A Question Norse and medieval infantry and weapon/armour choice

by ATrueCanadian_

Hello I'm new to reddit but i"m interested in history and had a question i'be been thinking of for a long time, How often could a solider choose his own weapons and armour, Did the army supply them with the equipment, did they give them money to buy their own equipment or did it come out of the soldiers pockets if it helps the point of the question is in norse times could a soldier get his chainmail and helm and choose to go into battle with a dane axe (Or any other two handed weapon) and just not carry a shield and sword/axe and could a medieval soldier chose to wear his gambison and metal armour (Not full plate as Im talking about infantry and not knights, But correct me if Im wrong) and carry a two handed war hammer, bec de corbin or laucrine hammer.

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Note: yes I play a lot of DnD and fantasy games so a lot of my knowledge and mindset about medieval history comes from that but I am trying to get a major in history and teach grades 12s once I graduate, so I don;t know if that helps my reputation in this situation.

y_sengaku

I wrote some posts about Norse (but post Viking Age) a week ago in Would post-viking era Scandinavian armies and soldiers be organized and equipped any differently than other "western" medieval armies?, but I'm quite sure that /u/Hergrim and /u/Arilou_skiff know much more about this topic than me, as shown in their 'complements'. ]

 

The source excerpts in the thread above is mainly written in the 13th century, but we don't have any Scandinavian indigenous source prior to that who was responsible for the supply of armory to the army:

  • The concept of Folkwapn ('free men's people's weapon') mentioned by /u/Arilou_skiff: Various Medieval Scandinavian law books from 13th and 14th century stipulate the leding (leiðang), the military conscription of the farmers (bóndi) as well as the ship assigned by district base. It was not the king, but the duty of conscripted farmers that they kept some armory by themselves and brought them to the bailiffs when summoned (for the conscription itself or the meeting to check their armory), but which kind of weapons, bows and armors were expected to have were different across Scandinavian countries. While a chainmail and a crossbow are mentioned in some Swedish law books and Danish law codes, the Norwegian ones I cited in this post only focuses on the weapons (axe, spear, sword and bow) and shield. Neither a piece of armor nor a crossbow.
  • I suppose that the combination of the weapons mentioned in the cited Norwegian law books are largely identical with the contemporary descriptions in the Viking Age. I'm unfortunately running out time to spare now (so I omit the detail), but it is worth noting that the shield played an very important role in the battle then, and it was also the trademark of the notorious berserker. Contrary to the popular image of DnD's berserker, the commonplace expression for them in the 10th and 11th century contemporary text was 'to bite [their own] shield', not that of the foe! They were in fact often elite guards of the ruler, so they didn't part with their shield to guard so easily. In short, Don't fancy those clunky two-handed weapons I don't recommend a two handed axe to carry.
  • The discussion between /u/Hergrim and me in the thread above mainly concerned the armory of Norwegian nobles (not the farmers) in the 13th century that had shown influences from the contemporary Europe. You can see some gambisons and other armory as specified for the elites there.

[Edited]: corrects some translation of the word (thanks for /u/Arilou_skiff)