The other evening I watched on YouTube two very interesting videos from Matt Easton of Scholagladiatora. He is a well known and respected re-enactor who also teaches a variety of historic combat techniques and is a prolific creator of informative videos on such matters.
The two I saw were about how armies were recruited in the time of the Wars of the Roses, and about the age of those who engaged in battle. He illustrated this latter topic with evidence from the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. As Matt himself pointed out this was a somewhat unscientific sampling, but it was nonetheless interesting and credible.The conclusion could be summed up as being that the professional soldier of the fifteenth century was not that much different in age from the professional soldier of today. Of course the men sampled were the equivalent of the officers of later military formations. The rank and file, as in modern conflicts, would be likely to be younger. Elite commanders, such as the Yorkists Duke of Gloucester at eighteen and King Edward IV’s stepson Thomas Grey at sixteen, or the Lancastrian Edward Prince of Wales at seventeen, might be younger, but their military command was because of their social rank.This does appear consistent with the evidence from the grave pit at Towton where some men had clearly had years of military experience before their fatal encounter that snowy Palm Sunday in 1461.
The two videos can be seen at How were Medieval Armies & Soldiers Recruited? and at How OLD were Medieval Knights & Soldiers in Battle? The Battle of Tewkesbury (1471)
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