What would be an approprate comparison between...

[rrgg]

This question was brought up in some Rome vs Medieval argument I was having earlier.
What would be an appropriate comparison between Roman and Medieval/dark age militaries in terms of equipment?


The position was that a hypothetical battle should involve a large number of well-equipped legionaries against mostly unarmed peasants with only a couple of knights or well armed individuals. But would this view be justified by anything other than the fact that the Roman Empire had a much larger population and a much larger economy than the average Medieval kingdom?

If you were to take a random sample of Roman society and a random sample of a medieval kingdom of say, 1000 people each, who would have the most well-equipped individuals? Would the proportion of legionaries be overwhelming or would they more on par with the number of housecarls or knights?


Though I realize that it's sort of a broad question and the answer might vary greatly depending on the era of Roman or Medieval history as well as the medieval kingdom in question, so it might be better to look at specific times.

[Medicus matt]

Firstly, the idea that an early medieval (please, not 'Dark Age') military force would contain any (let alone a high proportion of) unarmed peasants is just wrong, at least in England.
Contrary to popular opinion (which is based on a late 19th/early 20th century fantasy)the 'Fyrd' of the 10th/11th century was made up of land-holders and their personal retinues, all of whom had to be equipped and trained to a certain standard. Yes the majority were probably Churls/Ceorls but these were still landed farmers/freemen; men of means with spear, shield, helm and mail shirt and the training to use them. Not peasants armed with pointed sticks.

As to the random sample question...
If you take a conservative estimate of the population fo the Empire at it's 2nd century peak as being 65 million, and then estimate the size of the army (both regulars and auxilliaries) as being 500,000 then a sample of 1000 would produce 8 armed individuals.
Population of England in the 11th century is estimated at 2 million. There are about 250,000 named individual male landowners mentioned in Doomsday. As these are all landowners of one degree or another, they all owe military service for 2 months of the year and would all have a minimum of spear, shield, helm and byrnie at home. So, that's going to be 125 armed men in a sample of 1000 people. Obviously they're not going to be as well disciplined or trained as the 8 romans, but I reckon they'd be in with a good chance. :wink:

[Robert Vermaat]

This question was brought up in some Rome vs Medieval argument I was having earlier.
What would be an appropriate comparison between Roman and Medieval/dark age militaries in terms of equipment?
[..]
it might be better to look at specific times.

You alrerady answered your first question - which times do you wish to compare? Add to that the regions which you want compared.
For instance, if you would comapare a Roman army of the late 4th century to a Frankish army of the 6th century, the answer would be; hardly any difference.
But if you'd compare a Roman army of the 3rd century BC to an 11th c. Late Saxon army, or perhaps to a Russian army of the same date, the answer would be: hardly comparable.

[Gaius Colletti]

I have taken a few classes on the Middle Ages, and my impression of the time, especially in the Crusades, is that the medieval armies simply did not have the same military discipline, the Roman's employed. How many Christian armies were lost over and over because they were stubborn and failed to adapt to the Muslim fighting style. The Christian armies do not get most of the credit they deserve, they won several key victories, and were able to hold the Holy Land and neighboring ports for decades or longer despite being totally dependent on mostly Italian trading ships for supplies, but several key battles they lost were due to completely incompetent commanders, who more than once, camped out in the middle of the desert, and were surrounded by the morning.

The Roman fighting style was superior in the fact that they were trained to fight armies who often employed long swords and two handed weapons. Medieval armies at the time were much much smaller than the legions combined (understandable since the Roman Empire was much larger), I do not believe any country kept a standing army of 200,000 until Louis XIV of France in the late 17th Century, well passed the medieval times

[Buster]

Well medieval is a very broad and comprehensive term. Also, "dark age", or early middle ages, usually refers to the time period from the fall of rome until about 1000 AD, while the "middle ages" or high middle ages refers from about 1000 to 1450 AD.

As to the military capabalities, you'd have to narrow the medieval army to a specific time or place. For example, a first century Roman army would likely be more than a match for 9th century Vikings or Saxons..
Although against a 1350's English army, the Roman force would likely lose. The Romans would have better orginization, but the English would have armoured knights (with strirrups, lances and longswords), longbows, cannon, considerably more advanced armour, and superior technology in general.
The English army would likely consist of Archers, mounted knights, and dismounted knights and men-at-arms. (no unarmed peasants.)
A first century Roman army would have been primairly an infantry force, supported by light cavalary and perhaps auxullary archers and slingers.
I don't know how well a longbow arrow would penetrate a scutum, though I'd geusse a charge by the knights would cause havoc on a Roman formation. The Romans never faced such armoured cavalry with stirrups and lances, as it didn't exist in the ancient world. The closest thing would probably be the Sassian cavalry the Romans faced (and lost against) in the late Empire.

[Proximus]

Ok, I think we will have to recenter things.

Let's say medieval times in the common idea of Middle Ages. Let's say 1200-1300 in occidental europe, like France or England... Or Germany (Holy Roman Empire)

First, the army were not disorganized in the middle ages. At least big armies for big battles.

We must know medieval armies were well trained and armed, depending of the social rank and money of the soldier.

You could count on shield (normand, round or "écu") and spears or swords, helms and a half or less of chainmail. Padded armour were good too. Heavy and straight lines. And that's for the footmen. Horsemen where knights or richer men. Chainmail, great helms and padded armour for the horse for the heaviers.

Discipline was good but depended of the battle. (small or huge)

About crusaders : Yes, they speak about disorder and failure. But not more or less than Crassus against parthian. Legion where not adapted and did not adapt and never had skin of parthian nor Sassanid in five century ! They had to wait for arabs invasions to see the big empire of the east beeing defeted. Parthian where divided and roman take their chances more than once, but has been cruched enough.

Disorder was not the rule for crusaders, as it was not for roman in the east.

Now, we have an other problem : big battles, European medieval men saw one in a life time. And when I say big battles i mean battle engaging more than 5000 men.

Small battles where the rule. A lord did not agree with an other lord and bang.

Those battles were less spectacular (200, 300 men generaly) and has a lots of implicit codes. For exemple :

Knights fought each other but did not fought the footmen (generaly). The reason is knights knew each other quite well and fought to win more than to kill. The kind of war Ancient greek hoplitai had if I may say. When they agree they had lost, then the battle was over. But knights did not let them trap by footmen of the other side, because they knew there was not this "family" ambiance. A knight trapped by footmen was killed.

The sources I have (secondary, from a lot of books analysing medieval knighthood) are formal : there was not a lot of died men from the knights in those little battles. For them, it was like an "exercise" and they prefered honor than to kill, having the land of the other lord but failing keeping the honor in front of the other knights. Of course it was important for them, but not enough to loose life and/or honor either.

Sometimes there was a dead or two in those battles but it was not a rule. From the footmen it was a bit more (kind of 5 to 10 percent) but not more too.

In this kind of ambiance you could say the order and the martial strenght was not good.

But when a king or an emperor or a lot of them reunited their men, it had to be ordered and disciplined. I won't say it was like romans because romans has an "aura" of order and discipline, but they were in good order and battles were deadly (against "infidels" or against enemy of the king).

Question of martial techniques, as far as I know, you would have :

First side : Roman. (end of republic area).

- Small independant groupes able to take initiatives but fall back in place quickly and advance in order and with flexibility, able to attack at distance beforge charging or waiting the charge of the enemy. Equiped with blades privileging thrust and good shield protection and armour protection (mails, helmet and maybe greaves)
- Small group of archers and flingers harrassing ennemy from behind the lines
- Skirmishers harassing enemy lines before the battles and softening the ranks of the enemy
- Rapid Auxiliary cavalery for pursuing the fleeing enemy or outflank them.
- Light "Siege" weapons.

Second side :

- Ordered and straight lines of pikemen and swordmen with shield, chainmail or padded armour (heavy and strong) and helmet.
- Light cavalery to the flank to pursue the fleeing enemy and protect the footmen lines
- Heavy cavalry to charge the enemy (like parthian... horses a little less heavy though because padded armour is less effective than padded armour plus lammelar armour), with lance, shield, heavy head protection (great helmet+iron cap). Could lose the shield for a two handed weapon ("glaive", two handed sword, etc..)
- A good proportion of archer and/or crossbowmen with protection and one handed sword.
- Siege weapons were less used in the battle field but they had some multy-shot weapons and other great stuff. But it is anecdotical I think.

Of course, you have both side less armed and armoured people but we get the idea.

Now, it depend if you fight keeping the population proportions or not. It seems to me medieval times are realy less crowded than Ancient times so as we say in french : "That's where roman grapple each other"... ("C'est là où les romans s'empoignèrent...")

It means now the serious things begins.

[Kai]

What would be an appropriate comparison between Roman and Medieval/dark age militaries in terms of equipment?

Reiterating Robert's point: what do you want to compare and why? Only after you defined the answers to these questions as clearly as possible you can start comparing.
It sounds self-important to say, I know, but an historical comparison between two subjects seperated by centuries is a very, very difficult affair and most people simply fail. I do not exclude me from that btw.
Such comparisons not only require expertise in both subjects you want to compare and you need a methodical understanding of how to compare. The latter is the most difficult about that. There is a great volume of essays edited by Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen Kocka on this: Geschichte und Vergleich. Ansätze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung, 1996.

There is also an English article by Haupt, but I have not read it, so I can only guess from the title that it could be interesting:
Haupt: Comparative History, in: Neil J. Smelser et al. (Ed.): International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Amsterdam 2001, vol. 4, pp. 2397–2403.


My impression may be wrong, Henry, but this discussion of yours on TWC is not exactly fruitful, at least not as far I have read it (I just had to stop it...). Most I have read was people telling each other that they know about the subject and that the other does not (to put it very nicely).

regards
Kai

[rrgg]

You alrerady answered your first question - which times do you wish to compare? Add to that the regions which you want compared.
For instance, if you would comapare a Roman army of the late 4th century to a Frankish army of the 6th century, the answer would be; hardly any difference.
But if you'd compare a Roman army of the 3rd century BC to an 11th c. Late Saxon army, or perhaps to a Russian army of the same date, the answer would be: hardly comparable.

Well, which times do you know about? :wink:
I'd prefer to get a general idea but if I had to choose I'm most interested in the post-Marian legions compared to the dark age Franks and Vikings or the western powers of the high middle ages such as England and France.


@Kai
From my experience such discussions rarely are, particularly when one side is convinced that longbows can pierce through an inch of steel while the other is convinced that the Romans were completely invincible.

[Robert Vermaat]

I'm most interested in the post-Marian legions compared to the dark age Franks and Vikings or the western powers of the high middle ages such as England and France.

OK, that's a start, otherwise this discussion would be going backward and forward without a real aim.

From my experience such discussions rarely are, particularly when one side is convinced that longbows can pierce through an inch of steel while the other is convinced that the Romans were completely invincible.

So what is your aim? Because if this thread is set up just to prove that one of these views is wrong, I'm going to move the whole discussion to the OT section, where it would be better placed.

Convince me this is a serious discussion of the Roman army.

[Sardaukar]

If we'd compare early Medieval armies to Roman Principate (or early Imperial) Legions, one can easily deduct that early Medieval Armies were very much smaller.

It was apparently rare for early Medieval Army to contain even 5000 troops, whereas Romans rarely went to war with only one legion.

So, In straight comparison, Romans would have 3-4 times more men, maybe even more including auxiliaries, supporting artillery and logistics that allowed them to remain on field longer than enemy. So in this case they'd clearly win.