Questions on the logistics and economics of medieval raiding and looting

[raharris1973]

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?

 

[JesterBL]

They sold a lot of stuff locally, essentially, and converted it either into notes (late medieval/early modern era), coinage or jewelry made of precious metals. There's a book by David Parrott which goes into the economics of mercenary companies in late medieval/early modern Europe and he discusses how a lot of that was handled- and how the preferences towards more mobile means of wealth bled into depictions of mercenaries and later, pirates.

 

[LSCatilina]

How much was looted, what was looted exactly really depends of the nature of the raid itself. A state-sponsored raiding (e.g. Arabo-Berber raidings in Western Europe, Roman or Merovingian raiding in Germania, etc.) could well focus on specific goods not just for monetary or exchange value, but also for its prestige content and accordingly prepare logistical necessities themselves rather protected by their military : for instance, Arabo-Berbers while being defeated at Tours in 732 managed to hold on the loot gathered so far when retreating, quite possibly after some sorting out depending what was important, what was not and some "no, Samir, I don't care how nice this pottery looks, we don't have any room if we want to leave quickly"

A smaller raiding party might, on the other hand, rather goes along a "take whatever and sort it out at home/nearby safe point" precisely because swiftness was their main advantage. As an exemple, you'd have a boat found nearby Neupotz that literally sunk in the Rhine under the weight of loot gathered by IIIrd century Barbarians that contained among others : religious objects, a racoon, weapons, coins, tableware, tools, ship and chariot pieces, etc.
(That's hardly a rule, still, as you'd have raiding bands gathered for a specific purposes, such as cattle-raiding, to get most of it before someone strikes back)

Additionally, you'd have the lot of less preservable or more movable goods such as slaves (themselves either caught up at random or depending their value such as craftsmen, beauty, etc.), food (especially to eat on the road), cattle, etc. including vehicles themselves : the fleet gathered by Vandals to cross the Mediterranean Sea and raid its costs was itself "plundered" from various trading and fishing ships that were repurposed, something likely to have happened on different ways (Goths "borrowing" coastal fleets to raid Turkey, Ligurians pirates sailing on monoxyle boats but still managing to catch the whole cargo that couldn't fit on these, etc.)

Of course, that was well depended a lot from preparation : people didn't just raid at random but after a degree of planning (gathering enough people, the equipment, identifying what they wanted first, etc.) and expectations of goods to be carried away and/or ransomned : if you had little time, you'd take whatever and/or a specific good, if you had all the time plunder could easily become well organized (as the sacks of Rome by Alaric and Genseric) to have a minimum of damages and an efficient, organized and profitable looting.

 

[Redolegna]

A smaller raiding party might, on the other hand, rather goes along a "take whatever and sort it out at home/nearby safe point" precisely because swiftness was their main advantage. As an exemple, you'd have a boat found nearby Neupotz that literally sunk in the Rhine under the weight of loot gathered by IIIrd century Barbarians that contained among others : religious objects, a racoon, weapons, coins, tableware, tools, ship and chariot pieces, etc.

Yes, hello, I'd like to know more about the cute little garbage invader, the raton laveur.

 

[LSCatilina]

Yes, hello, I'd like to know more about the cute little garbage invader, the raton laveur.

It's just a joke, a reference to this to highlight the raiders really took whatever looked valuable to sort out later.