Military terms in Middle-earth

[elfscribe]

Hey gang, I'd like some discussion on military terms for use in Middle-earth, particularly Numenor, both terms that Tolkien used and others that would be appropriate because I feel like I'm mixing up terms from different time periods.

I need terms to describe different size groups within an army as well as commanders.

I haven't gone back and searched for Tolkien's terms so I'm going only by my feeble memory here but I'm fairly sure he used company and army and he definitely used captain and lieutenant as titles. And then there was Éored for a division within the Rohirric army under one captain, which I believe is the actual Anglo-Saxon term.

For orcs and bad guys, I think he used hoard and host. But I'm not sure if there were definitions for how many orcs before a hoard became a host.

I've assembled a number of terms and am somewhat at a loss what to use to designate different size groups since it looks like Tolkien's basic model is a medieval one where a captain is in command of a company which is a group of soldiers raised by a vassal lord to come to the aid of a king but I don't remember him making distinctions as far as the organization of those companies. Most of the terms we use today come from old French, and therefore probably Latin. Here are some: troops, battalion, company, regiment, cohort, squad, army, brigade, contingent, corps, platoon, force, host, legion, multitude, squadron, throng, unit.

I know the Roman term legion refers to a big group, like a division today? Legion -- 3,000 to 6,000 infantry and 100-200 cavalry. I'm comfortable using company or squad as a smaller unit. Maybe battalion as a larger unit? I'm not sure about regiment. And can troops be used as a general designation for a group of soldiers?

Any help sorting this out will be met by gratitude.

[surgicalsteel]

Apr 9, 2010 16:01:42 GMT -6 elfscribe said:

Hey gang, I'd like some discussion on military terms for use in Middle-earth, particularly Numenor, both terms that Tolkien used and others that would be appropriate because I feel like I'm mixing up terms from different time periods.

I need terms to describe different size groups within an army as well as commanders.

I haven't gone back and searched for Tolkien's terms so I'm going only by my feeble memory here but I'm fairly sure he used company and army and he definitely used captain and lieutenant as titles. And then there was Éored for a division within the Rohirric army under one captain, which I believe is the actual Anglo-Saxon term.

For orcs and bad guys, I think he used hoard and host. But I'm not sure if there were definitions for how many orcs before a hoard became a host.

I've assembled a number of terms and am somewhat at a loss what to use to designate different size groups since it looks like Tolkien's basic model is a medieval one where a captain is in command of a company which is a group of soldiers raised by a vassal lord to come to the aid of a king but I don't remember him making distinctions as far as the organization of those companies. Most of the terms we use today come from old French, and therefore probably Latin. Here are some: troops, battalion, company, regiment, cohort, squad, army, brigade, contingent, corps, platoon, force, host, legion, multitude, squadron, throng, unit.

I know the Roman term legion refers to a big group, like a division today? Legion -- 3,000 to 6,000 infantry and 100-200 cavalry. I'm comfortable using company or squad as a smaller unit. Maybe battalion as a larger unit? I'm not sure about regiment. And can troops be used as a general designation for a group of soldiers?

Any help sorting this out will be met by gratitude.

I've just skimmed through UT, The Lost Road, and The History of the Akallabeth (in HoMe XII) and can't find any great terms for actual military units. Formations, yes (most of those are in 'The Disaster of the Gladden Fields'), but not units.

In present day - a 'squad,' 'section,' or 'patrol' would be something like 8-16 men. A 'platoon' or a 'troop' would be 2 or more of the smaller units (although 'troop' in my experience in the Air Force was sometimes used generically by a person in charge of a unit to refer to those under them - either singular or plural). 'Platoon' sort of feels modern to me, although I wouldn't be surprised to find it's not, LOL.

Once you get above that level, the name changes depending on what sort of people are in the unit. 2-8 of the 'platoon' sized units would be a 'company' in the infantry, a 'battery' in the artillery, a 'troop' in the cavalry, or a 'squadron' of combat engineers. 2-6 of that sized unit would be a 'squadron' in the cavlary and a 'batallion' in any other type of unit. 2+ of that sized unit is a regiment (or sometimes a group) and 2+ regiments make up a brigade.

I may be wrong on some of those details - I was Air Force rather than Army, and the organizational names are a little different there. We had flights, squadrons, groups, and wings, among other units.

Captain and lieutenant I remember seeing in canon, I don't recall seeing general or colonel but I could be wrong - and although I don't recall seeing enlisted ranks, it makes sense to me that they'd've had them.

And I don't remember seeing a difference between hoards and hosts.

[randy]

For orcs and bad guys, I think he used hoard and host. But I'm not sure if there were definitions for how many orcs before a hoard became a host.

Wouldn't that be a horde rather than a hoard? Beyond that, I can't help. I've had the same problem with names for groups of soldiers.

[elfscribe]

Thanks Steel for the modern military terms. I could never keep all those straight. And Randy, yes, it should be horde. (Damn English spelling!)

Okay, will see if I can make any consistent sense of this. I'm half tempted to invent my own terms. ;D You know it would be great to have Tolkien all on a searchable database and then answering this stuff would be easy.

[surgicalsteel]

Apr 13, 2010 22:50:14 GMT -6 elfscribe said:

Thanks Steel for the modern military terms. I could never keep all those straight.

Well, I was AF rather than Army, so I may have some of those not quite right.

Tolkien does use 'generals' in the military sense in Letter #246:
In any case Elrond or Galadriel would have proceeded in the policy now adopted by Sauron: they would have built up an empire with great and absolutely subservient generals and armies and engines of war, until they could challenge Sauron and destroy him by force.

So I'd argue you're OK with using 'general' in addition to 'captain' and 'lieutenant.'

And if you're talking about Numenor, you may need to think about naval organization in addition to army organization: admiral, captain, commander, lieutenant, ensign, petty officers, etc - as well as flotillas and fleets.

[Morthoron]

Apr 14, 2010 7:04:11 GMT -6 surgicalsteel said:

Apr 13, 2010 22:50:14 GMT -6 elfscribe said:

Thanks Steel for the modern military terms. I could never keep all those straight.

Tolkien does use 'generals' in the military sense in Letter #246:
In any case Elrond or Galadriel would have proceeded in the policy now adopted by Sauron: they would have built up an empire with great and absolutely subservient generals and armies and engines of war, until they could challenge Sauron and destroy him by force.

So I'd argue you're OK with using 'general' in addition to 'captain' and 'lieutenant.'

As you said, Tolkien used the term 'general' in an...ummm...general sense in his letters, but the term 'general' as an army leader does not occur in the text. It may sound confusing, but the term 'captain' does not comply with a modern army rank; on the contrary, 'captain' in LotR refers directly to being a general or marshal of an army. 'The Captains of the West' refers to Aragorn, Imrahil, Eomer, etc. The Balrog Gothmog is referred to as the 'high-captain of Angband', Turin is called the 'captain of the hosts of Nargothrond, Mablung is termed 'chief captain of Thingol' and Adrahil is referred to as 'captain of the left-wing' in Cirion and Eorl. I guess that, in the simplest terms, captain means leader. *shrugs*

Conversely, the term 'lieutenant' seems to only appear in regards to Sauron's armies: 'the 'lieutenant of Barad-dur', 'lieutenant of Dol-Guldor' and 'lieutenant of Minas-Morgul', for instance. I am only going by memory, but lieutenant appears in the Sil and LotR only in reference to bad guys. Perhaps that's because lieutenant is a French term, and therefore too Norman for Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon tastes. ;D

[surgicalsteel]

Apr 14, 2010 9:46:10 GMT -6 Morthoron said:

...but the term 'general' as an army leader does not occur in the text. It may sound confusing, but the term 'captain' does not comply with a modern army rank; on the contrary, 'captain' in LotR refers directly to being a general or marshal of an army. 'The Captains of the West' refers to Aragorn, Imrahil, Eomer, etc. The Balrog Gothmog is referred to as the 'high-captain of Angband', Turin is called the 'captain of the hosts of Nargothrond, Mablung is termed 'chief captain of Thingol' and Adrahil is referred to as 'captain of the left-wing' in Cirion and Eorl. I guess that, in the simplest terms, captain means leader. *shrugs*

Agreed. 'Captain' is used in your cited examples from Tolkien's work to refer to a military leader rather than to a specific rank .

Conversely, the term 'lieutenant' seems to only appear in regards to Sauron's armies: 'the 'lieutenant of Barad-dur', 'lieutenant of Dol-Guldor' and 'lieutenant of Minas-Morgul', for instance. I am only going by memory, but lieutenant appears in the Sil and LotR only in reference to bad guys. Perhaps that's because lieutenant is a French term, and therefore too Norman for Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon tastes. ;D

Except that 'captain' derives from French, too - from 'capitaine.' Derived from Latin 'caput' or head. The derivation was meant to refer to an individual who stood at the head of others, or was in charge of them.

It's more likely he didn't use 'lieutenant' referring to the good guys because he never had cause to - the deriviation of that was originally intended to refer to someone who held authority for another in his absence. The lieutenant of Dol Guldur or of Barad-dur would be the guy who's in charge of the place while the boss is away. When we see the armies of the West, the boss ('Captain') is always there, IIRC.

Or it might be that he had crappy memories of actually being a Lieutenant in wartime and decided he wasn't inflicting that miserable fate on any of the good guys. Because seriously, in a modern army? A lieutenant's really low on the food chain.

[Morthoron]

Apr 15, 2010 14:26:27 GMT -6 surgicalsteel said:

Except that 'captain' derives from French, too - from 'capitaine.' Derived from Latin 'caput' or head. The derivation was meant to refer to an individual who stood at the head of others, or was in charge of them.

Actually, there is the intermediate Latin capitaneus "chief," n. use of adj. capitaneus "prominent, chief" that came after the original Latin caput "head". But who follows etymology except stodgy Oxford philologists?

Apr 15, 2010 14:26:27 GMT -6 surgicalsteel said:

It's more likely he didn't use 'lieutenant' referring to the good guys because he never had cause to - the deriviation of that was originally intended to refer to someone who held authority for another in his absence. The lieutenant of Dol Guldur or of Barad-dur would be the guy who's in charge of the place while the boss is away. When we see the armies of the West, the boss ('Captain') is always there, IIRC.

Upon consideration, you are probably right. It may be as simple as Tolkien's heroes being born leaders ('captains'); whereas, Sauron's men, wraiths, orcs, etc., are merely henchmen ('lieutenants'), acting in 'lieu' of a higher authority.

[surgicalsteel]

Apr 15, 2010 19:00:24 GMT -6 Morthoron said:

Apr 15, 2010 14:26:27 GMT -6 surgicalsteel said:

Except that 'captain' derives from French, too - from 'capitaine.' Derived from Latin 'caput' or head. The derivation was meant to refer to an individual who stood at the head of others, or was in charge of them.

Actually, there is the intermediate Latin capitaneus "chief," n. use of adj. capitaneus "prominent, chief" that came after the original Latin caput "head".

Well, if you're getting that fussy about it, then 'lieutenant' originally derives from Latin as well, as do a fair number of words in the 'Romance' languages. Lieu is derived from 'locum,' or place, and 'tenant' is derived from 'tenere' or hold/keep.

Erm, yeah, I worked as a locum tenens surgeon (basically physician temp work) for a little while once. Same Latin derivation.

And I dabble in Latin-based etymology a teensy bit because if you understand the derivation of certain anatomic terms it makes them easier to remember. Just like knowing the embryology of the branchial clefts/pouches/arches makes certain bits of head and neck anatomy easier to remember.

Okay, done publicly displaying my geeklitudinousness for the moment.

[elfscribe]

Thanks Steel and Morthoron for the discussion. Most interesting. I hadn't realized that lieutenant originally referred to someone taking charge in the captain's absence, but it makes sense, as in a tenant in lieu of. It seems almost all our military terms come from the French. Those Normans. *shakes head*

Yes, I certainly remember captains as in Captains of the West, realizing that it was a designation for a head of a group of fighting men, with no set limit on the size of that group. Also, I remember the term marshal (spelled right?) Oh for that searchable database for LOTR and the Silm.

Apr 15, 2010 14:26:27 GMT -6 surgicalsteel said:

Apr 14, 2010 9:46:10 GMT -6 Morthoron said:

...but the term 'general' as an army leader does not occur in the text. It may sound confusing, but the term 'captain' does not comply with a modern army rank; on the contrary, 'captain' in LotR refers directly to being a general or marshal of an army. 'The Captains of the West' refers to Aragorn, Imrahil, Eomer, etc. The Balrog Gothmog is referred to as the 'high-captain of Angband', Turin is called the 'captain of the hosts of Nargothrond, Mablung is termed 'chief captain of Thingol' and Adrahil is referred to as 'captain of the left-wing' in Cirion and Eorl. I guess that, in the simplest terms, captain means leader. *shrugs*

Agreed. 'Captain' is used in your cited examples from Tolkien's work to refer to a military leader rather than to a specific rank .

Conversely, the term 'lieutenant' seems to only appear in regards to Sauron's armies: 'the 'lieutenant of Barad-dur', 'lieutenant of Dol-Guldor' and 'lieutenant of Minas-Morgul', for instance. I am only going by memory, but lieutenant appears in the Sil and LotR only in reference to bad guys. Perhaps that's because lieutenant is a French term, and therefore too Norman for Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon tastes. ;D

Except that 'captain' derives from French, too - from 'capitaine.' Derived from Latin 'caput' or head. The derivation was meant to refer to an individual who stood at the head of others, or was in charge of them.

It's more likely he didn't use 'lieutenant' referring to the good guys because he never had cause to - the deriviation of that was originally intended to refer to someone who held authority for another in his absence. The lieutenant of Dol Guldur or of Barad-dur would be the guy who's in charge of the place while the boss is away. When we see the armies of the West, the boss ('Captain') is always there, IIRC.

Or it might be that he had crappy memories of actually being a Lieutenant in wartime and decided he wasn't inflicting that miserable fate on any of the good guys. Because seriously, in a modern army? A lieutenant's really low on the food chain.