Medieval problems require medieval solutions

Could this be survivorship bias? As in, smaller, local campaigns with fewer men that took place during Antiquity were largely forgotten, only the larger ones have surviving accounts? Whereas surviving records for more recent campaigns during the middle ages would be more detailed and exhaustive, including the small stuff.

In antiquity, states such as Rome, Han China or Sassanid Persia often possessed the bureaucratic capacity to do wonderfully unglamorous things, which is to say the boring things that actually win wars. That is, count taxpayers, store grain, pave roads, maintain arsenals, issue pay, and remember where they left 50,000 men. When an emperor demanded an army, clerks sighed, warehouses opened, mules were loaded, and somewhere a provincial governor’s day was ruined. By contrast, many medieval rulers governed through negotiated authority rather than direct state control. A king might technically command thousands, but in practice he was sending letters to nobles whose responses ranged from certainly, my liege to my men are delayed, the bridge is out or harvest must come first. Thus, the royal host could become a fascinating collection of half-trained peasants, three competent knights, two cousins nobody trusts, and one donkey carrying the entire campaign. Of course, historians would add nuance. Medieval armies were not universally pathetic. The Normans, Byzantines, Capetians, Plantagenets, Mamluks, and many others fielded formidable forces. But the stereotype survives because there were indeed moments when a ruler envisioned being Julius Caesar and received only a village committee.

Forgot about Michael on his lame horse with a rock sling.

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