"Burgundian Banners for 28mm" Topic

Well, gentlemen,

as usual, my work on a personal project has turned into a greater thing…

I have been working on a range of Burgundian paper banners for myself and finally completed the first sheet. Now that it is done and I am pleased with the results, I was wondering if anyone else would be interested in

a. getting these
b. more of the same – continuation of the range

So far I have a sheet of some cavalry guidons featuring the banners of Burgundy proper, banners of Antoine, Great bastard of Burgundy, and some unidentified banners recorded for posterity in various Swiss chronicles and flag-books.

You can see sample images here:

picture

So, I would be interested in feedback – would THESE be of interest to other late medieval wargamers, and is there interest for more? I am planning to expand the range and do Swiss, French, and possibly English WOTR banners as well. Feedback and opinions appreciated!

They're good, very nice. Could be an idea to do black & white alternatives aswell so that shading and so on could be painted on.

Any idea what banners the Burgundian cavalry carried in the Italian wars?

You are talking abuot different periods separated by almost 50 years. By the time the Italian Wars began, Burgundy ceased to be an independent power and was essentially split up between France and the HRE. So, there would be no such thing as "Burgundian cavalry" in the Italian Wars, as even the concept of "Burgundian" waned by that time.

Hi Imperial Forge!
Looks nice :-)

You (and Stuart M) might want to check out our club site
Danish Wargames Society
krigsspil.dk/index.html

Look under the "download" sections
We have tons of free high quality banners for downloading – including Burgundian and Italian wars

brest regards
Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I know krigsspil and visit it frequently. I was impressed with the offerings initially, but actually, my decision to do my own Burgundian banners was caused by my dissatisfaction with the quality of banners there. They just did not do it for me. I wanted more detailed, crisper banners, and ended up following the ancient maxim: "If you want something done well, do it yourself". :-)

Your banner of Antoine Bastard of Burgundy is wrong (sorry dont worry so is everyone elses!) However the quality looks quite good.
You need to compare yourself against Krigsspil which have set the standard rather high in terms of quality and research and of course , cost.

Hi Imperial Forge

Best of luck with your enterprise, but don't settle for just crisp/detailed banners.

One of my problems with printed paper banners is durability. The colors fade over time. So the use of much better materials than just paper should be considered. It could be a big selling point.

I can see you're experimenting with a pattern cloth effect in your banners. (I'm looking into that for my upgrad of the Swiss flags).
But do remember to try and lent/buy a copy of Florens Deuchler's " Die Burgunderbeute" (1963). There are pictures of the physical remains of some of the flags. Not all of the flags use pattern cloth. In particular non of the surviving Ordonance Companies flags. As for the rest artistic license rules so knock yourself out;-)

I'm very happy with the free Krigspil banners. They are perfect, and the quality is high enough for my 28mm Burgundians. And there is a lot of choice.

Imperial forge,
the blue you use is much to light. It should be a lot darker. Also the green you use as back ground for the lion should be black.

I think they look very nice, so I would be interested in them.

I'm also especially interested in French Ordonnance flags and banners, since there seems to be much less info available on them.

Thomas

Love your selection of flags, but I'm not able to see any "Downlaod" button. Or should I just click and drag to my desktop?

thanks for sharing btw, the hand painted banners I was so proud of years back are looking a bit silly now….

wyeayeman: "Your banner of Antoine Bastard of Burgundy is wrong (sorry dont worry so is everyone elses!)"

How is it wrong? The design, the motto, the badge, or the colors?

Rune 3: "do remember to try and lent/buy a copy of Florens Deuchler's " Die Burgunderbeute" (1963)"

I own that book. And many others pertaining to the Burgundian Wars. People do not realize that most of the illustrations in Deuchler come from Swiss DRAWINGS of LATER COPIES from the 17th century, which means a contaminated source to begin with.

However, there is oblique evidence. There are enough remaining authentic Swiss flags from the period, and almost all of them are on richly patterned silks. There is no reason to believe this would not be the case with Burgundy, whose two last dukes placed a particular emphasis on displays of status, power, and wealth.

waaslandwarrior: "the blue you use is much to light. It should be a lot darker. Also the green you use as back ground for the lion should be black."

The blue is darker, indeed. And the background for the lion is black. Sorry if the pic is of bad quality. I know my Burgundian heraldry! :-)

Hi hotleadsnewcomputer!

Yes the wording "download" is maybe not quite right… :-)
Just right clik on the flag and "save image as…" on your hard drive

best regards
Thomas

Imperial Forge,
I hope to identify complete details of Antoines banner this year. Yours (copied from the Freezyawter book) is not far off, but too wrong to remain uncorrected.
I concur with Rune, there is no evidence that the Burgundian Ordonnance flags are on patterned fabric.
'Some' of the swiss flags are on heavily patterned fabric (often two or three pieces sown together sometimes the patterns are skewed)you can see this clearly in the SchweizerFahnenbuch and other sources. Dont belive many of them are silk, fine fabric perhaps.

wyeayeman,

I have the Schweizer Fahnenbuch and yes, some of the Swiss banners are indeed on heavily patterned fabric.

I ams still curious why you said the banner for Anthony is wrong. I did not copy it from the Freezywater book – theirs is definitely a wrong version. Mine has the correct motto. I based mine on cumulative evidence, including period bronze medals of Anthony, his manuscript notes, etc. So, when you say it is wrong, I would like to know what specifically is wrong and why.

"I concur with Rune, there is no evidence that the Burgundian Ordonnance flags are on patterned fabric."

Perhaps not. But I doubt there is evidence that they weren't… To the best of my knowledge there are no surviving Burgundian banners in good enough condition to judge. The various bits and pieces in Swiss museums are mostly later silk copies. I don't think there is a definitive way to know for sure. But, I do not claim ultimate knowledge, so I would like to know. I like artistic license, but would use it within reason! :-)

Well first off your motto is wrong – you have NULI NE SI FROTA the correct one is most definately NUL NE S'Y FROTE. This is the one that appears on his manuscripts, with his signiature, on his documents, and has been discussed at length by art historians. You are missing his cypher. The twig thing on your flag only appears on the banderoles on some of his manuscripts not on any of the contemporary illustrations I have of his banner. Nor is it mentioned in the written descriptions. – Unless of course you have another picture of his flag, if you have I would definately appreciate a reference.
'The various bits and pieces in Swiss museums are mostly later copies' – no mostly the fragments are original. Some of the paintings are later perhaps. And as Deuchler points out some of them are incorrectly provenanced.

I think we may be talking about the same motto in various versions. Mine is Old French. "Nuli ne si frota" comes from (among other references) a period bronze medal portrait of Anthony by Niccolo Spinelli, which you can see here:

picture

Another evidence for it is on the reverse of another bronze medal portrait of Anthony by Giovanni Candida:

picture

I did not understand – what cypher am I missing?
I am curious, which contemporary illustrations do you have of his banner?

As to surviving fragments of Burgundian banners, inasmuch as I could judge, they have deteriorated beyond the point of determining the original cloth texture and quality, so they may as well have been patterned. I won't insist on this point though, as I am open to corrections.

Imperial, Thats 'italian' not old French. Having said that I did not know Spinelli had done a medal of Antoine. He was at the court of Burgundy at the right time.
I hope to get somethiong completed this year (about half way there) on Antoine's banner with all references.

Shute, I meant to say "NULI NE SI FROTA" is an italian version, while "NUL NE SY FROTE" is in old French. Hence the deletion of my previous post. I guess it didn't work… Sorry, because of the flu, I am heavily medicated… :-)

Both versions of the motto were used. There is another, less well known motto of Antoine, "AINSI LE VEUL", which is sometimes encountered together with "Nul Ne Sy Frote" in manuscripts belonging to Anthony. It is not known whether this is a separate motto, albeit infrequently used, or a part of the same motto.

The whole motto is 'Nul ne s'y frote, ainsi le veul' but only the first part appears on the flag. His father and brother both had two part mottoes. This is rare but not unusual. I have never seen anything related to Antoine with the Italian version of his motto before, but given the international make up of europe at the time anything is perhaps possible.

I think between us we will end up with an accurate picture!

@wyeayeman:

Have a question for you…

I need to decide how I want to do the reverse side of the banners with the motto. What I am uncertain about is whether "Je Lay Emprins" needs to be be mirrored or reversed.

Mirrored – means a mirror image of the text on the other side, which effectively renders the text illegible in a normal way.

Reversed – means the text is reversed on the other side and can be read from left to right, as usual. Obviously.

The problem is, "Die Burgunderbeute" lists illustrations from Swiss museums, of now-defunct banners, where one can see the reverse side, and the Motto is clearly mirrored. Those however, are later drawings of banners now lost. I don't think I have seen a single preserved banner's reverse side…

Instinctively, I would want to reverse the text, but the evidence, however little, suggests mirroring it. I am not aware of any other sources, which would depict the reverse side of banners. Various swiss wappenbucher did not help much…

Any takes? Opinion and advice would be appreciated! :-)

The thing with many of the burgundian banners is that they were painted (i.e. by Peter Coustins and others)and so both sides would be tahe same with the mottoes the correct way no matter which side you looked.
However it is possible that where banners were embroidered, such embroidery was correct one way only. When doing completly heraldic or allegorical pictures, this would not matter so much. But obviously mottoes would.
I have seen a fair few paintings where the mottoes are reversed, for example the one of Phillip the Good revoking the priveleges of Ghent, his mottoe 'Aultre Naray' is definately reversed (and seemingly upside down so who knows), But this may be due to the photo being reversed.
I would prefer reversing the text since it would make no sense otherwise.
Sorry I cannot be more help. I too have rarely seen 'reverse'sides of flags – strange that!

Wyeayeman, thank you. I have seen the pic of Phillip the Good accepting the submission of Ghent (assuming you were referring to this one):

picture

…and also marveled at the obverse motto…

I wanted to double-check against your opinion to make sure that my desire to reverse the Motto to make it legible was reasonable and historically accurate. I think I will go for REVERSED!

Thanks! :-)