That was actually fairly uncommon for most of the middle ages. From the collapse of the western empire until the military reforms c1500, standing armies were few and far between. Peasants could be drafted to fight by their lords, but time in military service was the exception rather than the rule.
True, the whole deal for peasants was that they worked a part of the land for their lord, and in exchange they didn’t need to fight in times of war. In exchange, they had to work the fields assigned to them, as did their children and their children’s children. Depending on how the cards were stacked for you, you weren’t allowed to move away either, and your lord could trade you and your family with other lords nearby.
Only the free workers and the lord’s had to fight and there weren’t that many of them, but only because peasants were basically enslaved to their lords, by modern standards; debt slavery is still common in some countries and its implications on the freedom of its victims aren’t like those of countless medieval peasants.
Things did improve as economies grew, and cities were generally much better places to live than the farmlands, but most of humanity worked in food production until relatively recent advances in technology. In Medieval Europe, 80 to 90 percent of people were farmers, with the rest living in cities.
There’s a reason knights were often well known; there weren’t a whole lot of them. Wars were won with mercenaries more than standing armies, because society needed the manpower to farm.
That was actually fairly uncommon for most of the middle ages. From the collapse of the western empire until the military reforms c1500, standing armies were few and far between. Peasants could be drafted to fight by their lords, but time in military service was the exception rather than the rule.
True, the whole deal for peasants was that they worked a part of the land for their lord, and in exchange they didn’t need to fight in times of war. In exchange, they had to work the fields assigned to them, as did their children and their children’s children. Depending on how the cards were stacked for you, you weren’t allowed to move away either, and your lord could trade you and your family with other lords nearby.
Only the free workers and the lord’s had to fight and there weren’t that many of them, but only because peasants were basically enslaved to their lords, by modern standards; debt slavery is still common in some countries and its implications on the freedom of its victims aren’t like those of countless medieval peasants.
Things did improve as economies grew, and cities were generally much better places to live than the farmlands, but most of humanity worked in food production until relatively recent advances in technology. In Medieval Europe, 80 to 90 percent of people were farmers, with the rest living in cities.
There’s a reason knights were often well known; there weren’t a whole lot of them. Wars were won with mercenaries more than standing armies, because society needed the manpower to farm.