"Sword and Buckler nations" Topic

I am curious what nationalities used the sword and buckler tactics of the spanish? I have read of Italians troops using swords and bucklers. What about French, Huegonots, Imperial, Dutch, English, Swiss, Landsknechts, etc…

Any thoughts?

Sword and buckler is a bit of Victorian mislabling as the Spanish were initialy using the Ardaga which is much more substancial shield and then switched to the round steel Rodela. (Aka "targe/target" in English) Both are much larger than a buckler.
This pic has both a small steel target as well as a buckler
link

Most nations were able to deploy targeteers for special missin even if they did not mantain permanent formations equipped that way. Targets held in storage would be issued to select men who ordinarily carried pike, polearm or firearm. Typical special missons include attacks on enemy trenches or a breach.
Targets were also quite popular with the officers
picture
Monluc often describes himself as fighting with sword and target when he is in action as an officer of foot in the Italian and Valois-Habsburg wars.

No image on that first link Daniel.

Malc

There is a lovely picture map drawn by one of the English survivors of the battle of the Yellow Ford in Ireland in 1598. It clearly shows swarms of Irish with sword and shield heading for the English line. The English reports of the battle refered to these troops as 'Targeteers'. So I guess your can add the Irish to the list.

The sword & buckler type was certainly not invented by the Spanish. It dates back quite far in European history:

link

The primary use of the buckler in Europe was by infantry. Light infantry, made up of commoners armed with bucklers and swords or falchions lined up behind troops with pole-weapons, were used frequently in armies during the 1100s to 1300s. Early Medieval pictorial sources, from c.650 to c.1100, additionally show bucklers in use by Celtic, Frankish, and Byzantine horsemen.

. . .

But the sword and buckler was most effective in foot combat such as with the Italian Rotulari (c. 1475) buckler infantry. One historian best explains their development: "It was to combat the new emphasis on field fortifications that a new type of infantry became popular in Italian armies. This was the so-called ‘sword and buckler' infantry, first experimented with by Braccio. They were lightly armed, agile, and equipped for hand-to-hand offensive fighting. The type had already been developed in Spain in fighting with the Moors, and the establishment of Aragonese in Naples in the 1440s clearly had something to do with their appearance in Italy at this time."

Hi

A great many heavy sword infantry got used all over europe. The issue is the tactics, as the thread starter asks.

if what you mean is an integrated HI which is part of a formation to apply pressure inside that unit, then the tactic is italian from the older city Coronellas. The reports involve actually passing through an engaged pike unit to do harm to the opposing pike unit. As far as I have read, THAT is unique to coronellas and then tercios into about 1550.

The other idea of HI target and sword infantry for sieze work, that "tactic" might be a universal for europe. Pikes aren't really suitable, say, in a mine.

Rocky

Thanks all for the comments.

I have read of three primary tactics used by sword and buckler troops. First was in the siege assaults or defense. Second to penetrate disordered pike columns. Third was as a melee support of firearms in rough terrain…could be used to run off opposing skirmishers or defend against light troop attacks. (On a side note, I have read that halberds would accompany skirmishing firearms troops as protection against light horse attacks.)

It sounds as if all nationalities used sword and buckler during sieges. Only Italians and Spanish used S&B to penetrate disordered pike columns. Not so sure who or how often the support skirmishers tactic was used.

Anyone know if the Italians/Spanish sword and buckler units were speicifically raised as sword and buckler companies or were they created more as an ad hoc formation from other troop types?

I am also curious if the Spanish Tercios had any halberd troops mixed with their pikes?

Hi

Sword and Buckler in italy are specific specialized troops from the medieval period. I am not aware of specific halberd types.

In the civic militia, you have an evolution from roman through "byzantine drill"(see Daughter States of the Byzantine Empire) to the civic milita. In the late middle ages, besides the normans, some true pike phalanx groups developed in italy and became successful mercs. The flemish were inspired by these guys to copy the system to toss their own nobility. The swiss emulated the lowlanders. Each group took its own approach. But in italy, the pike units evolved out of "scuati" in the byzzy fashion. What happend is that the "coronella" became a formation with mixed pike and missle with a small contingent of remaining "scutati" or sword and shield.

At that time, there was no actual political "spain and italy" but states with various connections. In the middle ages, the spanish had different needs fighting the moors than the spanish/italian states in italy. And as time went on, they were linkied and developed things.

At the time, the castilians saw themselves as "castilian" not spanish. In a political, ethnic and such, the king was castillian and the castillians saw the rest of the empire as inferiors. There are lots of complaints BY the castillians that people benefit from THEM and don't sholder their fair share of the burden.

Part of our modern confusion is projecting our current ideas of "nation state" on a state, the spanish empire, that had no such concept.

Anyway, the first unit called "tercio" was called the Tercio of Lombardy…or a northern italian unit formed out of italian coronellas.

The sword and buckler were part of this first tercio. And that was the pattern that continued into about the F&I war. (the colors and cuffs were purple then).

Rocky

See my comments at the end of this other posting as to how the French in the French Wars of Religion tended to use shield men in combat. I suspect this is how most used shield men in combat.

TMP link

Rich

Woops finished too soon. Evidently landsknechts tended not to use shield men. In the last picture we have landsknechts using two-handed swords rather than shield men. I believe I read somewhere that lower Rhine landsknechts had a tendency to use two-handed swords. Upper Rhine landsknechts tended to use halberds.

In the Italian Wars when the French were at odds with the Swiss the French tried replacing them with landsknechts from the upper Rhine area. At a critical point Maximilian recalled them as they were imperial subjects. The French then began to enlist lower Rhine landsknechts. Maximilian had little control over these subjects. Part of that came from his conflicts with the Duke of Gelre (Gelderland). From then on the French raised landsknechts from the lower Rhine regions.

I believe the Swiss tended to use halberdiers. I believe the English and Dutch used shield men.

Rich

Since the other link didn't work here is a pic of a 'true' buckler picture
These have a long history which predates the Spanish use of swordsmen in the Italian wars by centuries. Indeed the earliest preserved Western European fencing manual, the I:33, from the late 13th Century is an instruction for the use of the sword & buckler.

The Spanish were using considerably larger shields, picture
shows an Ardaga and two Rodelas (aka targets). As can be seen the habit of calling these shields "bucklers" is somewhat misleading as the the shiels are quite diffrent in size, shape and in the way they are used.

The English used small numbers of men with sword and target throughout the 16th Century. A 1548 document listing the landing force led by Captain Tibero which was operating from Broughty Craig (in Scotland) includes the following line.
"For the wings of the battle – 40 archers, 20 sword and targets for wyfflers"
41 years later a muster held at Flushing records small numbers of targeteers in several of the English companies
"Sir William Russell. 6 officers, 4 targeteers, 4 halberds, 43 pikes (armed except for pouldrons and taches), 12 musketeers, 47 calivers (of whom 30 have morions), 1 preacher, 1 sergeant-major, 2 cannoneers, = 120. Absent, 60. Strangers, 12."

"William Browne. 8 officers, 5 targeteers, 38 pikes (armed except for pouldrons and taches), 12 musketeers (no morions), 48 calivers (no morions), 1 preacher, 1 sergeant-major, 1 cannoneer, = 114. Absent, 21. Strangers, 7. "

"Richard Harte. 4 officers, 3 targeteers, 44 pikes (10 morions, 5 with taches and pouldrons), 19 musketeers (3 morions), 52 calivers (no morions), preacher, sergeant-major, cannoneer, = 125. Absent, 10. Strangers, 10."

The Swedes made some use of targeteers in the late 1550's and by 1561 each 525 man company was to include 42 targeteers armed with sword, target and pistol. In the 1570's the target fell out of use.

The Dutch used targeteers as well, Maurice of Nassau was quite fond of them and both his and Johann of Nassau-Siegens papers record their thoughts and tactical experiments with the use of targeteers. However he was unable to convice the States General to support a reform reintroducing large scale use of targeeters in the Dutch army.

The German use of targeteers is a complex issue, targeteers are not mentioned in any of the preserved Imperial regulations or unit "bestellungen" (unit contracts)I have read. It's all halberdiers or more rarely two-handed swords. But despite this the inventories of several German armouries lists steel targets as part of the gear held in storage durign the 16th Century. The armoury in Graz still have at least a hundred of them on display in their collection. So the Germans had them but in fairly small numbers and by whom they were used is still a bit of a mystery.

….."For the wings of the battle – 40 archers, 20 sword and targets for wyfflers"….

What are wyfflers?

Those English muster lists show targeteers and/or halberds forming approximately 7-20% of the pike totals. So 7-20 men out of 100 would be targeteers and/or halberds.

I did a google search. It looks like a wyffler is a skirmisher.

For the wings of the battle--40 archers, 20 sword and targets for wyfflers. 63. The bows were concentrated among the skirmishers who preceded the advance, …

I believe in civilian use, the word refers to a person that clears the way for a procession.

A skirmisher? More like a a junior NCO tasked with keeping order among the troops. The Wyffler or Whiffler fullfilled a role similar to that of a Landsknecht Weybel/Weibel.

The text you quote reads in full like this.
" The bows were concentrated among the skirmishers who preceded the advance and on the wings of the battle." It says nothing about the role wyfflers at all.
On page 64 Philips writes "A 'wyffler' is a sort of proto-noncommissioned officer"

Wyfflers were specialty troops whose job it was, after the battle, to wyffle through the pockets of the dead. I think they were part of the commissary dept.

Rich

Damn it Rich!

Try this one: "wyfflers" used a wyffl: early spelling for whiffle. A whiffler used an axe or javelin, and his job was to dart about, confusing the enemy….