[PaulDavisThe1st]

Your second paragraph seems rather simplistic to me.

Less-able men with more ability to marshall resources/rewards can convince more-able men to be their proxies by paying them . How would they have the ability to do that? Technology, knowledge, cunning, guile.

How long has it been since the king was the best fighter in the realm? I mean, seriously?

[ufmace]

Well yeah it's simplistic, since it's 2 sentences. I'm not really prepared or qualified to write a 30 page paper on the nature of medieval combat. Yet there seems to be an obvious truth to it.

There are of course exceptions, such as persuading or paying someone else to fight for you, or concealing a weapon, getting someone to trust you, and stabbing them in the back, etc. It still seems to shape much about reality to know that the majority of people will have no chance of ever winning a remotely fair fight against the enforcers of whoever is in charge.