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https://acoup.blog/2024/06/07/collections-how-to-raise-a-tribal-army-in-pre-roman-europe-part-i-aristocrats-retainers-and-clients/

Interesting

Yes, very interesting, and just part 1.

I'll keep tabs with this one

Quote from: Imperial Dave on June 09, 2024, 11:37:05 AMI'll keep tabs with this one

Could you flag it up, I'd hate to miss it 

No worries mon seigneur

It was interesting reading this after reading "Of Kerns and Galloglasses", which covers in some detail how the relationships between the various elements of Irish armies worked.  So there was obligation, there was payment (often in cattle), there were gifts to those considered/who considered themselves especially important (horses, mail shirts, religious relics), there were traditional roles (like standard bearer) or battlefield positions (the rearguard being the place of special honour), which were much esteemed and jealously guarded.  All-in-all, it created a complicated network, through which your Big Men exercised power.  Reading Devereaux's analysis, you can't help think that similar sets of relationships would be going on unrecorded in the background to what our Greek and Roman writers observed.

Interestingly you've just reminded me of a treatise on Catraeth that proposed specific battlefield roles for 'named' individuals

If only I could find it.....

Quote from: Imperial Dave on June 09, 2024, 04:48:02 PMInterestingly you've just reminded me of a treatise on Catraeth that proposed specific battlefield roles for 'named' individuals

If only I could find it.....

Some of the accounts of the raising of the Clans for the Jacobite forces seem to show common factors as well