| In Medieval Europe there was less surplus, a crappier economy, a population closer to the edge. Rome linked prosperous lands in Italy, Egypt, Gaul, North Africa into one empire. Romans overfarmed Italy at their peak and depended on Egypt for grain. After 500AD these luxuries could not be sustained. Economies became local and if you mismanaged your farmland you had to live with it. Italy's recovered by ~1000AD. Much of Europe faced similar issues. Cities declined all over around 500 because farmers could not produce the same surplus locally. Most fighting inside Europe was done with 5-20K armies during 400-1500. It started with the Romans. As they faced rebel "Romans" ever more frequently, they faced similarly equipped and trained men so results of big battles were unpredictable. They would favor skirmishes over big decisive battles. And if your fighting is indecisive, why field large armies at great expense? The well trained, well armed foot soldiers, "man of arms" was equivalent to a Roman legionnaire and formed the basis of these armies. At the time a full suit of mail armor cost as much as a Ferrari today. Now this is an issue of economics because there were few complaints about the price of similar kit from Roman times. Well trained and equipped armies could face numerically superior "peasant uprisings" with predictable results, just like in Roman times. Romans faced a lot of poorly armed opponents in Europe. BUT it's hard to say what these trends were driven by. There was a lot of traditionalism around warfare. Macedonian armies were actually poorly equipped early on. They used long pikes instead of reasonable spears like the Greeks. Macedonians wore rags for armor, while some Greeks they faced wore 70 lb almost full body armor. And similarly in Europe, states started fielding cheap pikemen combined with crossbowmen, archers, muskets and a few well trained melee fighters. Such armies could stand up to more expensive Ferrari suited, trained all their lives, born into a higher class men. It was probably the noise of firearms that changed military traditionalism. But handheld firearms of the period were mostly noise and smoke. And as Macedonians demonstrate not really necessary to face better armed and trained opponents. But I don't think any historian could untangle all the factors without a Matrix level simulator, complex systems and all that. |