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2012-10-15, 04:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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#177
Re: Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XI
The rule of thumb was, as long as the towns remained independent, they had good militia.
In Italy, as the towns lost their independence to Signore usually soon afterword their militias declined. And as towns became more patrician (like say, Venice and Genoa), their militias became somewhat more cavalry oriented. But the independent towns retained strong militias well into the Early Modern era. Venice being case in point.
In 'The German States', (i.e. Central Europe north of the Alps), the towns were not at each others throats so much the way the Italian towns were, so they only really had to contend with the Princes and the Church, not with each other. They also tended to deeply mistrust mercenaries. They did use them for external conflicts, since money was always towns greatest offensive weapon against the Princes, but often would not let them inside the walls. The town militia even had to perform town watch (i.e. police) duties because they wouldn't trust foreigners with the keys to the town gate. For this reason very few of the larger Free German (or German / Slavic, or German / Norse) towns lost their independence to Signores, except in cases where the Ottomans took over the region like in Hungary.
The mercenaries themselves, the Swiss and the Landsknechten, were usually at least half or a third derived from urban militias.
So (in my opinion) the answer is no, you didn't see the same decline in the 'German' towns militia as you saw in some cases in Italy. They remained part of the army of the HRE all the way to the 18th Century. The principle limitation was they wouldn't go very far from the town gates... except on ships. Town militias were involved with the navy as well, especially in the Hanse cities. Danzig for example retained a formidable naval presence all the way into the 18th Century. Venice of course as well.
Regarding Latin America, I always wondered (but never understood) why some parts seemed to be completely stuck in a very feudal / late Roman style system with huge estates owned by a tiny minority and very, very poor population of campesinos (indios), like say Guatemala, while others seemed to get fairly urbanized fairly early on at least in parts with some kind of real middle class (Argentine say), and others kind of in between. And then you even have Costa Rica which has almost like a Swiss system of independent rural peasants, but they are a bit of an aberration. I don't know much about the history of Latin America, if you care to please elaborate, you seem to know it pretty well.
G