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There's a lot of high quality discussion here on determining historically realistic values for military/population/economic/etc parameters for cities-countries-etc.

I'm wondering if anyone is aware of or collecting historical datasets on these kinds of state parameters for the medieval/early modern periods. For example are there datasets on the relative military strengths / army sizes for the period of 1400-1800?

I think a database like that might be really worthwhile to make, as it would allow one to systematically look at the determinants and the limits of military size at the time. Books on particular places and eras is fine, but it is difficult to generalize from there. Thanks!

puslet88
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  • Could you define the dates? From your question, they seem a bit broad. Something like 1500-1800? – Xander Sep 29 '17 at 07:57
  • Thanks for the note! I added the period 1400-1800, but really I'm curious in any historical dataset that tries to collect such information. So far they seem hard to come by. – puslet88 Sep 29 '17 at 08:22
  • I think our tag [tag:worldbuilding-resources] would be far more appropriate for this request. It's specifically designed for questions about external information that can be used for worldbuilding such as datasets on certain things. See for example Database of historical names. If you feel different feel free to roll back the edit. Also, welcome to WorldBuilding! Cool question. If you have a moment check out the [tour] and the [help] to learn more about the site. Have fun! – Secespitus Sep 29 '17 at 09:06
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    But your title looks extremely broad as it touches on 4 broad categories in two different times. You might want to narrow that down a bit so that this question is not labelled "Too Broad". You can always ask follow-up questions about other aspects/times later. – Secespitus Sep 29 '17 at 09:08
  • Not a real answer, but the book "Agincourt" by Barker has a lot of very detailed numbers. You might use her sources to compile your data if needed. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/633927.Agincourt – Aaron Butacov Sep 29 '17 at 09:37
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    Yes; as @Secespitus said, please do focus on one aspect at a time. There is precedent for this type of question to be on topic on Worldbuilding (compare current open worldbuilding-resources questions), but asking for one thing at a time greatly improves the chances of getting useful answers. You can certainly ask multiple questions that focus on different aspects of a society, but lumping e.g. military and economy together seems unlikely to be productive. – user Sep 29 '17 at 09:38
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    I'm putting this on hold for the moment, not because I think this strictly doesn't belong here, but rather because you are asking for so much at once. If you can narrow this down to one reasonably well-defined aspect (say, size of the military vs total population; or estimates of economic output per capita; for a specified time period), it might very well be fine. Just go ahead and [Edit]; if you edit during the "on hold" grace period, your question will automatically be entered into the reopen review queue for community review and hopefully swift reopening. – user Sep 29 '17 at 09:43
  • Thanks for the tips and updates! I edited the question to focus on just the military might as suggested. @AaronHarun, thanks for the ref - I'll have a look. It might be worthwhile to collect the data into a centralized set. – puslet88 Sep 29 '17 at 14:34

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