So, I know there has been a lot of discussions about this, but I read a few quite different conclusions... One theory is that majority of men on the battlefield are simple soldiers with little or no metal body armor, shield, spear and a hand weapon. Other theory is that such men were not really useful on the field of battle and they were usually left behind as reserves and the real fighting was done by wealthier soldiers with decent protective equipment. This theory also states that such men were not as few in numbers as the first theory states. I have no access to much first hand accounts of battles and ones I have read don't really talk much about the role of lower status soldiers on the battlefield. I'm mostly interested in the mail armor era, but info about the age of plate is also welcome. What are your thoughts about the subject?

There are regulations for required armament, the Swiss for example asked for their troops to wear mail during the Burgundian Wars. As a result a group of men had a mail shirt and one guy took that shirt and went on war. If more guys were mobilized, well, mail was in short supply, leading to a discrepance between official demands and true equipment. If you look at the Scots of Robert de Bruce, they had as minimum equipment an iron helmet and a gambeson. The front ranks were stiffened with heavily armoured men-at-arms. For example in the Battle of Flodden Field different blocks of the Scottish army wore differing degrees of armour, but all tried to fight in the same manner.

Ok, I will narrow the question a bit. Let's take a few situations. 1066 Hastings and Stamford bridge (big important battles, armies assembled for either national defence or big invasion, Saxon huscarls, Hardrada's and other jarl's huscarls, and norman knights were I would say well armored, but what about regular fyrd, norman and breton infantry and Hardrada's lower status infantry?), 1214 Bouvines (also big, important battle, how were typically equipped HRE infantry, Anglo-Norman infantry, French infantry?). So that is period of 11th to 13th century, melee infantry, not skirmishers or archers, armies assembled for battles of great importance.
The second period - melee infantry, but not dismounted men at arms, in battles of 14th and maybe early 15th century (English infantry in scottish wars, French and English infantry in early HYW, early Swiss infantry in their battles with Austrians, typical HRE infantry in their constant wars between Emperor, Counts, town leagues...)

Isn't Stamford Bridge the battle where the Norwegians were caught off guard and did not have their metal armour ready?
You have the Bayeux tapestry for the Norman and Saxon army, but is the percentage of armour shown corresponding to the true distribution?
Regulations on the other hand might tell you the minimum armour required per social standing, but in a country with frequent wars or an unstable condition of external and internal affairs, people might consider engagement in battle a very certain part of life and thus have prepared themselves for better survival.
We have a nice report from the crusades where in a case of emergency pots were turned helmets, and blankets into organic body armour, but none of this kind I know of for the battles you refer to.

I think you'd see a lot of soft armor (cloth, leather, etc) among the general bulk of an army

In most of the accounts of soldiers fighting completely unarmored which I've read, they were doing so as an intentional/traditional statement of fearlessness, not out of poverty, although of course the opposite extreme (full metallic harness) was definitely reserved for the wealthy

padded cloth was very effective vs light weaponry but lets face it, not very aesthetically pleasing/romantic compared to other types of armor, probably something artists are quick to forget about, nobody wants to die dressed like the Michelin man at reenactments either

Excellent question if left rather broad (perhaps intentionally?), and also excellent answers.
I look forward to seeing this thread evolve.

Kurt,

I am not sure that is entirely true. There has been research done showing that there was actually a fair deal of armour in use by the Swiss from period inventories. (See Winkler's PhD thesis for example). So I think it is perhaps dangerous to make the commonly held notion regulations are done because people do not oblige them. The same is said about many regulations ancient to now and I think this concept is often shown not much more than an untrue stereotype.

There has been similar comments regarding commoners and arms/armour ownership in England. When I began looking through their inventories it seemed that most went far past the minimum requirements for arms and armour ownership. I think kingdom and other legislature that gives minimum requirements was much more efficient than most realize. In part because how the system works. 1-4 times a year a local official was required to make rounds and check. We have records of this taking place. They have incentive to do this as they make money off it. The fine being much higher than simply paying for the minimum arms and armour. Money than as it is now is a powerful motivator.

I have found similar accounts in many countries. Seems to have been a fairly common system and many of the inventories I have been able to find show once again a fair amount of martial equipment was owned, often far exceeding the demands.

RPM

Thanks Mr. Curtis. And I wasn't trying to disqualify missile troops, I just wasn't interested in their equipment as much as that of melee infantry. :)

i would like to ask about the prevelence of metallic armour (more specifically maille since that was the main armour type for them) during the viking period (800-1000AD) in scandinavia, and/ or anglo saxon england.

ive heard figures something like there being maybe 1 person in a thousand, or even as low as one in 5000 combatants from my fellow reenactors (varangian guardsmen) ill be honest i cant remember the exact figure but itw as ridiculously low
i however find such a low prevalence a bit hard to swallow
was maille armour really that expensive and/or uncommon?

Bog finds from Denmark, interpreted as deposits of battle trophies, seem to indicate that about 10 percent of a force was armored (in a mailshirt). That agrees with other estimates I've heard over the years, though I honestly don't know what sort of documentation might back that up. Probably the Saxon fyrd system was at least this good, and I would guess that professional forces like housecarls would have a higher percentage of armored men. I think 1 armored man in 10 is also indicated by requirements for Viking vessels.

I really don't think there is much to indicate that men with just spears and shields would be relegated to non-combat roles, though it was certainly normal for the more heavily armored men to be in the front ranks. I also don't think we should assume the presence of non-metallic armor unless there is some reference to it, such as in the 12th and 13th century Assize of Arms. Viking-era lists and stories all talk about helmets and shields and mail, with almost nothing that can be positively identified as organic armor.

So yes, I agree that 1 in 1000 is WAY too low!

Matthew

Hmm. Ran across a blog post with several extracts from medieval illustrations of infantrymen. Apparently, if we go by the art, full armour was relatively uncommon but partial armour was very common, especially in later periods.

they also mentioned the price of a mail shirt in anglo saxon/ viking times being either 8 or 16 cows worth