How To Become a Medieval Warlord? (Basically, How Realistic is Mount and Blade: Warband?)

So I was playing a video game called Mount and Blade: Warband, and basically you're this character who comes to this land called Calradia, full of internal strife and medieval warfare and bandits and whatnot. You can almost immediately just kinda get a few peasants to volunteer to follow you and all of a sudden you're a minor warband.

Obviously this is wildly unrealistic, but really how easy would it be to make a minor bandit group, or peasant rebellion (I know those are very different things) or something to that end in medieval Europe?


I imagine it would depend on the place. A high-density rural region like Denmark it would be harder to hide in the wilderness (but also harder to notice a few serfs missing?) Meanwhile in Italy the semi-urbanized regions would be hard to live like that in.


Any ideas on what I'm going for?
 
It happened occasionally. In 13th century Bulgaria, the peasant farmer or swineherd Ivaylo of Bulgaria assembled an army of peasants and overthrew the Bulgarian Tsar, scoring victories against the Byzantines and Mongols for two years before being overthrown and killed.
I'm surprised I've never heard of this!! Very interesting. I wonder how the peasants were initially organized/convinced to fight in the very beginnings.
 
I remember it being mentioned at least in the Alexiad that one of the major Italian invaders that Alexios Komnenos had to deal with started essentially as a brigand, then turned mercenary, then turned into the ruler of a major part of Italy and invaded the Empire before being defeated (if I remember right) by Alexius himself.

Obviously the source is biased and it is full of accusations of a great deal of treachery but if the core of the story is true than it at least happened on occasion. It obviously was a lot more difficult than in the game and very rare, even more so in the high and later middle ages unless I've missed something.
 
So I was playing a video game called Mount and Blade: Warband, and basically you're this character who comes to this land called Calradia, full of internal strife and medieval warfare and bandits and whatnot. You can almost immediately just kinda get a few peasants to volunteer to follow you and all of a sudden you're a minor warband.

Obviously this is wildly unrealistic, but really how easy would it be to make a minor bandit group, or peasant rebellion (I know those are very different things) or something to that end in medieval Europe?


I imagine it would depend on the place. A high-density rural region like Denmark it would be harder to hide in the wilderness (but also harder to notice a few serfs missing?) Meanwhile in Italy the semi-urbanized regions would be hard to live like that in.


Any ideas on what I'm going for?
It’s very possible,look at the de Hautevilles for more information.Though they weren’t exactly peasant rebels—they were more of a bandit group that became a state.

As for peasant rebels succeeding,look at China for more information.
 
Many Normans started out as warriors and mercenaries who then became warlords. Specifically Robert Guiscard and Rollo come to mind.
 
It'd be much easier to do in the late antiquity/early medieval, and I'd say neigh impossible post 1500ish/early modern era (in euro-centric terms).

The difficulties and opportunities vary from place to place & time to time, but in general, as you get into the age where there's modern states with centralized control, national armies, etc., this sort of thing requires extraordinary circumstances. Not necessarily impossible, but highly improbable.
 
The problem is gulf between peasant and skilled warrior is very large at that time. With several exception, most peasant rebellion stay as peasant rebellion. In Middle Ages, skilled fighter is rare and precious, mere dozens of warrior could affect outcome of battle. Mercenary, exiled warrior and mountainers are valuable resource in wars, and very expensive.
 
Many Normans started out as warriors and mercenaries who then became warlords. Specifically Robert Guiscard and Rollo come to mind.
I will point out that they were coming from noble families, with training (at least Robert Guiscard did) if I remember correctly. The Hauteville line was not high nobility but they were not untrained peasants either.

In another context, one of the main Vietnamese dynasties was started by a warlord. You had a NGuyen family which was quite high up, but during the Mac Usurpation, the patriarch married his daughter to another guy called Nguyen too (vietnamese history tends to be confusing as they're all called Nguyen).
That particular Nguyen had been a particularly skilled warlord during one of the many civil wars of the time. He doesn't seem to have come from nobility but got high enough, and recognised enough to marry in one of the ruling families and become the patriarch
 

Toraach

Banned
So I was playing a video game called Mount and Blade: Warband, and basically you're this character who comes to this land called Calradia, full of internal strife and medieval warfare and bandits and whatnot. You can almost immediately just kinda get a few peasants to volunteer to follow you and all of a sudden you're a minor warband.

Obviously this is wildly unrealistic, but really how easy would it be to make a minor bandit group, or peasant rebellion (I know those are very different things) or something to that end in medieval Europe?


I imagine it would depend on the place. A high-density rural region like Denmark it would be harder to hide in the wilderness (but also harder to notice a few serfs missing?) Meanwhile in Italy the semi-urbanized regions would be hard to live like that in.


Any ideas on what I'm going for?
Maybe it is not exactly you want, because this guy was an exiled prince, but Władysław the Elbow High of Poland was something like that, he started as a leader of the tiniest duchy, and later by various strokes of luck (deaths of his oponnents, alies, brothers etc) gained some position, to just lost all his posesions when a bigger player named Vaclav II of Bohemia invaded. He spend some years wandering God only knows where, and returned to Poland after Vaclav II death, and luckily Vaclav III died some months later.
 
I will point out that they were coming from noble families, with training (at least Robert Guiscard did) if I remember correctly. The Hauteville line was not high nobility but they were not untrained peasants either.

Granted it’s been almost a decade since I played vanilla M&B, but I seem to remember that you had the option of starting as the son/daughter of a landed knight/noble.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Granted it’s been almost a decade since I played vanilla M&B, but I seem to remember that you had the option of starting as the son/daughter of a landed knight/noble.
Yes, but a noble from a foreign land. You, the main character, is not from Calradia, and have no pwer base to begin with.
 
I'd argue that it depends on where, for example the founder of the house of Osman seems to have been just a particularly successful tribal raider who was able to attract a lot of Ghazis; wandering nomads looking for loot, rape, and successful leaders that could deliver the two. The region was just so unstable and poorly defended that any man with martial talent was able to make their way (the Osmans were the most successful, but just take a look at all the other Anatolian Beyliks). Any place and time with bad rulers, an abundance of free or treasonable warriors, and wealthy lands to attract the warriors to.

But going by that criteria, it'll probably be easier in central Asia due to the abundance of tribal warriors.
 
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Samo was a Frankish arms dealer that travelled around europe and ended up King of the Slavs.

His kingdom is creatively called Samo's Empire.
 
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It'd be much easier to do in the late antiquity/early medieval, and I'd say neigh impossible post 1500ish/early modern era (in euro-centric terms).

The difficulties and opportunities vary from place to place & time to time, but in general, as you get into the age where there's modern states with centralized control, national armies, etc., this sort of thing requires extraordinary circumstances. Not necessarily impossible, but highly improbable.

Well, unless you count the Condotierri/mercenary bands in Renaissance Italy. Seizing control of a city there was eminently possible for an ambitious and ruthless man, just ask the Sforzas.

Basically where this happened historically is under circumstances were state power as such is weak and fractious and with plenty of independent elite mercenary/veteran forces to back you, like say in Sengoku Japan or the late medieval southern Balkans.
 
Well, unless you count the Condotierri/mercenary bands in Renaissance Italy. Seizing control of a city there was eminently possible for an ambitious and ruthless man, just ask the Sforzas.
Italy was a fractious place with little in the way of the kind of control/power needed to prevent warlordism for much of its history (and arguably the mafia was a continuation of this warlordism), and as such constitutes an extraordinary case in my book.

Basically where this happened historically is under circumstances were state power as such is weak and fractious and with plenty of independent elite mercenary/veteran forces to back you
Which is exactly my point; specific circumstances are required for this to be possible
 
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