Got a Real-World Weapon, Armour or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIX

[Martin Greywolf]

Yeah, many sources calling a pollaxe a "polearm" is probably leading to some confusion as to how they were used.

They were used like polearms, because they were polearms, polearms being weapons on a pole that you need two hands to use. It's about as broad a category of use as swords, and if you take your two examples from both of those, there will be fairly small crossover in use, whether it is spear vs pollaxe or dussack versus a longsword.

Still, in both cases there is a significant crossover in techniques. Lichtenauer tradition mixes up messer and dussack terminology, and Fiore's axe (azza is what he calls what we refer to as pollaxe) in armor and spear in armor sections are fairly incomplete without each other (axe section dealing with crossings initiating from strikes, spear with crossings from thrusts).

What confuses most people at a casual glance is how different spear sparring looks to pollaxe sparring, but that's because of armor. Take that same spear and spar in armor (well, as if you were fighting in armor), and you will look very similar to pollaxe spars. I mean, yeah, pollaxe is much better at striking (but only with one end!), but parries and general approach to the fight stay the same.

Spoiler: And pollaxes are capable of long range hits, if they have an opening

Show

Fiore MS Latin pollaxe strike parry

carrying one to persumably brace it against charge, shield and all:

long range thrust alongside spears, in formation:

Pollaxe is a polearm, and has most of the traits a polearm should have, it's just very specialized towards one specific polearm use: against armor in two hands. But that doesn't make it not a polearm, that would be kinda like looking at someone halfswording a longsword, compare it to Highland broadsword and promptly declare longsword not a sword.

[Milodiah]

I think the confusion is that in tabletop terms "polearm" and "reach" are fairly synonymous. You could classify it as a polearm if you wanted, since it is in fact a fairly long haft with a head, but that's rather missing the point. The actual manuals of arms from the (later) periods like those of George Silver didn't consider it one in terms of use, since the haft is more an item of leverage than of range.

[Martin Greywolf]

I think the confusion is that in tabletop terms "polearm" and "reach" are fairly synonymous. You could classify it as a polearm if you wanted, since it is in fact a fairly long haft with a head, but that's rather missing the point. The actual manuals of arms from the (later) periods like those of George Silver didn't consider it one in terms of use, since the haft is more an item of leverage than of range.

Yeah, but Silver deals with pikes and halberds. In the context of the 5 or 10 foot discrete squares, i.e. 1.5 m to 3 m...

Your standard footman's spear that is about or a bit under 2 m will not be able to reach a square over consistently. Taking my spear as a case study, my reach is about 2 meters when delivering a proper stab, and tops up at about 2.5 meters when I slide my lead hand. Any more than that, and you get into a dangerous territory where a parry will knock your point off line long enough for you to be rushed with ease. Sure, if I decide to lance with it, I can get a bit over 3 meters, but that's feat territory.

Assuming that the spear is the prototypical polearm, we can deduce the definition of a polearm to be this: provided you are standing on the edge of your square, you must be able to reach into the suqare one over with one of your standard-issue attacks. Can a pollaxe do that? The answer is yeah, it can, but not if you hold it in 2/3 "halfswording" way, you need to either thrust with it or swing it, and then it can just about reach the far square.

Another way to look at it is by asking yourself, how do you use it? And from that point of view, it is definitely a polearm, because the way you use a spear or a staff against armor is almost identical to pollaxe.

Another another way is to look at a pollaxe and declare that it is a hurty thing on a pole that you need two hands to use, and therefore a polearm. Which is perhaps not the most practical way of looking at it, because then two handed maces also qualify.

The real problem is that 5 ft square is an arbitrary measurement, and with those, you will always get weapons that are exactly borderline on the reach spectrum. It's just that this particular one hits pollaxes, but add a foot and you replace them with spears, remove a foot and you get longswords.

[Thane of Fife]

I read recently that crossbowmen would put honey on the tips of their bolts in order to aid with armor penetration (I think it said something about the honey gripping the armor and helping to guide the bolt in). It sounds plausible, I suppose, but I've never heard anything like that before. Anybody know if there's any truth to it?

[Eladrinblade]

I read recently that crossbowmen would put honey on the tips of their bolts in order to aid with armor penetration (I think it said something about the honey gripping the armor and helping to guide the bolt in). It sounds plausible, I suppose, but I've never heard anything like that before. Anybody know if there's any truth to it?

I don't know about honey, but some people did grease their arrow/bolt tips which does make them penetrate better. Tod's Workshop on youtube did a video about it.

[SleepyShadow]

In RL examples of this era, 'rebels' won due to one or both of the two things - figurehead(s) to rally around [perhaps in exile or hiding] and things to encourage a feeling of 'Us' [and not Them]. The first could be members of the deposed Royal Family, senior nobles etc, while the latter would often be either nationalism and/or religion.

Therefore, savvy conquerors would try to eliminate one or both of these. And as the second is usually really hard to do, the first one is the best. Make sure the ruling line is as extinct as possible, slaughter the resisting nobles and give out their lands to your partisans, most of which will be loyal subjects from other places [the others being quisling locals]. If possible, find one of the latter to be your puppet ruler/viceroy.

Then you apply the 'damp course' between our foreign nobles and native peasants - a large cohort of colonists from somewhere else to serve in what passes as the 'middle class' at this time [church, trading groups etc]. Divide and rule - the native peasants may be seething but they're basically unfocused, and they are unable to join up with either the nobles or burghers because they're all different and often these three groups would be at each other's throats anyway.

Therefore, if the conquerors have a 'barbarous' reputation, the city-state might have surrendered and be play-acting compliance as they ready themselves for the 'Great Rebellion' - knowing they only have one shot at this.

That's good to know. There is a figurehead the rebels are rallying behind. He's not a noble per say, but he is a well-regarded veteran from the last war.

One thing about the occupation scenario I haven't seen come up, how long has the port city been occupied?

Is this a very recent thing, or has it been going on for several years?

The longer it's been going on the more likely the city is going to be run by locals loyal to the empire who are actually somewhat legitimate leaders, as opposed to purely by a military governor from the empire who rules by the threat of arms, which makes the situation more complex and potentially more fun.

Subverted nobles, the town council, wealthy merchants and really anyone who's decided they benefit from the occupation and are averse to the city being restored to it's prior state would all have cause to try and thwart rebels to try and prevent the imperial military returning in force to implement harsh crackdowns.

This would make the initial conflict primarily with quislings, the local guards and officials collaborating with the empire, with the return of the empire's actual forces being a looming threat that threatens to escalate the situation if the locals can't keep it under control.

The occupation has officially been going on for two decades, but it's really just an extension of an occupation that's been going on much longer. The flag has changed, but the occupying army is functionally the same as the last one.

We have to remember that it might not be a two-sided struggle either. Third parties might also be playing a game too, desiring the place for themselves. The pro-Independence forces might also be split; side X going for the last Prince's bastard kid, while side Y has chosen Noble A to start a new line, but side Z wants the old oligarchic republic [which X's great-granddad overthrew] to be restored...

It might be that the occupiers are holding on not because they're popular or powerful, but their enemies are split and half the time, fighting each other.

Another complication might be 'the Empire' may be in decline; that it's suffering from 'Imperial overstrech' and is weakening due to contant fire-fighting and wars on other fronts. A new conquest or not, the knowledge that their overlord's grip is fading might spur La Resistance [for example, the Empire has to pull out much of the garrison to fight elsewhere]

There are multiple factions with interest in the outcome of this conflict, but only the Byzantine and the Germans have soldiers in the area right now. A neighboring country is supporting the Germans, because they want to use them as a buffer against the Byzantine. A more distant but more influential nation supports the Byzantine because they have a lot of economic investments there, and it's much easier to conduct trade with an organized country than with a loose coalition of tribes.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

There are multiple factions with interest in the outcome of this conflict, but only the Byzantine and the Germans have soldiers in the area right now. A neighboring country is supporting the Germans, because they want to use them as a buffer against the Byzantine. A more distant but more influential nation supports the Byzantine because they have a lot of economic investments there, and it's much easier to conduct trade with an organized country than with a loose coalition of tribes.

You could also have other countries(*) who are acting as spoilers to keep one side or the other's attention this area rather than somewhere else, bleed their treasuries dry through having to fund the occupation or force them to keep troops involved in the occupation and bring newly raised units in rather than defending other locations, promote dischord in the country to provoke a revolution and put a new leader in who's more amenable to them and so on.


(*) Countries, different religious faiths, mercantile groups - pick whoever and as many as you feel like.

[Mr Blobby]

There's also the possibility that 'the Empire' is currently unstable and/or weakened. 'Byzantine-style' empires are autocratic in form, yet the technological level makes central control difficult. Any half-decent 'Emperor' is one who's able to perform the political 'herding of cats' to keep the show on the road. Sometimes the worst Emperor is the 'not utterly terrible' one; skilled enough to hang on to power, but too incompetent to actually to much more than that.

In situations like this, it's quite possible the Empire is running mainly on inertia and the edges are fraying. In this case, it might be possible to persuade the 'occupiers' to actually help them strike out on their own [or they might think of it themselves]. Therefore, fraternisation might be the name of the game, not hostility - to hope that when push came to shove, enough would have 'gone native' that they ignored the orders of the 'Loyalists'.

[SleepyShadow]

There's also the possibility that 'the Empire' is currently unstable and/or weakened. 'Byzantine-style' empires are autocratic in form, yet the technological level makes central control difficult. Any half-decent 'Emperor' is one who's able to perform the political 'herding of cats' to keep the show on the road. Sometimes the worst Emperor is the 'not utterly terrible' one; skilled enough to hang on to power, but too incompetent to actually to much more than that.

In situations like this, it's quite possible the Empire is running mainly on inertia and the edges are fraying. In this case, it might be possible to persuade the 'occupiers' to actually help them strike out on their own [or they might think of it themselves]. Therefore, fraternisation might be the name of the game, not hostility - to hope that when push came to shove, enough would have 'gone native' that they ignored the orders of the 'Loyalists'.

Right now, the "Byzantines" are doing pretty well for themselves. They've got a small but strong army, a leader experienced as a wartime general and peacetime senator, and trade agreements with more powerful nations, one of which is willing to wage war on behalf of the Byzantines if open conflict breaks out. The Byzantines are a very young nation and haven't had any major setbacks yet, so the first and only generation of Byzantine natives are riding high on a history of success. The older and more experienced Byzantines originate either from "Old Rome" or allied "Germanic" tribes. If the PCs plan to persuade the occupiers, they'd have an easier time with the older soldiers.

[Duff]

I don't know about honey, but some people did grease their arrow/bolt tips which does make them penetrate better. Tod's Workshop on youtube did a video about it.

And here's te link

https://youtu.be/PKrbXurFrHw

[Martin Greywolf]

And here's te link

https://youtu.be/PKrbXurFrHw

That's a Raid: Shadow legends ad. Even on this forum, there is no escape. Here's an actual link.

It definitely helps, especially with shields, allowing you to especially punish people who brace the damn things against their body - which we are explicitly advised against in some period sources. Outside of shields, however, the effect isn't as significant.

What really defeats arrows in mail + gambeson combo is the blunting of the arrowhead by the mail, making the gambeson under it a lot more effective. Greasing your arrow shaft will make the wound deeper, but we're talking half a liver vs all of the liver penetrated - kinda inconsequential, really. The real way to defeat mail is by either having hardened edges on arrowheads, or arrowheads shaped such that they won't get blunted (bodkins), carrying the disadvantages of much greater cost and being considerably worse at penetrating gambeson, respectively.

Against plate, greased shafts help a bit more, since a lot of the plate components sit on the body with a sizeable gap, but we're now in the realms of arrows maybe not being able to penetrate that armor at all.

[Milodiah]

It's an entirely understandable thing to do, and I imagine it's something that one archer would say and it would kinda pass around the camp with some people saying "that's preposterous" and some saying "huh I might try that". Ideas like that have survived into the modern era, with stuff like rumors of "teflon coated cop killer bullets" causing some criminals to try coating their bullets in all sorts of nonsense to try to get through Kevlar. I feel like at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that it's really simple to do, it really is like those One Weird Trick(tm) ads on clickbait websites. You might not be able to afford proper tempered steel bodkin arrowheads, but if you can't afford to get your hands on some simple cooking grease or lard, I'd have to wonder how you can even afford a bow or some arrows. And I figure if it did get tried, a good bit of the people doing it probably recognized that even if it didn't work, there wouldn't be all that much harm in trying. After all, it IS just grease, and it's not like it's going to ruin the ballistics of the arrow.

[Pauly]

The obvious reason to grease arrowheads is to protect them against rust. From there it makes sense that someone may perceive that greased arrowheads penetrate better than non-greased arrowheads. NB it doesn’t matter if the perception is true, just that it becomes an accepted belief amongst a significant enough group of people. But as Tods Workshop’s video shows there is enough to it that people may have greased their arrows for their effect as well as protection.

An alternative to using grease to protect against rust is using wax. Generally speaking grease would be cheaper, but someone of higher status might want to use the premium product, or because of local conditions wax might be more readily available than grease. From there it’s a small step to assume waxing has a similar effect as grease on the performance of an arrow. Then in the game of telephone of texts being translated and rewritten, usually by non experts, over the centuries at some point someone mistranslated “coated with bees wax” into “coated with honey”.

You have to remember that (a) Honey wasn’t cheap and (b) people were often short on food which makes using good food as a coating for your arrows very unlikely.

[halfeye]

Bees' wax was sometimes used on bowstrings.

[Brother Oni]

Bees' wax was sometimes used on bowstrings.

Wax still is used on bow strings as you don't want the individual strands to rub against each other too much (which causes fraying), protect them from moisture (particularly important if they're some sort of natural fibre, like linen or hemp) and helps them retain the number of twists (sets the bracing height).

[Mr Blobby]

I think some of the confusion might be also down to the fact tallow candles were more common than beeswax. And tallow can be quite greasy. You see a bit of this confusion when you read old reports of people eating candles [such as the siege of Colchester in 1648, soap too].

Also; 'grease'/'wax' slippage might be down to the use of dubbin - a product which was around then. I've never used it on metals, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't help protect from rust.

[Catullus64]

I'm interested in the military education of medieval European aristocrats, and the extent to which they received anything that we might call formal instruction in military science.

The sources I've read seem to put a lot of emphasis on training in the actual use of arms, particularly horsemanship, but not much mention is given to training in tactics or logistics. The closest thing to tactical instruction seems to have been melees (in the sense of a tournament combat), and even the accounts of those seem to emphasize them as tests of personal prowess and courage.

The picture I form, therefore, is that actual skills of command and military organization were not taught as theory, but simply learned "on the job": as soon as you're old enough to wear armor and not fall off your horse, you're on campaign and witnessing your senior relatives and overlords engaged in the process of command. This forms an obvious contrast with modern military academies and officer training programs, but also a contrast with the ancient world, where there seems to have been a robust tradition of military manuals intended to instruct young men.

But my knowledge is of course sharply limited, so if anyone is aware of instances where there were formal traditions of military science in the medieval period, please share!

[Martin Greywolf]

I'm interested in the military education of medieval European aristocrats, and the extent to which they received anything that we might call formal instruction in military science.

The sources I've read seem to put a lot of emphasis on training in the actual use of arms, particularly horsemanship, but not much mention is given to training in tactics or logistics. The closest thing to tactical instruction seems to have been melees (in the sense of a tournament combat), and even the accounts of those seem to emphasize them as tests of personal prowess and courage.

The picture I form, therefore, is that actual skills of command and military organization were not taught as theory, but simply learned "on the job": as soon as you're old enough to wear armor and not fall off your horse, you're on campaign and witnessing your senior relatives and overlords engaged in the process of command. This forms an obvious contrast with modern military academies and officer training programs, but also a contrast with the ancient world, where there seems to have been a robust tradition of military manuals intended to instruct young men.

But my knowledge is of course sharply limited, so if anyone is aware of instances where there were formal traditions of military science in the medieval period, please share!

Well, the first problem you will have is that the concepts of learning as such don't apply. And also the old issue of medieval also including Migration period about which we know very little. Going forward, assume I'm talking about high to late medieval periods, so about 1000-1500.

First topic we will tackle is education in general. There was very nearly no such thing, since the entire system of learning things for your livelihood was organized around apprenticeship. This doesn't quite mean you're learning things on the job the way you are sometimes forced today, there was a fairly rigid system to it with about three general tiers.

When you were young (and remember, there is no such a thing as teenagers when it comes to middle ages), just about to go from a child to an adult (so, anywhere from 12-20, often depending on how adult the people perceived you), you got yourself an apprenticeship. This was sometimes very formal, as was the case with squires or burgher craftsmen, involving agreements, verbal or written, and often informal, such as starting to work properly on your father's farm.

This apprenticeship meant doing the low-skilled labor associated with the job. You carried the coal to the forge, you carried messages between knights (sometimes on the battlefield) and so on, things you don't have to know anything to do. The learning happened partly on the job, but partly deliberately, by your master (or one of his journeymen) teaching you how and what to do when he had spare time. Some times, you see this tier split in two, one for menial labor phase, and then the second, where you know how to do parts of the job, or can work on some smaller parts of it independently.

Over time as an apprentice, you'd learn your craft, and graduate to second tier, the journeyman, called such because at this point, you know how to do a job and can travel around and earn your pay that way. A landless knight is a good analogue, as is a freshly independent blacksmith travelling to a newly-established town. Sometimes, you'd see these folks operating independently, sometimes they'd stay with their master and work with him as more valued and paid assistants.

Final tier is the master, and there is often no formal delineation fo who is and who is not a master. At first, you had to own your business proper, a house with tools and such. That meant you could very well skip phase two in some cases.

This quickly changed when guilds came around, and you had to register with them and be acknowledged as a master in them. This was, of course, politicized.

Parallel to this secular education, you had clerical institutions, and those resembled academia a lot more. The general idea was that you had access to libraries and to lecturers, and could learn from both of them, which meant one master/lecturer could handle a lot more apprentices. This is why you see first fencing treatise in the world (I.33 from 1300) being written by a monastery - they were the places with the necessary culture and skill to do so. There is more discussion to be had here, but going into it is against forum rules, so suffice to say that this form of education started to spread to secular sector starting roughly in 1200.

This is extremely important, because you saw a whole lot of nobles going to these newfangled universities, many of whom started to be entirely secular, and earn their titles there. If you see someone referred to as Magister such-and-such in period documents, it means he graduated from one of those and earned his title. By about 1400, most of the wealthier nobles have some sort of formal education they participated in this way, and they get cushy positions as royal scribes and whatnot thanks to them.

A rise in not just literacy (most nobles could probably at least passingly read and write by 1100), but intellectualism as well meant that personal libraries were very popular, and the topics of choosing were particular to each noble. That said, since every noble was a soldier, military treatises were at about the top of the popularity, alongside Aristotle and Galen. De Re Militari in particular has a flood of medieval copies made of it.

On to military-ish education specifically

First thing to remember is that nobles weren't just military arm of the kingdom, they served as judicial and administrative branch as well. This immediately means a noble will (well, should) be able to appreciate the logistical side of things a lot more than your random private trying to get to NCO rank. They already have an idea about how supplies are made and procured in general terms because they need it for their peacetime day job.

With this in mind, a young noble would serve in that assistant role a lot sooner than you might think. Even a relatively small child could help his parents around the house, managing servants and running messages, and being taught about how taxes worked and help out counting eggs levied from a village. This role would often be formalized in the form of a page, and pretty often, such pages would be exchanged between families.

The resons for the exchange could be two: first of all, plain political hostage. Even then, however, the hostage taker would be expected to educate this young noble in how to doo things. The second reason is a bit more complicated: imagine you are a knight who has sum total of one village, and everyone there knows your kid. Sure, you could keep him home, but he wouldn't learn much, but the lord you serve has a massive castle over there, so why not sned him to be a page there? He will meet more people of note, learn more skills and so on. If you are said lord of a massive castle, more hands is more good and if this young lad is partly raised by you, he's more likely to stay loyal, and you have a cousin who will need to marry off his daughters in a decade or so.

The importnat thing about pages is that they stay in relative safety, because they are, almost or entirely, children. They can accompany you too some campaigns, but will most definitely not participate in battles. You will be training them to do so, so they will be theoretically able to in desperate situations, but still.

Second phase is squires. These are analogous to apprentices from above, and while pages don't go into battles, squires often do. They most often run messages or carry spare lances for their master, not fight, but since they are on or near the front lines, that fighting often finds them, even if they themselves aren't looking for it. Much like apprentice learns by observation and instruction, so does a squire, his master will tell him what they are doing and why, and what the overall army commander is going for with his strategies and tactics. In peacetime, this will be supplemented by the master's library texts - he may even assign our squire a homework: "Go read Vegetius and come ask me when you have questions."

A squire graduates at 21, age that was most likely picked because 3*7=21 and middle ages were big on numerology, but this is also about an age where men stop growing - which means that the armor you get now won't have to be replaced in a year.

A noble who graduates from being a squire to being a knight is already a veteran of a few battles, and may have commanded men in such abttles if his master permitted it. Abovementioned formal education was usually handled just before or just after being knighted/becoming an adult (this is often synonymous with nobles), so by the time our fresh knight goes into battle as a knight, he will be pretty good at it.

So why were some commanders idiots?

Because a lot of this process fell prey to nepotism and skipping over rungs on the ladder. Some managed to deal with it with more grace than others, as can be seem with Charles Robert and Louis II, both kings of Hungary. Charles Robert fought in the first battle he led in person at 24, and managed to barely win it. From what we know, he recognized he was a much better strategist (I'd say a prodigy at it, or he had some advisor that was one) and left the leading of subsequent battles to his nobles.

Louis II. led his first battle at 20, refused to listen to any of his advisors when they told him to get a horse more suited to terrain and promptly drowned in a swamp when he tried to retreat. The battle (Mohacs 1526) he commanded was fought with some intelligence in spite of that and came down to the wire, and was ultimately lost.

[Mr Blobby]

On the 'why were so many commanders idiots?', I'd argue it's less nepotism and more the perils of rank/status. Often, the most senior noble would command, or failing that the person who brought the most troops. This is parodied in Discworld's Jingo, where Lord Rust ends up in command due to a) seniority in noble rank and b) 'his ability to afford several thousand funny hats' even though anyone with a iota of military experience or even common sense knows he's completely terrible a choice.

It's why kings/princes took to the field more often than their actual skill level dictated. They had the rank to shut up the most peevish and haughty noble (usually). The wiser ones (who knew their lack of military skill) would often take a decent commander with them and defer to their 'advice'.

Charles Robert and Louis had to go on campaign because it's a fair chance half of the Hungarian nobles would have refused to follow with their forces some able but lowly-ranked commander.

[Brother Oni]

Further to Martin's excellent post, the medieval period covers a very long time frame and there were significant changes throughout this.

As an example, Henry I of England (1068-1135) had the nickname "Beauclerc", meaning 'fine scholar', supposedly for the unusual ability for a King of that period to able to read and write in Latin (sources may vary).

It should also be remembered that cultural and technological development throughout Europe was very uneven, with central Europe being the leaders and England being very much a backwater until about the Renaissance period (between the 14th and 17th Century, depending on country).

[Mr Blobby]

That might have been partly a desire to find a 'distinguishing feature' in Henry, as his two elder brothers [Robert and William] were much more of the devil-may-care, fighting/hunting/looting/drinking stamp which was the House of Normandy. The fact he was fourth in line on birth and third on the death of his father also suggests Henry may have been slated for the Church [which would have required knowledge of Latin].

Speaking of which, high-ranking boys seemed to often be given an personal instructor than the normal apprentice system. Henry, for example appeared to have a 'Robert Achard' as his. However, it might be quite possible that this Achard was not just his teacher, but also bodyguard and general minder.

Anyway, one thing Martin didn't mention was that as Europe entered the early Renaissance [14th Cen] nobles/royalty would get more access to Greco-Roman military history. To study 'the Ancients' and how they campaigned; this would be of more utility than you'd think because the basics of European warfare only changed in the rudiments with the advent of gunpowder. This, coupled with the low technical level, smallish size of forces, general inability for sustained campaigns and relatively poor quality of forces meant that often a simple application of a few maxims and a good dollop of common sense would usually suffice for anything not a siege.

Lastly, we need to remember that in this period, there was always conflict. Bandits, border raids, rebellions and such like. It was not uncommon for a feuding noble to settle dispute with a fellow with the point of a sword, sometimes to the point of siegeing each other - so most would be at least familiar with the bare rudiments of fighting. There's also hunting, which encouraged decent horsemanship and physical fitness.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Speaking of which, high-ranking boys seemed to often be given an personal instructor than the normal apprentice system. Henry, for example appeared to have a 'Robert Achard' as his. However, it might be quite possible that this Achard was not just his teacher, but also bodyguard and general minder.

It's an attractive alternative particularly if there is no friendly court with a perceived standing higher than your own to which to send your son as a page and/or squire. We can't have the prince growing up thinking of someone lesser than himself as his superior and an authority figure after all. By taking a teacher into your own court you can appoint someone wise and respectable, maybe an old family friend, a wandering priest/scholar/poet of good reputation or a knight from one of the religious military orders, while waving the requirement that he is of higher standing (and has a big ass luxurious palace to house the kid in).

[Martin Greywolf]

On the 'why were so many commanders idiots?', I'd argue it's less nepotism and more the perils of rank/status.

I mean, it gets a bit murky - nepotism is picking someone based on connections rather than ability, but this is a period where one of those connections (family) determines your rank. Bottom line is, you usually see this happen when someone is put into position of leadership before completeing the knight journeyman... journey.

As for Louis and Charles Robert, details are more complicated. Charles Robert did compete knight journeyman thingy, and in his case, commanding Rozhanovce was most likely to prove to nobles he can do it - but his supporters weer perfectly fine with following him before in some numbers, he was fighting for Hungarian crown since he was 13. The salient point is that he waited until he knew what he was doing.

Louis on the other hand was begged by his advisors - who were nobles - to not command the army at Mohacs at all, he just refused to listen to all advice, being all gung-ho about chivalrous victory where he would lead the charge. The contrast with a more thoughtful, strategic approach of Charles Robert is apparent.

As an example, Henry I of England (1068-1135) had the nickname "Beauclerc", meaning 'fine scholar', supposedly for the unusual ability for a King of that period to able to read and write in Latin (sources may vary).

That might have been partly a desire to find a 'distinguishing feature' in Henry, as his two elder brothers [Robert and William] were much more of the devil-may-care, fighting/hunting/looting/drinking stamp which was the House of Normandy. The fact he was fourth in line on birth and third on the death of his father also suggests Henry may have been slated for the Church [which would have required knowledge of Latin].

This is just my opinion, but I'm guessing that all higher ranking nobles from about 900 onwards could read somewhat competently - but reading and writing is one thing, being able to compose fromal letters in latin with all the proper titles and phrases (which were incredibly specific in church correspondence) is quite another feat. Most of these nobles would therefore employ some kind of church-latin-educated guy to handle their correspondence, and tell them that the next noble over had, in fact, insulted them when he addressed them as "your noble grace" instead of "your most noble grace".

Being able to handle this formal correspondence on your own would be pretty unusual throughout the middle ages, getting you monikers like "the Scholar" or "the Learned".

Speaking of which, high-ranking boys seemed to often be given an personal instructor than the normal apprentice system. Henry, for example appeared to have a 'Robert Achard' as his. However, it might be quite possible that this Achard was not just his teacher, but also bodyguard and general minder.

This was extremely rare and only reserved for the highest of ranks, at least for permanent teachers. What you saaw fairly commonly for the less excessively rich was hiring of people for short lessons. Fiore mentions teaching people like this in his treatise, and we know from tax records that his fencing school business boomed.

Anyway, one thing Martin didn't mention was that as Europe entered the early Renaissance [14th Cen] nobles/royalty would get more access to Greco-Roman military history. To study 'the Ancients' and how they campaigned; this would be of more utility than you'd think because the basics of European warfare only changed in the rudiments with the advent of gunpowder. This, coupled with the low technical level, smallish size of forces, general inability for sustained campaigns and relatively poor quality of forces meant that often a simple application of a few maxims and a good dollop of common sense would usually suffice for anything not a siege.

I've seen this argument, and I don't buy it. Some areas of Europe in Migration period maybe had this issue, but by high medieval period, not soo much. You had enough libraries spread around to access those military treatises, and in the East, many nobles went and studied in Byzantium, where you not only had access to them, but had new ones written even during the Migration period itself.

Even the army size wasn't as small. Sure, loosing Roman logistics network knocked down your reasonable army size from 100k max to 30k max, but that's still a lot of men. The major reason why you couldn't straight up apply De Re Militari to most high medieval armies was organization, they were simply built and trained very differently - and Vegetius is pretty damn fanciful in his treatise as well, we have no reason to believe that armies of any Roman period packed quite that amount of siege weaponry or had everyone proficient in slinging.

Lastly, we need to remember that in this period, there was always conflict.

Not quite true locally, but as far as Europe as a whole goes, yeah. There was always some civil war going down somewhere, and nobles weren't above venturing to the other countries to win fame is their home was too stable for their liking. One example I saw quite a lot was a great number of both English and Hungarian nobles serving together as mercenaries, and often founding joint Anglo-Hungarian companies, in Italy in 1300-1350 period.

Oh, and Crusades were a thing, some of which were permanent. Again, forum rules say we can't go too in-depth on how they were organized and why nobles joined in.

[Mr Blobby]

This is just my opinion, but I'm guessing that all higher ranking nobles from about 900 onwards could read somewhat competently - but reading and writing is one thing, being able to compose fromal letters in latin with all the proper titles and phrases (which were incredibly specific in church correspondence) is quite another feat. Most of these nobles would therefore employ some kind of church-latin-educated guy to handle their correspondence, and tell them that the next noble over had, in fact, insulted them when he addressed them as "your noble grace" instead of "your most noble grace".

Being able to handle this formal correspondence on your own would be pretty unusual throughout the middle ages, getting you monikers like "the Scholar" or "the Learned".

We also need to remember that Henry was the first of the cohort raised as a Prince of England rather than a mere son of a Duke. The family's standing had risen, and it's quite likely he got a better-quality education to fit this.

I've seen this argument, and I don't buy it. Some areas of Europe in Migration period maybe had this issue, but by high medieval period, not soo much. You had enough libraries spread around to access those military treatises, and in the East, many nobles went and studied in Byzantium, where you not only had access to them, but had new ones written even during the Migration period itself.

Even the army size wasn't as small. Sure, loosing Roman logistics network knocked down your reasonable army size from 100k max to 30k max, but that's still a lot of men. The major reason why you couldn't straight up apply De Re Militari to most high medieval armies was organization, they were simply built and trained very differently - and Vegetius is pretty damn fanciful in his treatise as well, we have no reason to believe that armies of any Roman period packed quite that amount of siege weaponry or had everyone proficient in slinging.

What 'don't you buy', exactly? The only thing I'm going to dispute here is '30k armies'; most European 'states' could not afford this, the logistics would have been difficult in most regions and/or for long and the primitive staff officer system would have required a commander of exceptional skill to get to function well [or even at all]. Case in point; Crécy. The large size of the French army [perhaps the 30k mentioned] may have led to it's defeat because it was simply too large to command.

Though let us remember that chroniclers at this time seemed to suck at large numbers. I think it was - for example - utterly physically impossible for William the Bastard to raise ~750 ships and ~150k troops for his 'English expedition' in 1066.

Oh, and Crusades were a thing, some of which were permanent. Again, forum rules say we can't go too in-depth on how they were organized and why nobles joined in.

In the most general of terms, I think we'd say in modern parlance that nobles had a 'toxic culture'. That a 'good King' was one who managed to direct their malign attributes outwards rather than poisoning inwards, and a 'great King' one who also managed to get a benefit from it too.

[snowblizz]

Oh, and Crusades were a thing, some of which were permanent. Again, forum rules say we can't go too in-depth on how they were organized and why nobles joined in.

The Baltic crusades run by the Teutonic knights practised literal battlefield tourism. Nobles would come for a campaign season providing money and materiel and then go home again after their trip.

[Sapphire Guard]

Are there any good sources on being a shepherd in the pre-industrial era? As in, types of work that could be done alone, types that needed help, how big a herd one person with dogs could reasonably control, problems that could arise, and so on. It's a broad question I know, I'm just trying to fact check myself.

Any particular location or era is fine, but North Europe/Scandinavia for preference, I'm just trying to get an understanding of the kind of things that can be accomplished with one person and dogs without modern tools, assuming they're up on a mountain relatively alone with their flock, they can get seasonal labour as needed but day to day care and predator watch is done alone, with (a few) fences, paddocks and dogs. Is this a thing that happens or was it more likely to be groups rather than the unwanted younger son? Subsistence farming, all sheep products are consumed locally.

May be an impossible question, but y'all usually know a lot. I want my fantasy protagonist to actually get to do some farming before his life gets hijacked by mages.

[Martin Greywolf]

This is a question so incredibly specific I have to say, buy this book. There is little else you can do. One caveat I will give you is that if the original texts say "you should not do this", it usually does so because a significant amount of people did do the thing, and the author is trying to correct them. Kinda like Vegetius and "everyone should be a slinger".

Is this a thing that happens or was it more likely to be groups rather than the unwanted younger son? Subsistence farming, all sheep products are consumed locally.

Historically, this was always doen with groups. The way it works is you have a group with head shepherd, plus at least half a dozen people, and they gather the animals to be shepherded to pasture from all the locals, then eff off to the hills. They will send (usually) a pair of their number to the nearest village with some regularity (weekly, bi-weekly) to get supplies.

This is for a simple reason - doing this alone is pretty much a death sentence, and no one will give you their animals if you try, because they don't want you to die in a ditch because you caught dysentery, leaving all the animals quite literally to the wolves. Shepherding is also a semi-respected profession among the locals, not the least because shepherds know a lot about helping ainimals, and were, together with blacksmiths (for reasons I'd rather not digress into), the veterinarians of the day.

If you're looking for a job for an unpopular child that is liable to get him ostracized, and potentially killed, two come to mind. The first is a lookout on a watchtower or a watch hill - these were also done in groups, but considerably smaller ones, think two or three in really small villages. A position like this will only apply if there is some kind of danger to watch out for, but then it is respected again. A good solution is that there was, once upon a time, danger, and the local lord mandated that someone has to man the watchtowers. BUt the danger was soundly trounced and the edict was forgotten about, so now they man those watchtowers out of obligation they think is pointless.

Second job is a hunter. They also worked in teams, in case of proper professional hunters, but your guy can just supplement his family income with some small game, like birds, rabbits or squirrels. That means he spends the entire day out, sometimes maybe has to stay out a night. This is less of an outright murder simply because, should he not return in two days, you can go begrudgingly looking for him.

[KineticDiplomat]

Wow, lot of good topics.

Re:stealth communications. This generally breaks down into two categories in the public eye.

1. Lo Probability Intercept/Detect. As the name implies, this is focused on making communications that are hard to notice. The methods are various - wave form manipulation, wave length choices, or Line of Sight communications. Each sub tech has its own peculiar uses and limits, but generally speaking you need two out of three things for it to work: positions that are either fixed or have known relative positions, a large network of similar devices, and/or some pretty extensive work gone into making sure everyone and device is on the same page for technical details of execution. Suffice to say, if you're working with a large and regular organization with funding, this works just fine (ish). Drone swarm, plane to plane, a radio network on its own waveform for soldiers. Sure.

2. Burst transmission. Because the above is technically difficult, often has range/position constraints expensive, and requires lots of intra device and inter device (and by extension, organization) coordination, the other alternative is burst transmission. Generally speaking, the burst IS going to be detected if sent and the other side is playing competent nation state level EW defense. That's not the point. The point is you loaded all the information you needed ahead of time on the thing, and aren't there when it gets found. And because you know it's going to be found, you can broadcast over wide areas and in methods that require less technical excellence and coordination.

Of course, it is by definition a depleteable resource. You wouldn't use it if you thought you could stick around where you were sending it from. And of course it requires someone else be listening when you press send, so to speak. Which opens its own can of worms, since obviously anything using RF can be triangulated with active searches in the right mkde even if it's only in receive...

But. That should be enough for RPG rule sets

[halfeye]

Are there any good sources on being a shepherd in the pre-industrial era? As in, types of work that could be done alone, types that needed help, how big a herd one person with dogs could reasonably control, problems that could arise, and so on. It's a broad question I know, I'm just trying to fact check myself.

Any particular location or era is fine, but North Europe/Scandinavia for preference, I'm just trying to get an understanding of the kind of things that can be accomplished with one person and dogs without modern tools, assuming they're up on a mountain relatively alone with their flock, they can get seasonal labour as needed but day to day care and predator watch is done alone, with (a few) fences, paddocks and dogs. Is this a thing that happens or was it more likely to be groups rather than the unwanted younger son? Subsistence farming, all sheep products are consumed locally.

May be an impossible question, but y'all usually know a lot. I want my fantasy protagonist to actually get to do some farming before his life gets hijacked by mages.

Depends where, in Britain wolves were extinct fairly early, and bears earlier, so sheppard was a relatively cushy job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._British_Isles

[HeadlessMermaid]

Are there any good sources on being a shepherd in the pre-industrial era?

Depending on location and era, pastoralism (herding sheep, goats, cattle etc) can be nomadic, sedentary, or transhumant.

Nomadic pastoralism is where you take your herd to a pasture, deplete it, move on to the next one, deplete that, and so on. This can be a peaceful procedure, or an extremely violent one. It's somewhat unpredictable where you'll end up from year to year, you rely on sedentary people for some kinds of provisions that you can't produce yourself on the road, and in turn can sell and trade your own products, dairy and so on. There are entire cultures based on nomadic pastoralism.

Sedentary pastoralism is where your herd stays permanently on the same place. To do that, you need to have either very few animals (so you're probably a farmer with a handful of animals to complement your subsistance/income), or huge amounts of land (so typically a rich landlord owns it, and the shepherds are the people who do work for hire/by force; think England around ~1500 when, for the profit of wool and at the expense of the tenants, arable land was turned to pastures: this dramatically reduced the need for labour, and proportionally increased the number of destitute vagrants).

Transhumant pastoralism, or transhumance, is a middle ground, extremely common with sheep and goats though less ubiquitous with cattle. This is where you have a fixed summer pasture (generally on the highlands) and a fixed winter pasture (on the lowlands), and you migrate between them twice per year. You very rarely own both of them, and often you own none of them, though you could temporarily rent them. The peculiarities of transhumant pastoralism make the whole thing inextricably tied with a lot of things:

• rural banditry (you can read here about the Roman example; the gist of it applies for thousands of years before and after: shepherd equals bandit)
• rustling, blood feuds, and assorted displays of honour culture
• the custom of shepherds having a ton of kids, and the enduring myth/practice that if you abandon a baby in the wilderness it will surely be picked up by shepherds: this type of herding takes a lot of manhours, but most of the labour can be easily done by adolescents and even prepubescent children; so for shepherds, having many children is considered an asset rather than a "too many mouths to feed" burden

The nature of the labour: transhumant pastoralism needs permanent labour in a way that farming does not. Every single day, someone needs to gather the sheep, lead them to the pasture, stay with them all day long and keep them from getting lost, potentially protect them from rustlers/wolves/etc, and then, before nightfall, take them back behind a fence and lock them up. More intense and skilled labour is needed when it's time to slaughter animals, shear them, make cheese and yoghurt etc: these tasks take expertise, but straight herding can be done by children. How many workers you need depends entirely on the size of the herd. Is it 20 animals? 200? 2000? None of these is inconceivable.

Temporary work is less pronounced, and it may not be a thing at all. With farming, harvest is an "all hands on deck" situation, including hands that were doing nothing all year, or hands that weren't there at all but migrated specifically for harvest. With transhumant pastoralism, the day when sheep are sheared is a day when sheep are NOT led to the pasture, so you don't need more people, per se.

Family: When the family lives on the highlands, the migration down to the winter pastures often involves only the shepherds themselves, who live in makeshift huts or something, while their families (typically, wives and small children) stay back. It's a separation not unlike sailors going away for months. In other cases, everyone packs ups and moves, and makes a new home near the new pasture. In a few cases, you can even have an unofficial (but more or less silently accepted) bigamy, while in other societies polygamy is the norm anyway, and it's natural to have two permanent bases of operation, and even more children. But on the other hand, shepherd girls are far from unheard of, not just in the sense of making dairy products but also guarding the sheep and moving around as needed. Basically, the family arrangements vary wildly, and we can't make generalisations. We can only note how each arrangement works in the specific context of pastoralism.

For every case, you need to figure out who owns the pastures (if anyone does, because it's not a given). In pre-modern agriculture, fields need to stay fallow every second year (or thereabouts) to remain fertile. So an arrangement between farmers and shepherds can be made. On year 1, field A gets farmed, sowed and tended and harvested, field B lays fallow, and shepherds take their herds to field B which functions as a pasture. On year 2, field A lays fallow, field B gets farmed, and shepherds take their herds to field A. Quite a lot of people need to agree on terms here, and stick to them. Ye olde hostility between shepherds and farmers often begins in conflicts about such agreements, or lack thereof. The balance is very delicate and a single bad crop or month of bad weather can unmake it. Historically, transhumant pastoralism declines when (and where) modern agricultural methods come into play, and fields can yield crops every year, almost all year long. That leaves only the wilderness for the shepherds.

And of course, you need to figure out who owns the herds. Those who own the sheep and those who tend them might be the same people, or they might not. In transhumant pastoralism, both options are on the table.