Levée en masse

Levée en masse is a French term for mass conscription.

Origins

In the polis envisioned in Plato's Laws, the militia would include the entire population, and women and children would drill alongside men.

Related Topics:
Polis - Laws - Militia

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Under Alfred the Great, the Wessex fyrd was divided in two, with half the farmers staying home to tend their crops, and the other half levied to serve in the army, then rotating back to the village.

Related Topics:
Alfred the Great - Wessex - Fyrd

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In feudal times, peasant levies were often used to supplement levies of men-at-arms, usually as sappers, pioneers, woodcutters etc., and not as fighting men. Some jurisdictions, like France, developed the institution of corvée, whereby laborers were conscripted annually by their seigneur for either military or non-military duties.

Related Topics:
Men-at-arms - Sappers - Pioneers - Corvée

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None of these, however, were on the same scale that was to be realized for the first time in Europe during the French Revolution.

Related Topics:
Europe - French Revolution

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