>Medieval European soldiers are either knights or mercenaries.

>>2639259
Im sure levies were a thing. Or household guards.

>>2639300
>DUDE LORDS SENT UNTRAINED FARM HARVESTERS INTO BATTLE LMAO

>>2639259
Poor people weren't allowed to hold weapons. There were militias in the free cities like in parts of Italy or Germany, but outside those places it was just knights and later mercenaries. Nobody, in western Europe anyways, wanted to arm the same peasants that worked in their fields. It was both dangerous to the social order and economically unsound.

Permanent soldiers loyal to the state coming onto the scene in France is something of a milestone for the end of the middle ages.

>>2639317
The way soldiers were levied in medieval times is worlds different to the way it is done today.

You are deliberately trying to insult people that have called you out for being stupid.

File: German Medieval Armies 1300-1500-25 (2).jpg (171KB, 668x871px) Image search: [Google]

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>>2639259
Of course there were professional soldiers who served for pay or feudal obligation. Problem was, they were expensive and hence there were only too few of them serving in a permanent basis for much of the medieval ages. In addition those who were soldiers could opt to leave service and become a mercenary for someone else. So there's really a nebulous border between permanent soldiers and mercenaries since either of the two could become the other.

The other kind of soldier was the Militia. These tended to be raised in Urban centers since many medieval cities tended not to be feudal holdings and as a result they didn't have knights or lords protecting their asses. So instead the citizens defend themselves by buying weapons and armor and organizing themselves into militias, acquiring military experience via periodic drilling or patrolling the streets as law enforcers. Usually they defend their cities, but at wartime, they could also beef up a realm's army by falling in with the lords, their knights, and professional soldiers. They weren't pushovers, as the battles of Legnano and Golden Spurs showed.

>>2639329
>Poor people weren't allowed to hold weapons.
Lmao, there were very few ordnances against holding weapons in Medieval Europe. Especially in Italy or German.

>>2639329
I'm assuming you mean after the 100 years war?
Yeah King Charles VII established the first "national" army. But it wasn't the first army. lords and manors and much of the sort had levies and trained soldiers.

The idea that everyone who wasn't a noble or merchant was a peasant is highly false. Surfs without a doubt were high in number and land was very much so rented out to farmers but that did not prevent these people from being trained and armed upon demand.

If a lad was strong and showed potential he was not ignored the ability to prove his worth with a weapon. Though it was very rare for peasants to become knights or free commissioned mercs, it most certainly did happen.

File: SAY VIVE LA FRANCE ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME MOTHERFUCKER I DARE YOU.jpg (111KB, 733x854px) Image search: [Google]

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>>2639317
>DUDE LORDS SENT UNTRAINED FARM HARVESTERS INTO BATTLE LMAO
>>2639329
>Nobody, in western Europe anyways, wanted to arm the same peasants that worked in their fields. It was both dangerous to the social order and economically unsound.

They did exist and they were not covered in mud and armed with pitchforks

Peasants in the middle ages were often capable soldiers.

If you look at England, for example, you can find examples such as the Assize of Arms of 1181 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181) which obligated freemen (themselves often farmers) and city dwellers to have in their possession arms and armour befitting their wealth.

Because I know none of you fucks will read that link, here are the appropriate parts:

>2. Moreover, every free layman who possesses chattels or rents to the value of 16m. shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance; and every free layman possessing chattels or rents to the value of 10m. shall have a hauberk, an iron cap, and a lance.[note 2]
>3. Item, all burgesses and the whole community of freemen shall have [each] a gambeson,[note 3] an iron cap, and a lance.

Also:

>7. Item, no Jew shall keep in his possession a shirt of mail or a hauberk, but he shall sell it or give it away or alienate it in some other way, so that it shall remain in the king's service.

Henry II was redpilled as fuck on the Zionist conspiracy.

Also note the Saxon Fyrd system, which mandated that EVERY freeman and boy capable of bearing arms do so when requested by the lord on whose land he lives and as such the King (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyrd). These levies formed the core of Harold Godwinson's armies in 1066, and formed the basis for the militia system later codified in mediaeval England.

>>2639510
Wasn't there a system, at least in one part of Europe, where the king would basically tell each of his landed nobles that they were responsible for showing up x amount of fighting men each, from wherever the fuck they can, and it was up to them to make sure they were armed and armored?

Can't recall where I remember that from.

>>2639510
I think in context of medieval Europe a peasant would be a serf. It would be expected for the free yeoman to form the bulk of the army (as they did practically everywhere until the rise of professional armies) while the bulk of the peasantry wouldn't have fought

>>2639532
>bulk of peasantry wouldn't have fought
literally false. Longbow men are a perfect example.

Professional armies were not erected until the Renaissance. Its a common misconception that the middle ages are extended into the 1500's or even 1400's for that matter when in reality it is a scholarly accepted fact that the end of the 14th century marks the end of the middle ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.

The first Professional army noted was King Charles VII of France's after the 100 years war but even then we know this force to be decimated some years later in the Italian wars.

>>2639532
>I think in context of medieval Europe a peasant would be a serf.

A 'peasant' is just any common man of the land, free or otherwise. In most places throughout Europe most commoners were villeins, in some places (south-eastern England especially), many were free tenants. Serfdom as a whole also decreased over time (dropping spectacularly in prominence after the Black Death).

Being a freeman versus a villein was just a difference in legal condition. Freemen still were generally tenants on the lands of manorial lords, and were still generally farmers alongside serfs, they just had more rights by not having either entered into or been born into a bond of serfdom.

>It would be expected for the free yeoman to form the bulk of the army (as they did practically everywhere until the rise of professional armies) while the bulk of the peasantry wouldn't have fought

A yeoman is a VERY different thing from a freeman or a villein. A yeoman is a landholding title just below that of nobility, and while yeomen were themselves freemen, very few freemen were yeomen, and yeomen and villeins are completely different.

>>2639259
Highwaymen, robber knights. Read a book somewhere