"13th Century Flemish Mercenaries" Topic

I am working on a feudal army for early 13th century and am including a unit of flemish mercenary spearmen. Since they were "professional" soldiers, is there any chance that they had any uniformity in shields or clothing or some type of marking for the unit? My inclination is that they did not, but it would be fun to paint a unit that stood out from the rest visually as mercenaries. Thanks for any opinions.

Allen

I doubt they were uniformed in any way – unless it was by their employer?
If hired as a unit from the low countries, they may have worn their cities livery perhaps?

I don't really know though, I am making presumptions based on their later service!

It's up to you. Shields would be more likely uniformed, if at all. It's easy to re-paint the shield than to get new clothing, I think.

Warhammer "El Cid" book has a photo of hypothetical 11th century Flemish mercenary unit with yellow/blue lines, quarters, etc on shields. Very nice looking, no reason to look worse in 13th century…

No reason at all for them to be uniform; in fact, they are less likely to be uniformed than your 'feudal' troops, who might well be wearing some from of livery. They would almost certainly not have worn the liveries and badges of Flemish towns – those would be worn by the towns' militias.

If you do want some uniformity shields (as IGWARG1 says) would be the most obvious place to create it.

A common trick ampongst the more 'artistic' figure painters when painting non-unifrom troops, is to draw from a limited palette; prhaps a predominantly yellow one (using different shades of yellow), for example.

I agree with IGWARG1 and Wardlaw. That is exactly what I do on my feudal troops : same shields, same colors (but not a uniform).

link

link

Olivier