"By 1535 what did a European army look like?" Topic

I am looking at putting together a post-Pavia collection of armies.
Essentially would all the pike look alike by then? Landsknecht looking? Everyone in puffy clothes? Its hard to tie down when the more medieval looking dress disappeared.

FM

Check out pictures of The Wars of Religion French Armies – they would be pretty representative I'm guessing. Any pictures from the earlier Ceresole would work too. There you had the French (Faux) Swiss, the Swiss and the Landsknecht and Spanish. Cav still have colorful plumes, Gendarmes, but are getting more workmanlike with their pistols and arquebus troops and less or no barding. I would retain the puffy stuff for your Landsknecht units and go more Spanish Imperial and Wars of Religion plain on your other stuff.Not to say you don't have to be colorful – just that you might still want the Landsknecht to stand out more. Just some thoughts, others more knowledgeable may have something more worthwhile to add. The period your talking about is also edging into the British Tudor/Elizabethan.

Thanks for the reply mate…i shall check out The Assault Groups stuff….

There are pretty good pictures from the assaults upon Tunis and Algier, pretty much in the era you seek for. The defense of Vienna in 29 and the Empire in 1532 (without a major battle, but with the largest "what if" of the era) also got coverage by fliers, though in these cases you will only get the Imperial army, read: mainly Landsknechts and Spanish. They look a bit more flamboyant then the Italian wars, but not decisively so.
The Schmalkaldian war between the Empire under Karl and the Protestantic counties also gets coverage, though somehow there are very few depictions of soldiers as compared to the earlier events. Anyway these are from the forties.

1529:

1547:

I would expect an army from around 35 to look closer to 29 then to 44/47, and certainly not alike those depicted during the French WoR. Pistols should still be rare to non-existent, the Morion only used in its early or predecessor variants, armour still without the Gansbauch (no idea how the english term is, the sharp bulge at the center) and the pluderhosen should still be within sensible sizes. The armour and clothing of the Gensdarmes could well be the main point of difference here, though I am not sure with that – at the forties their style differs notably.

As usual, I have no real idea how the pike for the non-imperial would look, as there are not many depictions, but those that do exist tend to show a similarity in style. Tactically I think firearms are far better integrated – Schertlin used them for good effect against the Acinci, and in 44 arquebus were mixed into the pike blocks.

BTW: For a German state army, the siege of Münster in 1534 has some good coverage:

link
link

Puster,

Gansbauch is "Peascod" in English, a style seen in both armour and clothing

But it sounds to me that you are describing the earlier Tapulbrust sample of which can be seen here

Excellent thank you gentlemen!

Bottom of the page gives a good overview, there are notable exceptions in the british isles

myarmoury.com/features.html

Daniel, thanks for the translation! I tried for 10 minutes, but failed utterly. :-)

I would not want to see any of these peascods in an army pre 1550, though.

The Tapulbrust was afaik pretty uncommon. According to this site here, basing on a book on armour from 1890 (http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/boeheim1890), also:
wtw.wikian.de/wiki/Tapulbrust
it was developed by Landsknechts serving in Italy from 1520 on to 1546 – so could be used for distinctively Italian units or Landknechts in that area. It says that it comes from the German term "Zapfenbrust" (Zapfen = cone), the idea being the protuding area (cone, tappo in Italian) deflecting pikes and hits on the breast to the side. It evolved into the later Gamsbauch.
link

Some examples:
link

The source also says that from 1530 on the breastplates of the Gensdarmes started to show the angled center, but never to the same degree as the Landsknechts armour.

Still, depiction of Landsknechts for Africa or Germany either do not show the sufficient detail or these breastplaets were not widespread – perhaps it took an armour industry and sufficient demand, so they only showed up in Italy.

Puster,
The wiki significantly misdates the Tapulbrust, probably due to relying on a 19th Century source rather than looking at more up to date research. The Bretten page is a bit better but also uses that very same 19th C source which is why it repeats the same errors.

If you study of both images and the well dated armour in preserved Swiss, German and Austrian armouries it is clear that the Tapulbrust a later feature and only begins to appear towards the end of the 1540's. (Graz in particular shows the clear progression of the style from 1540's right to it becoming the Gansbauch)
For example this Trabharnish from 1546 has one

But this Landsknecht officer armour from the same period only has a much less well devolped and blunt version of the Tapul. Indeed there is a fair bit of disagreement as to wether this form is to be considered a Tapulbrust or not.

(The purists define the Tapulbrust as the sharp and well pointed form found on armour from the 1560's and 1570's.

The reason you don't find it in the artwork from the 1530's is that it only shows up in significant numbers later on. (indeed it does not exist in the classic form yet) You won't find it in Döring's images from the 1540's nor with the odd exception in Virgil Solis images from the 1550's but Jost Amman working in the 1560's and 1570's has tons of the stuff on show. And this fits well with the dates of the preserved armours and the armoury records. For example every breastplate deliver to Graz in the 1570s has a Tapulbrust.

As a feature on German armour it is most common from about 1560 to about 1580 though it could be found as early as the 1540's First and foremost you find on foot armour and "light" cavalry armours (i.e Pferdschütz, Speisser, Reiters). Outside Germany it was not common and the makers seem to have moved directly from a center ridge in various forms to a peascod form.

Thanks, Daniel. Always a pleasure to learn more.

This certainly explains the lack of depictions. Boeheim was wrong then on this aspect – the bane of having two sources. As long as you read just one all seems clear and easy :-)

BTW: I will probaly visit link within the next two weeks. A bit late for 35, but if anybody needs something specific photographed…