raharris1973
Well-known member
Raiding and looting...
A big part of medieval warfare,,, sometimes the whole purpose of wars...or armies.......or political groupings or entities
There was even religious scripture about it, such as appropriate divisions of shares of loot in Islamic holy warfare between holy warriors (1/3 of the total) and relgious foundations/endowments (some other proportion) and the ruler/commander/states? (yet another porion)?.
But in, for example, the campaigns of Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries, what was the quantity of loot we are talking about, and what would it typically consist of?
For example, what would be typical tonnage of loot hauled away from a city taken by storm?
And would human captives count against the total tonnage of loot? Or would they be a separately counted category?
What about livestock animals?
Of a ton of inanimate loot objects, how much would be, for example, precious stones, versus precious metals, or mixed jewelry, glassware, mirrors, kitchen or dining ware like pots, cups, plates, utensils, blankets, rugs, fabrics, tents, furniture, tools, or consumables, including food and drink and drugs, of either long or short shelf life, like wine, spices, cured meat, sacks of flour, sacks of harvested grain?
What did raiders and looters tend to have in terms of a 'postal' or 'logistic' system to keep control of all their irregularly shaped and variously durable and delicate and breakable stolen goods, people, and animals, goods packed (if appropriate-or not
), under control, and moving in the right direction at the right pace while they were still fighting running to battle or away from it? This all seems very difficult without cars, highways, UPS and USPS, refrigeration, and so on. And it also seems, given the relative scarcity of really valuable precious metals and stones, that you'd think nomadic and other raiders would get kind of bored after a while ripping off pottery and dinnerware from town after town and lose some enthusiasm. Is there a big raiding prize I'm missing here?
A big part of medieval warfare,,, sometimes the whole purpose of wars...or armies.......or political groupings or entities
There was even religious scripture about it, such as appropriate divisions of shares of loot in Islamic holy warfare between holy warriors (1/3 of the total) and relgious foundations/endowments (some other proportion) and the ruler/commander/states? (yet another porion)?.
But in, for example, the campaigns of Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries, what was the quantity of loot we are talking about, and what would it typically consist of?
For example, what would be typical tonnage of loot hauled away from a city taken by storm?
And would human captives count against the total tonnage of loot? Or would they be a separately counted category?
What about livestock animals?
Of a ton of inanimate loot objects, how much would be, for example, precious stones, versus precious metals, or mixed jewelry, glassware, mirrors, kitchen or dining ware like pots, cups, plates, utensils, blankets, rugs, fabrics, tents, furniture, tools, or consumables, including food and drink and drugs, of either long or short shelf life, like wine, spices, cured meat, sacks of flour, sacks of harvested grain?
What did raiders and looters tend to have in terms of a 'postal' or 'logistic' system to keep control of all their irregularly shaped and variously durable and delicate and breakable stolen goods, people, and animals, goods packed (if appropriate-or not
), under control, and moving in the right direction at the right pace while they were still fighting running to battle or away from it? This all seems very difficult without cars, highways, UPS and USPS, refrigeration, and so on. And it also seems, given the relative scarcity of really valuable precious metals and stones, that you'd think nomadic and other raiders would get kind of bored after a while ripping off pottery and dinnerware from town after town and lose some enthusiasm. Is there a big raiding prize I'm missing here?