Gargaune
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,445
Of course those dudes fought, it's what they did. The feudal nobility governed lands in peacetime and fought in wars. Civilian levies weren't raised for every border skirmish, but whenever there was fighting, there were definitely nobles doing it, often cavalry in full armour, chain up to the 14th century and increasingly plate thereafter. Aside from them, you've got the other "professional" armies in the form of mercenary companies, often landless noble scions looking for opportunities but not exclusively. Their lords might command from the back or lead from the front, but the nobility was always getting action in engagements.And even then, those were donned by people who could afford a full armor set, and that kinda dude never really fought in wars with the rest of the armies. Medieval conscription was mostly made out of farmers who lived in the land of a lord. Professional armies are a moden age thing (15th century onwards)
Yep, this is correct, swords were primarily a backup weapon. Prior to the adoption of plate armour around the 14th century onwards, infantry are primarily using spears, and after that you start seeing more polearms. As a rule of thumb, for combatants in plate, one-handed weapons are for horseback and two-handed are for fighting on-foot.Swords were used in medieval times, but as a sidearm for the most part. Meaning the soldier would carry a primary weapon usually, like a spear, bow, axe, and in some cases a sword as a sidearm.