30YearsWar: 17th Century Warfare Miniseries Episode 1 (Patreon)

At long last! Our series on 17th century warfare has finally landed, with our first episode looking at…nothing to do with 17th century warfare…Hmmm. Not to worry history friends – untangling warfare in the 17th century requires a certain amount of background detail, and in this episode here we do exactly that. The feudal society and its relation to the military contract aren’t topics we would normally go anywhere near, but to lay the foundations for what’s to come, we need to establish what came first. 

In this episode we do this, using the case study of Medieval England as our baseline. Expect talk of how English Kings did war during the Middle Ages, and what challenges they faced and hoops they had to jump through in order to make going to war possible. These traditions were bound up in the expectations of feudal society which dictated that the King was always at the top of the pyramid, but not necessarily always obeyed or followed. 

Contradictions and exceptions abounded of course, but tracing the arc of development from medieval to early modern also provides us with the chance to examine another concept which will become key to this series – the Military Revolution. So jump right into this series here, and remember that part 2, which looks in more detail at the technological advances – specifically how England traded longbows for muskets – will be released on Wednesday! Thankssss!

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