North York Rifle Militia
military unit
The North York Militia, later the North York Rifles, was an auxiliary military force raised in the North Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1558 the Militia regiments of the riding served in home defence and internal security in all of Britain's major wars. It was one of the first British units to include specialist riflemen. The regiment became a battalion of the Green Howards in 1881, and saw service in the Second Boer War. It was disbanded in 1908.
Early history
The English militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff. The universal obligation to serve continued under the Normans and the shire levies under the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Walter Espec, formed a large part of the army that defeated the invading Scots at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in 1138. The levies were reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by the Statute of Winchester of 1285. Now Commissioners of Array would levy the required number of men from each shire. The usual shire contingent was 1000 infantry commanded by a millenar, divided into companies of 100 commanded by constables or ductores, and subdivided into sections of 20 led by vintenars.
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This entry incorporates text from “North York Rifle Militia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.