Hi all,

I have recently watched a documentary about the infamous teutonic order which is somewhat of a myth here in Germany and especially in eastern Europe. They mention the founding of the order and a phase of "equipping the army before battle". This made me think about the economic implications during that time. For example forging a sword and maybe chainmail plus helmet must have been a tremendous time and energy investment for the craftsmen. Not to mention the cost during that time.

Taking that to the army level of lets say 1000 fully equipped knights on horseback I can imagine that it took forever to forge all that gear. How many people were there working in the background? I always thought of blacksmiths in the medieval period as a somewhat rare profession. How would that work with equipping and maintaining an entire army? Did each knight bring his own blacksmith? Did they use mobile forges when the army was on the move?

What if the army was defeated in battle? From my understanding it was common practice to take prisoners for ransom. What about their armor and their weapons? How could you cope with such a loss as a regular knight? To me it almost sounds as if you were automatically bankrupt after losing one battle. Did armies take well-known blacksmiths as prisoners to craft gear for their army? Did the systematically reuse the gear they looted from the battlefield?

Apolodigies if this question has already been answered. I couldn't find anything related to that specific topic.
Cheers,
Stephan