A common theme with stuff like the peasants in TSS and Meribald’s experience in the Stepstones is that the common soldier is often going to war woefully underequipped. Is this a phenomenon that has been exaggerated by Martin? I’ve been doing some nonfiction reading on medieval history, and it seems like it wasn’t too much of a hardship for common soldiers or even peasant levies to acquire proper weapons like swords or spears (if not up to the standards of weapons used by lords or knights).

It was a real phenomenon, but it’s also one that’s been exaggerated. 

While peasant levies did exist and tended to be not as well equipped, they didn’t really need to be. Spear and shield and helmet will do the job most times, and once you get into longbows, then your peasant levies are actually hugely valuable without the need for plate armor or horses.

Moreover, as time went on, you started to get specialization. Professional men-at-arms who could bring the equipment and skills of a knight to the infantry were hired with cash that kings raised from taxes in lieu of military service, mercenary companies emerged to deal with the slowness of pulling together feudal armies, and so on.