Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- General Editor's Preface
- Dedication
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Mobilisation
- 2 Captains, retinue Leaders and Command
- 3 The Military Community
- 4 Recruitment Networks
- 5 Feudal Service and the Pre-contract Army
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- Warfare in History
4 - Recruitment Networks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- General Editor's Preface
- Dedication
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Mobilisation
- 2 Captains, retinue Leaders and Command
- 3 The Military Community
- 4 Recruitment Networks
- 5 Feudal Service and the Pre-contract Army
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- Warfare in History
Summary
A cautionary note must always be struck when attempting to apply abstract concepts and phrases to complex historical phenomena. Nevertheless, if we understand the term to mean a large society of frequent campaigners who were connected to one another through an extensive web of personal relationships, it does not seem inappropriate to suggest that there was a military community in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century England. Given its scale and the variety in rank and social status of its members, a full comprehension of the dynamics of that community is probably beyond the capacity of any historian working independently. Yet the evidence examined in chapter 3 demonstrates that there are sufficient data available to reach some informed conclusions about the patterns of service, length of careers and frequency of employment of a large number of men (particularly those of knightly status) who went to war under Edward I and his son. To gain a greater appreciation of the social bonds and personal networks that brought such men into the Crown's service, and to understand why so many individuals were prepared to risk life and limb on an almost annual basis throughout the years of heaviest campaigning from 1294 to 1314, it is now necessary to consider in greater detail the relations between the military leaders and the soldiers who followed them to war.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The English Aristocracy at WarFrom the Welsh Wars of Edward I to the Battle of Bannockburn, pp. 112 - 150Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008