The Armour Archive

I am just seeing what this question will bring I am a retired NCO and if the mediviel knights where roughly equivilent to the modern officer, what where the mediviel NCOs? The term NCO I have researched back to around the 18th century in germany (feldwebel, oberfeldwebel, etc) I am pretty sure the term will not go back prior to the 17th century, just seeing if there was a title that filled that role, thanks,

Wilhelm

I know that in some late meideval armies, there was a position called "vintenar" - a man who commanded 20 other men. 5 of these these in turn would be commanded by a "centenar" who commanded 100 men. Sort of a "platton sargeant" and a "company commader" kind of relationship I'd think.

"Serjeant" is a period term, although it was used differently in different times an places. Originally, it appears to have simply meant "commoner" without specific military connotations, but later came to mean a skilled soldier who was not of knightly birth or rank. There is also some mention of serjeants being landed, holding 1/2 of a knight's fee.

"Bachelor (or bachelier)" is thought of by most people as being a knight who did not command other knights, but might command squires and serjeants, however the term was sometimes also used for a person who was not yet a knight, similar to the later English use of "esquire"

The term "Sergeant" goes way back of course, but as far as it's being used as a title for a non-commissioned officer, it's definitely around by late-16th Century. Corporal is likewise used in it's more-or-less modern form by the same time. English Companies of Foote (supposed to be around 250 men as of the 1580's) were allowed up to three sergeants, and often a like number of corporals for relaying the officer's commands, etc. (Barrett)

Companies of Horse had either 64 or 100 men, and were allowed a Captain, a Lieutenant, Cornet, and three Corporals. The term "Sergeant" wasn't used by Horse, and remains so in the British service to this day (Dragoons have Sergeants and Sergeants-Major, real Horse has Corporals and Corporals-Major, etc.).

(BTW, the term "Sergeant Major" meant a field-grade officer who was in charge of drill instruction for a Regiment, a rank which eventually became "Major". A "Sergeant-Major General" was the General in charge of drill and training for an army, and was eventually contracted to "Major General".)

Kind of veering off topic, but hope that it puts it into perspective.

Cheers,

Gordon

There was quite a sea-change in the military structures in Europe occuring in the 16thC.

Yes, but the trick is to determine to what point those sea changes actually make these guys NCOs as Americans think of the term. (The NCO class is one of America's peculiar strengths, and is very much *not* the norm world-wide, or even Europe-wide... our NCOs exercise vastly more individual initiative and responsibility than I've seen elsewhere talking to NATO buds.)

deleted, wrong post...

Russ Mitchell wrote:NCO class is one of America's peculiar strengths, and is very much *not* the norm world-wide, or even Europe-wide... our NCOs exercise vastly more individual initiative and responsibility than I've seen elsewhere talking to NATO buds.

Really?

I've only had very limited intraction with US forces, but the impression I got was that the NCOs I met exercised rather less initiative and responsibility than the British ones I was used to ("Of course I got lost, I've never been in this training area before. Map? What map?").

Could simply be the small sample size, I suppose. I've never exercised with non-UK or -US troops.

I think the thing with British NCOs is that they tend to be career soldiers, often more so than their junior officers, and so are where the experience and dedication are particularly concentrated.

I think the thing with British NCOs is that they tend to be career soldiers, often more so than their junior officers, and so are where the experience and dedication are particularly concentrated.

Generally it is the same for the US, as far as I can tell (esp as you get above Sergeant (e-5)) A senior NCO is often a career guy with years of experience in his particular field. A junior officer may well be paying off university, and has been more generally trained to lead, rather than deeply in specifics of a particular job. (nota bene: aside from 3 years of Jrots, and some college ROTC, I have no personal military experience. I do however, have several friends that have served (or still are serving) in the armes services)

-+G

Yeah, my first writeup contrasted Anglosphere NCOs (since your Aussies tend to be the same way, obviously, and the Canadians too, when they're not too busy trying to keep their government from stabbing them in the back), but it wound up getting way, way too wordy.

Medieval military organization is more task oriented and it is very fluid. A lot depends on the when and where.

In looking at medieval armies in general we find that you had several classes of people taking part. The nobility formed a band that ran from the great lords down to the hedge squires. This lower band overlapped with the serjeants, who were not really a class, but instead are the free peasants that make a living by providing military service. Germany, early on, even had an un-free class of military servants, the ministeriales who were basically serfs required to provide military service. Interestingly enough, they translated their military logistical skills into civilian applications and largely became a class of bureaucrats.

Logistics drove much of medieval organization and, correspondingly, the positions that evolved to administer them. Most of these are centered around the horse. The term Count (derived from comes stabile) and the term Marshal (marechal) are both derived from administrative positions related to horses. So is the term corporal (caporale ~ head of a body of horsemen). The term captain simply describes someone who leads a body of troops. So a medieval army might be commanded by a Lieutenant (loco tenans ~ someone who holds the place of/commands in the place of another, e.g. the King). He would lead several Captains, who are men in charge of a body of troops. If the Lieutenant is a political appointee then he might have one of the Captains acting as a Captain-General. One of the Captains might be designated as Marshal of the March, meaning that he is responsible for ordering and directing the days travel. Another might be Marshal of the Camp. While marching the captain who was marshal of the camp was subordinate to the marshal of the march, and when they made camp this situation inverted.

So, going back to the serjeants, we can see that they were military professionals drawn from the ranks of the non-noble (but still free) and probably filled many of the positions that demanded real skill. As my instructors in ROTC pointed out to me: it doesn't take a tremendous amount of skill to stand up and bellow "Follow me!" But it does take a good deal of skill to get the trained, fed, equipped, and motivated men to the time and place where someone can stand up and say those words.

Andrew,
I was US military stationed in England 3 years and deployed with Brits to the middle east, and in my experience I found little difference between the Brits and US in terms of initiative and rank. Others in NATO, maybe so, could be conscription (draft).

Original topic? Got nothing new.