"Feudal England" Topic

Hi all,

I am about to build a 15mm Feudal English force but not to sure how to paint them.

To be honest, I'm not that knowledgable on this actual period. I do have some knowledge of the Crusades, so I was thinking it may be pretty similar?!?

Does anyone know of a good resource for painting Feudal English forces? (including the foot troops, it always seems to just be the knights……)

The dates I have are 1180-1320 AD

Cheers in advance guys.

Keep the heraldry on your knights relatively simple.

The foot would be in whatever. Some companies _might_ be wearing a uniform coloured tunic, but leggings and hoods etc. would be whatever they had. Their shields again _might_ have a unifying badge or design, but they might not too.

Try using contemporary illuminations for inspiration. They should be easy enough to find in some library books. It's pretty much what the artists in the Ospreys use too.

Your talking about theperiod when heraldry starts to become increasingly commonplace amongst the 'knights' but before we have any real evidence of 'uniformity' amongst the rank and file. There may have been some lords who provided disinctively coloured clothing for their retinues, possibly many of them, we just don't know.

It is a fallacy that early heraldry is simple though. Really fancy stuff (with quartering and and other additions) is later but some very early arms can be quite complicated.

Dystuffs were limited and bright colours expensive so bear that in mind. Dull colours, often quite light, rather than bright would be commonest. Red-brown, ochre yellow, brownish grey and dull greens probably top the list of possibilities.

Shields for the hoy-paloi ? No-one really has any idea but, if later practice is any guide (and it probably is), then followers did not use the same shield design as their lord. Possibly the same colour scheme or just a cross on a plain colour. Many foot were levied regionally so MAY have had some device or symbol connected with their county (not that anyone really knows if those existed that early, but they may have done). Guesswork is OK but keep it pretty simple and think drab and rather boring for colour schemes.

Tony H

"Really fancy stuff (with quartering and and other additions) is later but some very early arms can be quite complicated."

I was thinking of the examples one always sees in books on heraldry, which tend to be from much later.

Besides he is trying to paint 15mm!

Quartering was pretty rare to begin with.
Although it shows mostly Germans, the Manesse Codex is very useful for showing ways in which heraldry of the late 13th early 14th century would be displayed on surcoats and horse trappings.
link has all the pages I think.

The Maciejowski bible is good for showing the kinds of colours which may have seemed reasonable for foot soldiers.

link

Early Rolls/ Early Blazon includes details taken from rolls such as the Falkirk roll which has the arms of the English participants – 115 sets.
earlyblazon.com :follow the link in the sidebar to Early Rolls.

My stuff is for Italians of the same period – Martin at Vexillia has posted some pics of mine
link
The infantry shields are those of various quarters of cities – your average English footman may not have used anything so extravagant.

If you want some advice on 15mm figures as well, Merliton covers your period pretty well. Vexillia carries them in England. I also like Legio Heroica, but they would cover the century just before your interests.

Steve

"Think drab and rather boring." Bleh, not for miniatures. One has to ENJOY the painting experience, after all.

Sure, most of "their guys" wear the drab and boring stuff: but MY guys are blessed with a "Lord" of asthetic style :) Therefore, I will afford the better dyes for my household knights and my stipendiary castle guard of mailed crossbowmen. And the units will MATCH. I like livery colors, as early as possible. And I believe that there were examples of this uniformity in unit colors as early as the so-called Dark Ages.

In Bernard Cornwell's Anglo-Saxon books, he describes Viking bodyguards wearing a distinctive color and having shields that match. Iirc, the Sagas have examples of this. And we know livery is in the late Middle Ages, so why not in between the two periods?

Look on eBay or abebooks for Ian Heath's books (publiced by the Wargames Research Group). That is a good start.

Ian Heath's 'Feudal Europe' group is generally hard to find and/or pretty expensive most of the time. However, many of his non-knight Western European figures come from the Maciejowski Bible which I linked to above.

Beware of the one on Abebooks from Caliver. It is described as a photocopy in a folder which seems a bit 'unusual'.

The other copies on Abe are about 50 GBP. There is one which is part of a bundle on ebay at the moment. It is the 1st edition which isn't quite as good as the 2nd but still a decent book.

'Ow can you tell 'ee's a king?

Does this painting guide help?

link

That is a very good guide with only the additional note that bright colours would be restricted to the nobility and a few possibly with a small scrap of brighter cloth tied around the arm as a 'field sign' by members of the same 'unit' or retinue.

Hi all,

Many thanks for your great responses!!

I have to admit, I have avoided TMP for quite a while, but I'm really glad I have started to visit. You guys are great.

So, it looks to be pretty much drab but colourful, with the infantry in unformal colours, but not. lol I liek that as you can get some units to lok a right mis match of men, and others to look all ovely and 'together'

@TonicNH, many thanks for that, it's printing as I type!!

Many thanks once again to all.