Anyone know what a typical peacetime garrison would be for a medieival castle of medium size?

There were more posts on this in Castle Quest but as normal they seem to have vanished.

This one is the best I could find right now.

 

CQ post by Erik

 

A point to note, the military 'structure' in the middle ages was very different from what developed later, and in fact most castles were, amongst many other functions, primarily the fortified home of the local lord. The castle may have had one or more knights living there also, and often a small garrison of castle guards, but they were rarely used solely to house a large garrison of men, this development came later. It had already happened earlier also. The Romans had professional armies and housed them in camps during campaign, sometimes wooden, sometimes stone.

Many castles were, after the 15th century, converted to house soldiers, and soldiers were often stationed in cannon forts, and therefore it was the garrison that reappeared with the changing military structure. It was simply convenient and safer to house them within new or existing stone fortifications.

Erik

 

This has always been one of my questions as to why there is so little knowledge on the net pertaining to the garrisons stationed in castles.

In the UK we know the size of the military garrisons depended on several factors, peace, war times, size of the holdings belonging to the castle and many other things, the numbers and logistics are known facts in history so why so little info  :Questions:

 

If someone has information on sites or books pertaining to this I'd really like to know.  :nod:

Santiago,

 

Interesting question, and a relevant one as well.

 

This has always been one of my questions as to why there is so little knowledge on the net pertaining to the garrisons stationed in castles.

In the UK we know the size of the military garrisons depended on several factors, peace, war times, size of the holdings belonging to the castle and many other things, the numbers and logistics are known facts in history so why so little info?

 

I think the earlier quote you offered might lead us in the right direction, Duncan:

 

A point to note, the military 'structure' in the middle ages was very different from what developed later, and in fact most castles were, amongst many other functions, primarily the fortified home of the local lord...

 

That’s actually a pretty weighted statement. There is much we can piece together by knowing a simple little fact such as the castle was “primarily the fortified home of the local lord.” Such a fact carries with it a vast amount of details. If we look closely at the administrative and household staff that would have been required for the castle to be the home of the local lord, we can get a good look at what a typical medieval “garrison” would consist of. I can think of a handful of primary and secondary sources either on the net or my bookshelf that I could sift through, but it is late, so I’ll start looking tomorrow.

 

Santiago, welcome to the forum, btw! Your log-in name immediately brings to mind the Spanish crusaders of the Order of Santiago

 

--David :sheildsmile:

castles were, amongst many other functions, primarily the fortified home of the local lord...

 

My knowledge and study area of castles is primarily the UK and more specifically of Scotland and Ireland where for the most part becouse of the many tower houses this statement seems to be more relevant then in other parts of the world.

 

Yes I have been able to locate bits and bobs about individual castles during certain periods of history and perhaps this topic has been just overlooked on the net for some reason.

Sorry for the grumbles but to me its a glaring hole in all castle studies.

Lets try to reconstruct the household of a typical medieval castle. This way we can make a rough determination how many people capable or specially trained to be a fighting hand would be present. Of course, a household staff would be different from place to place and time to time, especially when we bear in mind that western Europe is a pretty big chunk of land, and the medieval period covers a whole lot of time.

 

For our purposes, I’m going to consider an English castle in the late 12th century. First of all, England in the 12th century is the best match to Ganshof’s theories concerning feudalism: vassalage was somewhat well defined in a hierarchical structure, and the castle lord was at least present enough to the local manors to influence land economy. (Vassalage and fiefs were not always so well defined according to Ganshof’s theories in other places in western Europe or other times in the medieval period... in fact, we see a much more complex system emerge after the turn of the 13th century.)

 

There was a basic division between the military (mesnie) and household staff. The size of the staff would greatly depend on the wealth of the castle lord.

 

It would appear that the lord of Chepstow castle had a mesnie, consisting of the castellan, porter and about 15 to 20 watchmen. The castellan was in charge of governing the castle’s defense and seeing to preparedness. While the position was to evolve in the later medieval period into the proxy of a powerful noble in his absence, the castellan seems to have been responsible for general engineering and quartering in the mid-12th century. The porter was officially charged with keeping the outer door of the castle, but his primary responsibility would be managing, training and equipping the watchmen. The watchmen were for the most part peasants fulfilling an obligation to spend so many weeks or months for the lord as castle watchmen, as they would have fulfilled any other manorial duty. Historians such as Bachrach, however, have theorized that these individuals may have been professional soldiers in their own right, and possibly “combat engineers” specializing in siege engines. This argument has some merit, seeing as how medieval siege weapons, and even infantry combat, would require a degree of trained skill hard to reconcile with a general levy of peasant farmers or craftsmen.

 

I think that only one knight living in any given castle is a bit too meager of an estimate. Duby points outs out in William Marshal; The Flower of Chivalry that “young men,” knights without land or marriage, were very numerous. They would, of course, like William the Marshal did on more than one occasion, seek out the patronage of a landed noble. They would often trade their military services (which would have mostly consisted of representing the castle lord in tourneys) in exchange for food, shelter, and all the amenities of noble life. Tourney teams, as described in 12th century accounts, consisted of no less than six knights, but usually a dozen, leading me to conjecture that the typical castle lord of medium wealth would have six to twelve “young” knights in his employ.

 

Also, we learn from William the Marshal’s initial training under the tutelage of his father’s first cousin, William of Tancarville. William of Tancarville was the chamberlain of the king of England, and had over 94 knights under his banner. It is apparent that William Marshal was accompanied by a large crowd of others undergoing training as well. It can be safe to conservatively assume that the number of pupils probably exceeded 50, and a more liberal estimate might place this number over 100. Of course, William of Tancarville was a powerful noble, but there is no reason to believe that lesser nobles of very minimal means, without more than a manner house and a small fief of their own, wouldn’t send their sons to a noble of medium means with a castle to prepare their boys for a life of knighthood. Thus we can conservatively estimate that there would be at least a dozen boys being trained in the martial arts at a castle of medium wealth.

 

Just considering the mesnie, we have a rough estimate of:

• the castle lord
  
• one castellan
  
• one porter
  
• 20 watchmen
  
• approximately 12 “young” knights
  
• approximately 12 squires
  
• totaling approximately 47 fighting hands.
  

This only accounts for one half the castle staff. The other side of castle life would have included those charged with taking care of the household duties discharged by the castle lord. This would include the steward, the most important figure in the household staff as he was responsible for supervising his lord’s estates, being in charge of the knights under his lord’s banner, holding the lord’s courts, supervising local officials such as the bailiffs, and representing his lord in other courts, especially the king’s courts. The steward was almost always a knight of high standing, and thus can be safely added to the mesnie. (Into the 13th century, there would usually be two stewards, one that handled the lord’s affairs abroad and held court for his lord’s knights, and another steward, sometimes called a butler, that ordered and arranged the domestic staff and their duties.)

 

Their would be a domestic staff to cover the work of the pantry, larder, buttery and kitchen, all headed by a supervisor of sorts. Each of these people would certainly fight if threatened, and as their positions were permanent ones, I think we can safely add four more people to the mesnie in times of need. These individuals would employ a collection of others, dispensers, cupbearers, fruiterers, slaughterers, bakers, brewers, wafer makers, candle makers, a sauce cook, poulterer, etc., and each would have one or more assistants. Many of these were permanent positions as well, but some need not be, such as those charged with caring for the table clothes, dispensers, brewers and wafer makers (none of these skills were especially difficult or called for a degree of craftsmanship beyond the means of the commoner). These duties, as well as all assistants, could be accomplished by those who were assigned as watchmen as part of their castle obligation. Considering the cupbearer, fruiterer, slaughter, baker, candle maker, sauce cook and poulterer, we can assume that the duties of the fruiterer, sauce cook, and candle maker could be filled by those clerks making up the chaplain’s (or chancellor’s) staff (non-combatants unless under the gravest of circumstances). This leaves the higher skilled jobs, such as slaughterer, paulterer, baker, and cupbearer (that was a very important servile position that came to be filled by knights as early as the late 12th century), were permanent positions that would be filled by specialists, thus we can add these additional four men to the mesnie as well.

 

In a castle of medium wealth, the chaplain’s staff would consist of the chaplain and at least three or four other people, to include the almoner (a very important position in the chaplain’s staff), but these would be mostly clerks, probably at least subdeacons or deacons, and should not be considered combatants under normal circumstances.

 

In addition we have to consider the barber or doctor, the person responsible for attending to the castle’s medical needs, whenever a blood letting was required or a rotten tooth needed to be yanked out. From most of my research, it would appear that barbers were also clerks, as it would require a certain amount of knowledge to read the Latin texts on the medical arts. Thus, the barber probably fell into the chaplain’s staff.

 

Also, any noble of medium wealth would have in his employ one or two professional messengers. However, because messengers were rather busy in this day and age, I hesitate to include them with those who could be added to the mesnie... they weren’t usually home.

 

If King Henry I employed up to four huntsmen, we can assume that a castle of medium wealth would include at least one. The huntsman was absolutely crucial to the practice of a medieval noble’s favorite pass-time, hunting. There is considerable evidence that the huntsman also acted as a warden, patrolling the lord’s forests looking for poachers and unruly peasants who would dare to pasture livestock in the lord’s favorite hunting area. In many courts, the huntsman was a knight, but in the 12th century, most huntsmen would probably have not have risen to this stature. Of equal importance would be the professional who filled the full time job of training and caring for the lord’s hunting falcons. Modern knowledge of bird training bears out that the falconer had little time for anything other than training his lord’s falcons. So we can safely add two more people to the castle’s mesnie from the household staff.

 

Taking into consideration the household staff, and subtracting out those duties that could be performed by the levied watchmen and the duties performed by the clerks, we can approximately add another 11 individuals to a castle’s mesnie, bringing the total of approximate fighting hands to 58. Thus, I would estimate somewhere between 40 and 70 regular castle staff that would be considered martial for a castle of humble to medium wealth. Of course, this does not include the men that could be mustered by calling a general levy, and I haven’t included the bailiffs, who would be on staff at the castle for each area they were assigned (probably there would be two or three bailiffs for a medium sized castle).

 

I imagine this would be enough to properly defend a medium sized castle, but for this I turn to Duncan and others who know more about castle construction and siege warfare. They are better equipped to answer questions regarding exactly how many people it would require to effectively defend a castle such as Pembroke, or any other given castle, in the late 12th century.

 

Sorry for the grumbles but to me its a glaring hole in all castle studies.

 

No apology necessary. :wink2:  I have to agree with you. Understanding siege combat depends on it, in my opinion.

 

--David :sheildsmile:

I overlooked a rather important department in the castle household that probably changes the figures significantly: the stable and the marshal of the stable. The marshal would probably, like the steward, be a knight, and he would have at his disposal, in a medium sized castle toward the end of the 12th century, a staff consisting of grooms, smiths and carters. His primary duties would be the care and maintenance of the lord’s horses, wagons and carts. At least one person on his staff would be a blacksmith, and another would be the carter, someone who specialized in wheel making and wagon craft. All told, the marshal’s staff would probably number between 5 and 10 individuals including grooms and assistants (we’ll say 7 more people for our purposes here). Adding this to our numbers above would bring the final approximate estimate to 65 fighting hands.

 

--David :sheildsmile:

 

Edit: I'm not sure about saddle and bridle makers. I can't find anything in my sources at hand dealing with this, but I would suppose that someone in the marshal's staff would be responsible for making and maintianing tack.

Santiago, welcome to the forum, btw! Your log-in name immediately brings to mind the Spanish crusaders of the Order of Santiago

The nickname comes from when I used to wargame using an army of Feudal Spanish Knights  :)

I now commonly use Later Crusaders (Richard I vintage) and Eygptians

 

Thanks to all for the welcome and the information :D

What wargame did you play? When I was in the Army I was in a little group that painted toy soldiers and used warhammer rules for staging historical engagements.

 

-David :sheildsmile:

I came across an interesting reference to the garrisons of the English Welsh castles circa. 1300:

 

These castles were not the centres of castleries in the traditional English manner... Nor, for all their splendour, were the castles heavily garrisoned. In 1284 thirty or forty men to each was regarded as appropriate. In the rebellion of 1294-5 Harlech had twenty men, of whom two died during the siege, until reinforcements came from Ireland. With some townsmen who had taken refuge in the castle, the total strength came to thirty-eight men, and in addition there were seven women and five children of the castle, and twelve women, with twenty-one children, of the town.

 

Prestwich, Michael. Edward I. Yale UP, second edition, 1997.