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Old 04-23-2008, 13:46 PM   #7 (permalink)
lwarmonger
Military Professional
 
Join Date: 02-08-05
Posts: 1,784
The problem with medieval numbers (less so with ancient) is that they were generally used by chroniclers to impress, not to give accurate information. So armies of 5-10 thousand were usually "among the hundreds of thousands" when extolled by contemporaries.

By looking at purchases and payment records I've seen a couple of pretty good historians put most medieval armies fielded by the nations themselves (such as England and France at Agincourt, Crecy, Poitiers, ect) at not exceeding 20000, and most were far smaller.

A good book to read about this period (covering specifically the 100 years war) is A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuckman (I think that is the name of the author... I don't have the book on me at the moment).
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