Social Change and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe: Some Danish Evidence

Abstract

There is general agreement among scholars of military history on the main features of military developments during the transition from the middle ages to the early modern period. A brief sketch of the broad outlines of these developments may therefore suffice as a preface to an investigation of Danish knight service in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.The decisive factor in the medieval army was the fully armoured, lancebearing mounted knight. The battlefield was totally dominated by the combat technique of these bands of qualifizierten Einzelkämpfern, offensive combat at close quarters. The remaining forces, in contrast, functioned merely as auxiliaries to the main arm - the heavy mounted knights.