So hopefully this is not too broad a question so I can find an answer, but I've heard that armies made up of the peasantry, AKA conscripted forces were actually very seldom or non existent. However, when big wars and battles came into play and kings or lords needed to raise armies....how did they do it?
Were armies made up of mercenaries? Were the mercenaries treacherous or ditch the rest of the army if they were on the losing side? Or did they fight to the end? Were armies made up of veteran soldiers? Where did the soldiers get their training to be considered "veteran"? I take it they wouldn't be taken from garrisons in a castle(given the garrison would need to defend the home front while the army was at war)but were people called in to train daily just in case an army was needed? Other than knights, who would be part of this army? Would they be given weapons? Or asked to provide their own?
Hope to see a few replies, thanks in advance!
Anglo-Saxon England had a system called the fyrd which was revitalised and reorganised by Alfred the Great to fight off the Vikings in the late ninth centuries, and operated throughout the tenth. It was essentially a conscripted militia, but this doesn't mean the men were untrained. From the pool of eligible men, up to a third were on duty at any time during the campaign season, with a regular duty rotation. While one third acted as garrison troops, another would be assigned maintence work on roads, bridges and the series of fortifications, and the final third were stood down to rest and ensure the normal function of the agrarian economy during the summer months.
The fyrd was organised along county lines and divided between fortified sites called burhs. Here they provided garrisons designed to block the mobility of Viking armies, and act as a reaction force against raiders or invaders, combining with other garrisons to outmanouevre the Vikings and force them to battle. In battle, these fyrd would be augmented by the professional retinue soldiery of their ealdorman, or even the king. The system depended on good communication and collaboration, and was quite sophisticated, and despite being technically peasant conscripts, the fyrd was a highly effective fighting force for much of the eighth and ninth centuries. They scored some overwhelming victories over the Vikings, and indeed nearly defeated William the Conqueror in 1066.
During the later medieval period, however, professional soldiering does re-emerge, particularly during conflicts like the Hundred Years War, when a lot of fighting was carried out by "free companies", essentially professional mercenary armies.