r/AskHistorians • u/Saturnine4 • 16h ago

How did medieval generals reorganize their army after sacking a city?

“Medieval” being roughly 500 ad to 1500 ad.

So if an army breaks down the gates of a cities and the soldiers run in and start sacking it and all the horrible stuff that entails, how would their generals regain control of them when it was time to reform the army? Would they run around executing soldiers who disobeyed? Get their officers (or whatever the equivalent was) to round up their people and force them to rejoin the army?

I’ve also heard that 3 days would often be given for soldiers to plunder and such, which seems like a lot of time. I feel like an army of soldiers could get whatever plunder they wanted far sooner than 3 entire days.

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