How do you feed a medieval army? | Medieval logistics 

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I'm having breakfast

Perfect time to watch this then 😉

Hm. What did you have that day?

​@@derekbaron2172What did you have that day?

Thank you 👍🏻

Another outstanding channel is Modern History TV. Jason Kingsley is as great a host as Kevin and he also talks about "mundane" aspects of medieval life, as well as more traditional topics, such as armour, weapons and so on.

I fucking love this channel. Unbelievably good

Yeah?

To understand this, you need to know about the quart system. A quart is a unit of volume that is similar to a liter. The quart was originally a medieval English unit for dry and liquid measures that varied between 0.95 and 1.16 liters, relatively close to its modern equivalents (L).

Thank you very much 👍🏻

Ceasar IMO is one of histories most impressive military leaders. Especially during his time when such feats were thought to be impossible or too difficult to achieve

@Mongo what

@@etholus1000 I think Aurelian is probably Romes greatest military leader of all time, Like I don't think Caesar could have replicated what he did. Trajan might of been able to pull it off though.

This is also where Roman road/highways come into play. Not to mention Italy is a peninsula. So shipping things from the south to north wouldnt be a big issue. Also trade routes all through out the mediterranean.

The Romans had logistics down to a science as time when on. When a legion or army was moving on foot about 1/4 to 1/3 of the convoy was wagons/carts of logistics stuff. When they were pushing north through Gall into the Germanic territories they usually had hunters on horseback looking for deer/elk. Usually scouts went ahead and off to the sides to avoid ambushes but hunters were in the same areas so they pulled double duty at times. I ran across an interesting account about the wild Auroch cattle were greatly feared by the Romans moving through this wild mysterious world. Today's Spanish Fighting Bulls are nasty critters and Aurochs were much bigger with as bad or worse tendency to be dangerous.

Theres an excellent book called the silk roads: a new history of the world, by peter frankopan, which wonderfully illustrates how vast and interconnected the ancient world and middle ages actually were. It wasn't unusual for chinese coins and gems from afghanistan to show up in scandinavia and even iceland.

Maybe I should wait until I watch the entire video before commenting! 😁

@@tudyk21 I was going to make the same comment. I did learn it was Napoleon who said it though.

Marabunta Legionary travel on death. Food only gives them the fuel to continue so.

You from Wales? I believe you take good *care* of your sheep.

Even into the mid 20thC sheep were brought to London for slaughter by drovers who used teh commons on the way for grazing: there are pix of them on Clapham and Wandsworth Commons from that period.

Not just sheep, pigs, and cattle. Also ducks!

thats actually fascinating

Many times have I made coffee in my helmet and shared it with my crew

@@andremaertens5964 The truck company filled their tin cups with clean snow and stuck them into the truck's engine. Trial and error taught them how far it took for the heat from the engine to melt the snow and heat it up for coffee. Of course they had instant coffee.

Well thank you very much, I appreciate that 👍🏻

And don’t forget..bringing everything over the Channel to France or wherever in Europe…

Great comment. Thanks for adding your insight.

Well, I have been around a lot of horses and dreys are close to the knights battle horses and the draft horses of the period. Warm Blooded and Drafts eat a lot when in working form

That is just so interesting…

Puts me in mind of that old Joke. "What's the difference between a War-horse, and a Cart-horse?" A War-horse darts into the fray.

Hi there, yes it certainly could have been me. I used to tour students around Chepstow & Bolsover mostly 👍🏻

@@thehistorysquad Aw yes, it was Chepstow! Thank you for your work.

Sir, I met you in probably summer of 98’ at Warwick. I was 11. I mean no offense, but I know it was you by the birthmark on your hand. You put on a great display of bow skills and spoke about the marksmanship standards while effortlessly hitting the target. Then you let me attempt to draw your bow. I think you said it was a 70 pound pull. A week later I got to roam the royal arms museum and see Henry VIII’s jousting armor with its…ahem..generous groin bulge. My wife and I are starting to look at a UK vacation for our children and I basically the only “must have” for was to see another archery demonstration. It made my day to see you on this channel and to see you discuss such a overlooked topic. If I’m ever in your neck of the globe again, I’d love to buy you a pint.

Thanks very much. I'll give some thought to your ideas, it would depend on what research I could uncover 👍🏻

Happy to hear that! Thank you 👍🏻

The usual assessment is that a fighting force needs twice as many people to keep it in the field, unless it's able to live off the land (which is difficult if you need to concentrate your force for battle). Consequently it can't move faster than the supply chain can be safely extended to keep up with it, or it has to be given time each day to forage and raid. I vaguely recall an outline of the logistics of keeping British Army units in the field in South Africa, during the Boer Wars. It would take a certain number of ox carts to resupply a unit, plus twice as many ox carts to feed the first set of oxen along with the second set supplying the feed! The longer the supply chain became the worse the feed problem grew, leading to the need to establish supply dumps, which of course needed to be guarded by soldiers. All of this was highly vulnerable to raids by the Boers, whose forces primarily consisted of flying columns of irregular cavalry quite capable of living off the land and striking wherever they spotted an opportunity.

Horses would graze their way along, so you would not have to carry all their food. Australia in days gone by had a series of mile wide stock routs throughout the country. Hugh mobs of sheep and cattle could graze their way along for 100s of miles.( no trucks in those days)

huge

It gives new meaning to The Red Ball express right!

The modern equivalent is gasoline and diesel fuel.

Dry peas keep well.

"Learned a lot more." ..... eh, maybe?

​​@@cletusspucklerstablejeaniu1059maybe their english teacher was lacking too

😉 You can Teddy, thanks so much. I'm glad you enjoy it

😊 thank you

Peasant serfs were virtually property of the lords and their core source of income from tilling land. Extremely short-sighted to over-work them (same with your oxen which could only plough so far). It's why cruel treatment of slaves made no sense from an asset management perspective. Wilberforce got started by stopping a man beating his exhausted horse.

Thank you! Will do!

Thanks!

Wow, thanks for that!!

Cheers Magnus 👍🏻

To be honest I'm pretty humbled by the speed at which the channel is growing, and have to give a big thank you to you and all my other subscribers and supporters for helping the community grow. 😊 Thanks!

That's great to hear, thanks. A question if I may, do you also listen to Spotify/Apple podcasts as well? I'm thinking of sharing the audio from many of the non visual videos as podcasts. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers 👍🏻

Thanks, will do!

So true!

That's really kind of you Jack, thank you!!

Wow, that's awesome Arthur. I'm sure that ships cooks were better than army cooks 😉

@@thehistorysquad Hey Kevin, I like to think it was, I know it was the hardest job, I ever loved. Keep the good stuff coming, be well. Blessings

Ah, thanks Daniel 👍🏻

You're welcome 👍🏻

You bet!

I hope you are too, thanks for the visit 👍🏻

Thanks Pedro 👍🏻

Thanks again! I will. 👍🏻

Cheers Carl 👍🏻

Hi there, thank you & thanks for joining me over on Patreon too! Although I love ALL history and cover lots of different topics here on the channel, my favourite period without doubt is medieval, so yes for sure over time I will continue to add to my medieval playlist. 👍🏻

Couldn't agree more! Thanks for watching 👍🏻

Glad you enjoyed it!

Cheers Daniel, I appreciate that. 👍🏻 I've just been working on assembling more figures for the next video, they need to be painted but I'll be getting it out asap .

That's true 👍🏻

Cheers, I appreciate that 👍🏻

My pleasure!

My pleasure 👍🏻

Cheers mate 👍🏻

You're welcome!

My pleasure! 👍🏻

Haha, thanks!!

Thanks, will do!

Awesome! Thank you!

Much appreciated!

Thanks, will do 👍🏻

Undisciplined armies would, and did, move through territory like a plague of locust. They could strip the area of any resources that were noticed.

Thanks for your visit again 👍🏻

You really should give it a go, it's not half bad 👍🏻