Medieval Army Sizes Reflection

A player once proposed I use the most optimistic force numbers found in historical sources. This is a pretty big problem especially when there is a tendency for croniclers to multiply the forces of an enemy or someone elses army by 3, 5, 10, 20 and 100 fold.

The most optimistic size of the first crusade force at 1098 is 600,000! (oldenburg p86) lately i've been listening to Kenneth Harl's Era of the crusades and double checking other sources, the biggest force one can assemble in the era was 30,000.

Since According to Harl, the turn of the 11C was when economically comparable the Imperial Roman era 20-30k is one of the largest forces assembled in that era. Note also that Byzantium with TL4 organization is as productive as Europe with their TL3 Agriculture/Food Production. TL3 food production is 50% greater than TL2 (Roman). It was TL2's organization allowing for greater distribution of metal tools that made their economies equal. If you combined Byzantine TL4 organization and TL3 Economy probably 100% economic output theoretically speaking. 11C to 13C is when centralized bureaucracy and professional meritocratic military were not anymore monopolized by the Romani.

When Saladin finally got Cairo and the wealthiest holdings, his force numbers were at 30,000! This is Cairo, the flood plain cities of the Nile have 3x the output of most Mediterranean cities. I'm not sure if Bagdad was included, but it was a city as Big as Constantinople before the Mongols sacked it. Robert II of Sicily could mount 30,000. So I'm biased to think the wikipedia citation of 30,000 + 5,000 knights for the first crusades.

GURPS wealth after Status 4 or Filthy Rich starts going up in multiples of 10. When you look at the armies of the crusades the differences between Barons (the more complicated hierarchies came after the first crusades, arguably as a result of the crusades) Dukes (Duchies), Princes (Principalities) and Counts (Counties) had army size difference of 50% increments.

Knights meant 1 knight meant 1 mounted horseman and 5-6 footmen. (oldenburg 86)

• Godfrey 1000 (600 main force, Baldwin 200, and Eustace 200)
• Raymond IV 1000 (commanders unknown)
• Robert 1000
• Robert 700
• Stephen 700
• Bohemmon 500 (300 main force, Tancred 200)

This means economies or holdings are 50% bigger than each other. So we begin to notice a problem when Status levels jump at increments of 10, when the most active economic concentrations was at wealth levels of Status 5 to 6.