Castles are expensive to build and expensive to maintain. They saw 12,000 people in a column, and figured, eh, probably just somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000 are actually combatants; we can take’em! Is their base of power urban? A disciplined corps of mounted knights could pretty reliable shred a peasant army several times its size. In other words, without a consideration of ethnicity, you can’t reasonably consider the relative power of two armies. We can say the same of all the various steppe peoples, of the early Arab conquests, of the Armenians, of the Germanic barbarians who toppled Rome, etc. And in winter, you could hardly gather an army at all… but if somehow somebody did manage to gather an army in winter, then your divided foes might be easy pickings, a few hundred at a time. The great cities of Medieval Europe were often coastal, like Constantinople, Alexandria, Grenada, Venice, or Naples, but were rarely situated on a major river delta. Rural Medievals might have some limited experience with a bow if, by some chance, they were in the local lord’s hunting party, or permitted to hunt on some land. So, for example, we do get some accounts of naval battles involving the Scandinavian states where both sides have well over 100 vessels, but they’re using much smaller ships. Meanwhile, Scotland has 4–8 people per square mile. The Battle of Tours was essentially the first time Arab armies encountered an even borderline professional army anywhere in Europe, and they lost, and then slowly lost more and more over the next thousand years. Its proximity to a marsh is a bit odd, but we can guess from the pleasant name this marsh is not too horribly filthy, not like the Midgewate Marshes. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100. England and wales had 20 by 1300, and England alone was probably more like 22–25. Also consider the type of fortress involved. But the key point is that no major cities are situated around a large river delta. MDME does not talk about armies, but I want to take a second to talk about their size and logistics. Meanwhile, the successive inland capitals of Arnor and Arthedain, Annuminas and Fornost, only persist as long as political power persist, and that power is constantly handicapped by geographic isolation from Rhuduar and apparently dynastic rivalries with Cardolan. Armenia and Cyprus are entirely within Asia physiographically, but have political, cultural and sporting ties to Europe. Likewise, equipment was expensive, and the ability of a pre-urban state to replace lost gear was limited. But keep in mind some key factors. What are they like? Medieval army sizes are hard to pin down. The Mongols, likewise, had a culture that created soldiers. Many would have been merchant vessels hired or commandeered for the exigencies at hand. It was hand-to-hand. The high level of violence within Viking society made them far more powerful soldiers than their numbers would suggest. Examples include Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Germany, all of which had serious urban communities (especially Italy and the Low Countries). Population Density How Many In That Kingdom? The other major cities like Ancyra, Trebizond, Cherson, Thessalonica, Athens, Ephesus, Carthage, Smyrna, and Syracuse were almost certainly under 30,000 people, probably under 20,000. Let me explain that “may.” First of all, we need to keep in mind that “counted population” is not necessarily “sustainable population.” Premodern population levels were far more volatile than current population levels. Urban populations were easier to manage and directly sway, and so often commanded outsized influence on their host realms. We said there were maybe 4 million urban dwellers, so that gives 5.1% urbanization. So in 1000 AD, our highest-density areas are Italy and Belgium, both with under 60 people per square mile. My posts are not endorsed by and do not in any way represent the opinions of the United States government or any branch, department, agency, or division of it. I know that seems obvious, but that actually matters. What were the major cities of Middle Earth before the decline of Arnor? So yes, as we get into the more technologically advanced, economically prosperous, and urbanized late middle-ages, then we can probably say that lightly trained urban combatants start to matter more; but this is, in some sense, a shift out of the Middle Ages. However, I’m pretty skeptical of some of the figures that MDME provides. PopulationPyramid.net. However, those are largely late-Medieval innovations, and indeed are exactly what I’m talking about: when you get rich, prosperous cities, you get surplus revenues that can be used to keep some people training for combat, especially in the high-violence setting of, say, late-Medieval Italy. France 2020 population is estimated at 65,273,511 people at mid year according to UN data. Note also that this place and period saw a dramatic rise in the use of mercenaries. England and France both appear to have had navies in the hundreds or thousands of ships by the 1200s, and William the Conqueror probably used about 700 ships to sail across the English Channel. Put them at heads of navigation, with their size proportional to accessible farmland, concentrations of political power, the absence of disease and presence of favorable climate, the relative structure of nearby military threats, etc. Well, we can set up a few rules. So summertime armies could be fairly large, especially if deployed close to home by a popular commander, and especially if no recent wars have thinned out the fighting-age population. This interesting paper finds that, in 1300, Europe had 210 cities with consistent populations of 10,000 or more. This is a list of countries and dependencies ranked by human population density, and measured by the number of human inhabitants per square kilometre or square mile.The list includes sovereign states and self-governing dependent territories based upon the ISO standard ISO 3166-1.The list also includes but does not rank unrecognized but de facto independent countries. But this delta cuts through large mountains, and is in a somewhat colder climate: it seems likely it’s something more like a Scandinavian fjord than a classic river delta. France has an estimated 2016 metro population of 64,750,000, which does not include overseas territories. My writing represents exclusively my own opinions. Whether or not they were going to be optimal soldiers was partly determined the day they were born, merely by where and to whom they were born. If and when a peasant army mobilized, it was probably very lightly armed and armored. The differential in combat power a peasant could provide as an untrained archer vs. a semi-professional foe was far smaller than as an untrained footsoldier vs. a semi-professional foe. If we assume the remaining 118 cities had, say, 12,000 people apiece, that gives us 4 million urban-dwellers, for a total urbanization rate of 5.1% in these 10k+ cities. By 1450, max densities range from 110 in Belgium to 90 in Italy to 74 in Germany: so we can expect a substantive jump in continental technology, allowing more things like plate armor, large armies, specialized skills, large universities, etc. How will casualties be replaced, or will they? Sure, a well-built and positioned castle might resist a large army for months at a time — most most fortifications aren’t well-build and positioned castles! If we assume average population of 7,000, that means about 460 of these towns. So less than 1% of the population lives in the 5 “big cities” that could plausibly produce intensive specialization of skills and advanced tertiary industries. Upward level-shifts were also possible if whole people groups migrated together, such as in the successive steppe peoples who arrived in Europe. Largest Cities in France The population density in France is 119 per Km 2 (309 people per mi 2). I’m a graduate of the George Washington University’s Elliott School with an MA in International Trade and Investment Policy, and an economist at USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Further north, we get Mithlond, right on a major delta. France has around 36 people per square mile in 1000, and peaks at about 68 in 1300. Troop quality was also hard to change. Also consider how cultural norms impact city sizes: people with a religion that centers around temple-based corporate worship probably build cities more than people who worship in a more animistic or shamanistic style. And if one side is full of people who’ve been fighting and killing since they were old enough to swing a sword, then the other side had darn well better have a full-time professional army with a good commander and recently-paid wages. It is easier to pick up a gun and shoot someone with it than to pick up a bow and do so. If a castle is abandoned, there should be a reason why it was abandoned. Where is Osgiliath? We know from those cases where we do have good information that large armies were often split up into columns many miles apart to enable them to live off the land separately, which of course made them vulnerable to attack, which of course disincentivized splitting up, which, in turn, discouraged fielding large armies to begin with. Or if there are lots of small or mid-sized raids, then you’d expect a lot of castles. So please, go nuts on telling me about that time you got way too deep into looking up some arcane fact of Medieval history related to this topic. That is, peasants did not naturally acquire the skills necessary to be functional military archers: the crown had to exert effort to create those skills. But let’s get a bit more detailed. They are fortified donjons, palisades, mixed-medium walls, mixtures of ancient and more recent construction, etc. Even the Christian peoples of Europe counter-raided quite frequently into nearby enemy territory. Few people willingly hurl themselves into battle every summer, so Medieval battles were often inconclusive, with both armies unwilling to launch themselves full force into the battle. Update: Here’s an example of how economic history can inform us about a fantasy world. This means that we can’t speak of a truly “Medieval” population level. Why doesn’t an enterprising subcommander break off his group, and form his own little kingdom? Check out my Podcast about the history of American migration. In other words, when you consider Medieval armies, you don’t just need numbers. For example, in the Byzantine Empire, probably the only city with over 30,000 people after the initial Arab conquests was Constantinople. Except, of course, the professionals. The current population density of France in 2020 is 118.88 people per square kilometer, a 0.22% increase from 2019.; The population density of France in 2019 was 118.61 people per square kilometer, a 0.21% increase from 2018. That said, I do think that improvements can be made on the leading resource currently available on the web. We should be thinking Viking raiders or steppe nomads, or isolated farming communities and fishing villages. MDME does much better on cities, suggesting that most “cities” are in the 8000 to 25000 population range.

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