"Danish XVI Century armies" Topic

Does anyone knows a little, or some place where I can find some information about the organization of the Danish Armies of the XVI Century? Gush's Renaissance Warfare has nothing about it.

There is a Danish Renaissance web sight but I don't remember the name or address.

Which conflict are you looking for? I think I can help a bit on the Nordic Seven Years War 1563-1570. The "quick and dirty" answer to your question is that:

Infantry
The tactical unit was a "Fänika" consisting of around 500 men but could vary between 300-700 men. 12-20 Fänika constituted a Regiment. Beside the national units the Danes used German Landsknecht mercenaries extensively, which were organised in the same way as the national units.

Cavalry
Tactical unit was a "Fana" consisting of around 300 horses. German and Scottish mercenary units were widely employed. No larger formations than the Fana were used.

Artillery
Had no fixed organization and consisted of mercenary Germans combined with national artillerymen

I'm interested in the whole century, from the Union wars to the Kalmar one. This "quick and dirty" is very good, thank you! Do you know which "kinds" of cavalry did the danish employ? And wheter their infantry units had targeteers and/or halberdiers?
Also, does anyone knows about their organization during the Union Wars against Sweden, in the beggining of the century?

Compliments of Dan Staberg:
link

TPC

The Danish relied heavily on mercenaries for their warfare outside Denmark. The majority of these forces were German but also Scottish and some odd French unit. This means that the equipment and weaponry was no different from what these troops would use in other parts of Europe.

Infantry:
In the beginning of the 16 th century the ratio between German Landsknecht weapons were (according to Hedegaard in his book about Landskechts in Danish service) 45% pike, 40% Halberd and the rest firearms and crossbows. The colourguard and bodyguards might be armed with two-handed swords. I have seen no use of targeteers. By 1570 the firearms were 50% and the pike 25%.

Cavalry:
Beside German reiters and Scottish horse, the Danish Noble cavalry participated in the campaigns together with light cavalry for scouting and vanguard duties ("Rennefanan"). Again the lance was the majority early in the century to be replaced gradually by firearms and crossbows.

The organisation in Fänika and Fana was the same during the whole 16th century. Hope it helps :)

I don't know anything much about 16C Danish armies, but the word "fänika" is suspiciously Swedish (Danish doesn't use the letter ä for a start). The German units will presumably have used the German equivalent Fähnlein, which might be likelier for native Danish units too than the Swedish form.

"Fana" also looks suspiciously Swedish – in Modern Danish at least the form is fane.

Your comment is correct:

Fana (Swedish)=Fane (Danish)
Fänika (Swedish) = Faennike (Danish), the ae should be brought together for the Danish version of "ä"

I guess though that the linguistic details of this historic period is of secondary interest…

Travallera, do you think the danish native infantry had weapon ratios similar to the landsknechts regiments in danish service?
Also, would this light cavalry ("Rennefanan") be somewhat like the english demi-lancers (heavy cavalry, but without full armor and barded horses)?

Well, lets start with the cavalry:

Summary from "Om Rytteriet i de danske Haere i det 16de Aarhundrede" by Emil Madsen
The following is mainly relevant for the Danish cavalry during the second half of the 16th century but as far as I understand the organization were similar also during the first part. The main difference were that while lances and crossbows were in use in the early period, firearms, mainly pistols, were dominating in the later part.
Organization
1. Hoffanen: Noble heavy cavalry armed with lances (early) and firearms (later)
2. National fane: one from each region of the country, Fyn, Jylland etc. Heavy cavalry armed with lances and/or firearms
3. Rendefanen: cavalry armed with firearms, used as vanguard, it seems they were "lighter" in the sense of faster horses
4. Drengefanen: In some cases, such as the battle of Axtorna 1565, the grooms and servants were gathered in one Fane of light cavalry.
5. Mercenary cavalry: German reiters and Scottish horse.

Regarding the infantry, the weapons were similar to the ones of the German Landsknecht infantry. THe only difference I have found is that also shorter spears and javelins, rather than the long pikes also were in use.

To add some details.

"Hoffanen" was at times made up of two diffrently recruited parts. On the one had you had the Danish and Holstein nobilty, on the other hand the German mercenaries who were professional fighting men. The nobles disliked serving in the field unless the King was present and as a result the "noble" part of the unit effectivly disbanded itself for much of the 1563-1570 war.

Native Danish cavalry was raised by a system called "Rostjenste" and was made up of a mix of heavy cavalry and missile armed cavalry in lighter armour. From 1565 heavy "white" armour was ordered to be abandoned and men were to serve in "black" i.e Reiter style armour.

"Rendefanen" was actually a composite had-hoc unit which drew men from the other cavalry units present in the army.

"Drengefanen" was made up of Grooms & servants from the German Reiter companies. Unlike their Danish counterparts they were both equipped and trained for war. The unit did so well in combat that it was made permanent and was given it's own standard as a mark of Royal favour.

Not sure when the Scots cavalry were supposed to have been used, the only Scots troops in the documents I've encountered were infantry.

Thanks Daniel, you are as usual better informed. My assumption of Scots cavalry was from the Liberation War but it was wrong. I now found a reference that the Scots were at least, in part, released criminals, which would hardly be cavalrymen

I dug a bit deeper on the Scottish cavalry in Danish service. The only thing I found was in this document, page 8

PDF link

Where John Clark got a commission over 206 Scottish cavalry in 1564. I have not found any mentioning that they saw any combat though

Very interesting, thank you for the link.

I note that a bit lower on the same page Clark's men are refered to as "riflemen" which is probably the authors translation of "schützen" i.e infantry. It could be that he never raised the cavalry unit and instead was given command some of the "coulveriners" mentioned earlier in the text. Or that his cavalry unit was transformed into much needed shot when it arrived in Denmark.

Another possibility is that the unit or part of it was part of the garrison of Varberg when the town and fortress was overrun in 1565. The presence of Scots troops is confirmed by several sources and it could explain why there is no reference to Clark's cavalry in the field armies in 1564-1565.

I found the whole book available in pdf :)

PDF link

I wonder though what Danish sources that can be found regarding the commission he received. As you wrote there is no mentioning of Scottish cavalry in Rantzaus diary from the 1567 campaign

Well the Swedish chapters in the book caused some serious doubts about the quality of the research. (Lots of heoric tales that either did not happen or did not in fact involve Scots.) So I took a second look at the Danish chapter. Clark is supposed to have distinguished himself storming the castle of Halmstad, the only problem is that Halmstad and it's castle was under Danish control during the entire war….

Commmissions ought to be recorded in the Danish state papers and supporting evidence could exist in Scotland as well. Mercenary recruiters had to have permission from the Scottish goverment to carry out their work so both Swedish and Danish recruitment have left lots of documentary evidence in Scotland.

Oops, thought I would read certain chapters tomorrow but it seems I can save the time then…

If any documents are available in NAS:
nas.gov.uk
just let me know – I live in Edinburgh and can make copies of them.

Thanks Kadrinazi, that might be useful

Thank you all! One more question, does anyone knows if there are any references to uniformed danish soldiers on the XVI Century? Also, did the Danish Crown have any cerimonial halberdier guard, such as the english Yeomen of the Guard or the French Cent Suisses?

The Danish "Drabantkorpset" was founded in 1588 but was initially more like a ceremonial guard without military duties, though armed with halberds

link

Thank you very much! My last question, does anyone knows of any reference to uniforms being used by the danish on this century, even if on company level?