: Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Military Organization and Warfare.
He is particularly critiquing the idea that later Scaninavian organisation of huscarls, claimed to date from Cnut's reign, accurately describes the nature and organisation of their earlier Anglo-Danish equivalents.
touching upon the AS earlier period, Finberg (The Formation of England 550-1042) proposes that The Ceorl class contained the unfreemen/freedman/tenants and that these were laible for military service although he suggests that they may have had a supporting role rather than front line duties. This is followed up with the geneat (free farmer) and gesith/thegn classes who were expected to fight. This would roughly (very roughly!) equate with the later AS period classifications of select fyrd and huscarls
I wonder whether we get caught up and put too much weight on 'free', 'unfree' classifications.
I know from post 1066 we see men moving from 'free' to 'unfree' because with it they took on a substantial tenancy and became wealthier.
A freeman with thirty or forty acres might be the 'social superior' of an 'unfree man' on 200 acres but the latter could well be more prosperous.
Jim
In terms of the late AS period Jim, I think you're right re the classifications. In the earlier period there does seem to be social stratification along those lines which is reflected in the weregild values attested. Like anything, there would be crossover and blurring especially the later into the period we go.
I read Abels argument and felt that he didn't quite make his case. It is right to say that the concept of Great and Select Fyrd is not one the A/S express in words, but it is useful in describing the actuality of what happens.
Broadly the mass of jen who have some land are expected to perform or supply someone to repair bridges, build fortifications , (burhs) and to man them and to combine together to provide a man from every five hides or so ( because it could be varied) , to fight in the royal army . To the extent that there is a general obligation that then is commuted into a tax that supports a smaller but better armed force Warren Hollister is right.
We look for systems in such areas, but Early Medieval states have overlapping systems with historic justifications, so troops are being supplied from different historical traditions in The former Wessex and Mercia, from the Danelaw, from the Welsh borders and from towns and there mo
ay be more variants. An earl will be bringing along the men of his retinue, an overlapping contingent from his own directly held lands, and from the areas within his earldom that he administers from the king and expect to get one man ,roughly , from each five hides, some of which will be from other landowners who may have 50 hides and some from smaller landowners who have to combine together to make around five hides and support one of their number as the warrior travelling to the host.
Remembering back to Hollister I don't think he really saw it differently from above. His big contribution was that underlying the military recruitment was a fairly rough and ready calculation that was designed to deliver a select force rather than a mass army, but that the duty of mass service still underlay the smaller force and might be called upon.
I think a problem with the select and general fyrd division is that some (and many in wargaming terms) have thought Hollister meant there were two formal organisation - Select and General. The Anglo-Saxons themselves don't seem to have made this a legal distinction. Instead, you had a fyrd obligation which was called on in different ways for different tasks, as Roy says. For field armies, it was called out selectively, with the intention of producing a well equipped mounted force. This meant that some fyrdmen only contributed by proxy by helping equip and pay their 5 hide (or equivalent) man. I suspect proxy delivery happened in the other category too - did a thegn get his hands dirty repairing bridges or did he send labourers?
I suspect that always alongside this existed the household retainer, be he hearth troop, huscarl of member of a familia. Anglo-Danish kings also had mercenaries, rather than just stipendary household members.
One does wonder if the fyrd obligation was commuted for tax. So if I am the earl of Mercia and I have to produce X number of warriors do I hire mercenaries and tell the fyrdmen to stay at home? Do I have toughs on my estate that I would rather use and have the hide contributions paid to me? After all . in a five hide unit that has four estates liable to contribute, three of the estates are paying the money or goods in kind to the fourth who actually goes on expedition. If I am the king I might rather have the selected fyrdmen as they have a more direct relationship to central govt. or would I rather have the earl's personal guys as they are more cohesive as a fighting unit.
At one point Tostig is made Earl of Northumbria. He has difficulties with the Northerners and is given the earldom of Northamptonshire to support him as tax collection in the North is proving difficult. Now, does he get paid in cash by Northants and then hire men, ir does he get men from Northants? I think its likely to be the former.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on October 07, 2014, 02:55:39 PM
I read Abels argument and felt that he didn't quite make his case. It is right to say that the concept of Great and Select Fyrd is not one the A/S express in words, but it is useful in describing the actuality of what happens.
Broadly the mass of jen who have some land are expected to perform or supply someone to repair bridges, build fortifications , (burhs) and to man them and to combine together to provide a man from every five hides or so ( because it could be varied) , to fight in the royal army . To the extent that there is a general obligation that then is commuted into a tax that supports a smaller but better armed force Warren Hollister is right.
We look for systems in such areas, but Early Medieval states have overlapping systems with historic justifications, so troops are being supplied from different historical traditions in The former Wessex and Mercia, from the Danelaw, from the Welsh borders and from towns and there mo
ay be more variants. An earl will be bringing along the men of his retinue, an overlapping contingent from his own directly held lands, and from the areas within his earldom that he administers from the king and expect to get one man ,roughly , from each five hides, some of which will be from other landowners who may have 50 hides and some from smaller landowners who have to combine together to make around five hides and support one of their number as the warrior travelling to the host.
Remembering back to Hollister I don't think he really saw it differently from above. His big contribution was that underlying the military recruitment was a fairly rough and ready calculation that was designed to deliver a select force rather than a mass army, but that the duty of mass service still underlay the smaller force and might be called upon.
I think that we also have to remember that the Landowner's retinue and the individuals who are serving as 5 hide men from that general area could well end up travelling together. After all we should remember that these are men who might be related, would probably know each other socially and for mutual support and safety it makes sense to travel together.
On the battlefield people like to fight alongside people they know and trust (will these foreign bastards from Mercia help drag me back behind the front line if I go down, because I know my neighbours will) so it might be that the men of a 'shire' might stand together, no matter how they're raised.
Jim
Yes, I think we can assume that the men of a shire stood together and that within that sub groups operated together. The Men of Malmesbury are rewarded with extra privileges for their borough after Brunanburh which argues that they were operating as a cohesive group.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on October 08, 2014, 09:26:16 AM
One does wonder if the fyrd obligation was commuted for tax.
If so then the commutation would presumably have a name (cf. mediaeval 'scutage') so perhaps we should be on the lookout for hitherto unexplained terms in the thegneurial and royal revenues?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on October 09, 2014, 10:35:03 AM
Quote from: aligern on October 08, 2014, 09:26:16 AM
One does wonder if the fyrd obligation was commuted for tax.
If so then the commutation would presumably have a name (cf. mediaeval 'scutage') so perhaps we should be on the lookout for hitherto unexplained terms in the thegneurial and royal revenues?
I was under the impression that the Normans largely just continued the tax system on, at least in the early years, and they do seem to have called out the Fryd so perhaps early Norman evidence might be worth checking as well?
Jim
Didn't the Conqueror or William Rufus tell the assembled Fyrd to give him the money and go home?
Roy
Quote from: aligern on October 09, 2014, 11:19:12 AM
Didn't the Conqueror or William Rufus tell the assembled Fyrd to give him the money and go home?
Roy
William Rufus, I think. The money was the subsistence pay fyrdmen were provided with by their districts.
I always wondered about the 'King's Welsh horsemen' in the Laws of Ine.
Apologies to all for intruding on this thread. I'm not posting from my home computer today and consequently can actualy post to the forum once I've logged in. When posting from home I cannot do so and have not been able to for months as my replies get timed out regardless of length.
If admin can help I would be very grateful.
Apologies once again for the intrusion.
Hmmm, this is an odd one.
Our Webmaster (Toby Partridge) is unavailable for a few days, but will be asked to see if he can get to the bottom of this. The timeout on this site is set at four hours (240 minutes) so there seems to be no further adjustment we can make at this end.
It might be worth checking to see what firewalls and other security features ye olde home computer has that the work computer does not. Just a thought.
Thank you very much Patrick.
I look forward to hearing from Toby