To be clear, the key word in the quote above is medieval. He specifically says large battles were far more common in the ancient world:
> Pitched battles were far more common in the ancient world (think Persia, Macedon, Rome, etc) – this is a product of the larger size and greater organizational capabilities of those armies.
That is actually wrong. For a battle to occur, both sides need to agree to battle, except in rare circumstances. So, usually what happens is, that the general in a weaker position avoids the other guy, until he finds terrain suitable to his advantage. The other guy then of course is a lot less inclined to attack in for him unfavorable terrain. Compare that with a siege, the attacker knows where he needs to go, and what he wants to do, and for the defenders their fortifications are a lot better than moving somewhere else.
(It should be mentioned, some armies could force a battle. The Mongols for example where just so much more mobile, that they could actually catch an enemy who tries to evade them.)
Consequently also in antiquity, most engagements where sieges rather than set piece battles.
Isn't it kind of a useless distinction? I mean it's not like there are so many periods of pre-gunpowder history. We have ancient, medieval and that's it -you could add bronze age but we have so much less records-.
The whole "battles were rare, sieges where common" is a trope I believe some YouTubers started, but I don't think there's any solid pattern. Ancient armies pillaged the countryside to provoke encounters. Steppe peoples did pitched battles all the time because they didn't build walls. Medieval Europe may have had more sieges than battles because of religious homogeneity, but you can see how that model falls down soon in the thirty years war: if you don't engage the enemy they'll loot and pillage you to oblivion. Your people see how you are unable to protect them and desert you.
No, there is a very clear difference between warfare in the classical and medieval eras (in the West), and it dovetails with the collapse of large-scale political authority and the ability to muster large armies.
Another distinguishing factor is the widespread building of castles. During the classical era, fortifications were less useful because there were powerful states that could capture them anyway. But when even the nominal king or emperor had trouble mustering a force of fifty thousand men, the castle vs. the siege (and the raid) dominated most warfare. During the classical area many of those same places would have been sparsely populated, and certainly not well fortified.
Castles were less useful because you didn't need internal military structure to defend against the people from one province over. Roman cities for 100s of years didn't upgrade their city walls, even communities in Gaul stopped living in hill cities and so on.
Defensive structure really only made sense in specific border regions. There however large empires certainty did invest in such defenses. Border cities that were ready to be under siege and that could host an arriving army.
Think for example about the difference between pre-Hastings England and 100 years later. The castle sprawl was really dramatic after William took over, it really changed the dynamic
> Pitched battles were far more common in the ancient world (think Persia, Macedon, Rome, etc) – this is a product of the larger size and greater organizational capabilities of those armies.