The timeline shows how often Deventer was at war. Soldiers from Deventer could be found on campaign almost every year in between 1360 and 1370, sometimes in different theaters of war at the same time. Each campaign was different and so required a different number and different kind of troops to be deployed. The city militia comprised three types of armed men, on call.
There were the schutten, the group of men who used long range weapons such as the armborst (crossbow). They were organised in the oelde and the ionge schutten. Together they practiced their shooting in between the two city walls at the Brinkgates and they also organised contests where they had to shoot the papegoy. The number of schutten was round about the thirtyfive.
Next to the schutten there were also the riders. The more affluent people in the city owned horses that they had to serve the city with in times of war. The non-horse-owing people had to pay taxes to help the horse-owners in this obligation. In this way the city could muster some fifty riders which is quite a number for this period.
Of course the bulk of the city militia was made up by the citizens that did not own a horse or an armborst, the normal infantry then. They were send out and organised by neighbourhood, with the alderman(men) from the neighbourhood leading them. Each neighbourhood contingent probably also had to guard a stretch of the city walls.
Dependant on his affluence each citizen had to own at least a harnasche and wapen of a certain type (the more affluent, the better). At set times the cities aldermen made a round through the city to make sure that people did in fact own and have this military equipment present in their houses. The aldermen checked at the same time if the citizens also had the obligatory amount of rye in storage in their houses. One never knew when Deventer was going to be besieged and maybe starved to death.