"Castle Garrison Questions." Topic

Hey everybody,

I'm thinking of buying the deluxe section castle from here:

wargamescenics.com

but I'm wondering what size garrison it should generally have. I'm thinking of mid to late 14th century. I realize that there aren't specifics but what I'm trying to find is a suitable number of archer/crossbowmen, as well as infantry/men at arms. Thanks for any help, it is appreciated.

Important castles always had at least a few score men even in "peace time". A castle in a back area or similar might have no more than the lord of the castle's family, servants and a handful of "household knights" or ignoble soldiers. They would be local lads drawn from the fief. An important castle in war time would hold several hundred troops. But this would be in situations where the castle was expected to be under siege soon. I'm not going to look up historical examples to get exact numbers, but the generalizations I've offered would hold true throughout the high to late middle ages. I think a safe rule of thumb would be one tenth the maximum garrison in peace time….

Great castles! I'm drooling over the desert fort, reaming of Beau Geste & counting spare dollars.

Sorry to hijack the thread but thanks for the link.

As Great War Ace said, it very much depends!

It could be as few as half a dozen men-at-arms and a dozen archers/crossbowmen. A castle could be held with surprisingly few men unless the attackers were REALLY serious about taking the place.

It's not besiegers that are the problem, but carpenters and funeral parties. I forget the number of times a castle fell to a suddenly not dead at all corpse or a murderous carpenter!

On a serious note, what GWA wrote :-)

"In terms of size the fourteenth century garrisons equate to the largest retained by the English Crown during the entire medieval period. Their numbers do fluctuate in response to the immediate state and pressure of warfare but each major Scottish castle regularly had an approximate average of either eighty or 150 troops based within them
suggesting two approximate tiers of wartime manning were in operation. The overall total of troops in garrison service, including those based within garrisoned towns, was between 1,100 and 1,600 in the first half of the century. The rapid reduction of garrisons upon periods of truce or peace reflects the burdensome cost of retaining such large forces."

From a PhD thesis, "ENGLISH CASTLE GARRISONS IN THE ANGLO-SCOTTISH WARS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY" at PDF link

Its a great castle I have one but bare in mind that it's more of 25mm than what is out now. Most stuff now would not really fit in it.

Nice find, Duncan :-)

Goodness, those castles for sale are very very cool!

Ah! these are the guys that made my village buildings. So I know their castles will totally rule….

There is Hobilar article(which I just cant locate at the moment) which details garrison numbers IIrC places such as Carlisle and Harlech had garrisons as low as 30 men.

It could be as few as half a dozen men-at-arms and a dozen archers/crossbowmen. A castle could be held with surprisingly few men unless the attackers were REALLY serious about taking the place.

The smaller the castle, the fewer men would be needed to keep all the vital parts manned. Ideally, I think you would want to have at least the following to repel an assault:

- One man per every X yards of wall reachable by enemy, to repel assaults with ladders and grappling hooks
- At least one archer or crossbowman per tower, to rain missiles upon the enemy (well-designed towers might enable flanking fire at enemy trying to assault the walls)
- Couple of men to defend gatehouse and rain missiles on anybody trying to force the gate
- Small reserve to reinforce the area that would come under most serious attack

That is, if the enemy actually would actually launch an assault. Even an under-strength defender could try to bluff with numbers, convincing enemy to try starving out the castle rather than risk a disasterous assault.

And of course in a pinch all sorts of servants and civilians could be convinced to help in the defence – chucking rocks at the attackers does not require all that much training.