Scottish armies of the late medieval era depended on a combination of familial, communal and feudal forms of service. "Scottish service" (servitum Scoticanum), also known as "common service" (communis exertcitus), a levy of all able-bodied freemen aged between 16 and 60, provided the bulk of armed forces, with (according to decrees) 8 days warning. Feudal obligations, by which knights held castles and estates in exchange for service, provided troops on a 40-day basis. By the second half of the 14th century money contracts of bonds or bands of manrent, similar to English indentures of the same period, were being used to retain more professional troops, particularly men-at-arms and archers.M. Brown, The Wars of Scotland, 1214–1371 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), , p. 58. In practice forms of service tended to blur and overlap and several major Scottish lords brought contingents from their kindred.
