Gordon, they were like a militia I think, and they were people who were farm workers or weavers or whatever. There's some dispute amongst historians about how trained they ever were, and seems likely that it depended almost entirely on the Lord Lieutenant of the county and his deputies re how often they got people together to be trained, some did quite a lot and some almost none. The militia's are earlier as well as later, there are plenty of remaining militia rolls with names of the men - in Suffolk there's the famous 1522 Military Survey which tells us each man's occupation as well as what weapon he had. The armour in each parish was kept in the church. Lyn B