"Philipp Mönch's Kriegsbuch of 1496" Topic

(In case somebody doesn't know the source in question, here it is: link )

I was recently looking at pictures from Mönch's Kriegsbuch, and a question came to my mind: Are the foot soldiers depicted there Landsknechte? I suspected they might not be, since they have no "burgundian cross" marks on their clothes and their garments look less elaborathe than the clothes worn by the early Landsknechte (like those drawn by Paul Dolnstein), but I'm not sure…

Dolnstein portrays soldiers from a period which is 6-8 years later and this was a time when military fashion was changing rapidly. Mönch's style is a also rather simplistic and shows little detail.

But some of the few details that can be seen does in very early Landsknecht clothing (Jackets or possibly doublets with a large "V" shaped opening exposing the clothing underneath, striped clothing and what may be "cut hose" i.e hose cut of at the knee. (But the later could also be hose with a diffrent colour above/below the knee) But apart from the stripes none of those details are unique to the Landsknechts or Swiss. (Stripes had a fair bit of shock value at the time due to their connection with social outcasts so was not something worn by polite society)

In some of the pictures the infantry imho wears Landsknecht style outfit, especially in the siege and army overview – though in the latter there is also a large host with helmets and armour, which seem to indicate feudal retinue or city levys. These are are differently armed and seperate from the Landsknecht style host – though in one unit some Landsknecht style soldiers are visible in the first rank of an otherwise traditionally armed host.

Mönch can only have some ten years of experience with Landsknecht style units, probably during the Burgundian succession wars and some local conflicts. Imho its notable that he already shows some of them at all.

BTW: The armoured "marine" is among my favourites of all contemporary depictions :-)

BTW2: I recently got a German "translation" for the 1544 chronicle of Frisia – it seems that the "Black Guard" that haunted first Frisia and later became the French Black Band was not raised in Saxony but consisted of veteran Landsknechts who were "released" after the 1513/14 campaign of England and Maximilian in France. There is also a good deal on the "Grote Garde" and its service with Edzard of Frisia in the 1497-1500 era.

Those guys in quartered red and white clothing, armed with pikes and accompanied by fifers and drummers, made me immediately think about Swiss. Or maybe landsknechts wearing clothing inspired by contact with the Swiss mercenaries.

Thank you, guys! Just a question: I've read that Philipp Mönch was most likely employed by the Elector Palatine, and apparently by the time he wrote his Kriegsbuch, he had already seem Landsknecht soldiers. However, I always had the impression that the Landsknecht soldiers of the 1480s and 1490s were exclusively employed by the Habsburgs as Imperial Soldiers (and that untill the Swabian Wars, they were used mainly to defend the Habsburg family lands), and that the phase where they became the "Universal Soldiers" of Europe and started to be recruited by the Prince Electors and other european monarchs was a little later. If so, how could Mönch have painted Landsknechts by that time his Kriegsbuch was written?

Imho the early development of the Landsknechts is still insufficiently researched. Maximilian raised mercenaries in addition to the often political unreliable contingents of the "Burgundian" cities, with Swiss, French, English, Scott and Germans soldiers. It should be assumed that the base of the later developements formed in the era after Guinegate during the Burgundian succession war and his suppression of the Flandern uprisings. I would expect that there were units of mixed mercenaries fighting in the Swiss manner.

The first recorded usage of Landsknecht is around 1486 by some Swiss document, probably to differ these units from the Swiss raised units.
In 1487 (after Maximilans coronation as king) units were explicitely raised as Landsknechts and trained among others by Swiss.

That said, 1487 already saw mercenaries figthing as a pikeblock in the typical Landsknechts manner at Stoke in the WotR, probably formed up mainly by Germans and Swiss.
At roughly the same time the Grote Gard or Black Guard showed first up in the northwestern Empire – my own assumption is that these were remnants of Maximilians armies that were set free, probably due to the creation of Landsknecht units that he hoped would be more reliable due to their background. Just speculating here, though.

Anyway, veterans used to fight in the "Swiss style" (or rather the modified Maximilan way after incorporating Flandern and Burgundian influences paired with mainly German recruits) were available starting around 1486 and looking for work. They would certainly be used by any local ruler in the petty wars both for their experience and to keep them from roving through the country.

As we can see in Mönchs work, they were yet a minority and only formed a small part of his vision of an army – and he showed them deployed in seperate units on the flank.

In the 90ies they already fought in many theatres and in 1501 Landsknechts were deplayed in the center of the Russian army at the Smolinasee fighting against the German order, and were training the Spanish in Naples on the usage of pike and arquebus.

A good link (sorry, in German) on the Black Guard:
link

Thank you very much, puster! It's a shame there's not that much comprehensive research about the German armies of the late medieval/early renaissance period.

Hi,
inspired by this mail I just went through the transcript of the "Schweizer Abschiede" again. In July 3rd 1486 the documents report of a French message of impeding war between the French king and Maximilian, and requests that Swiss "Knechts" do not join Maximilians army. The Swiss answer favourably and reply that any individiuals joining Maximilians service do so against the expressed wish of the rulers (Obrigkeiten).

It seems that Maximilian had no choice but to build his units mainly with soldiers from the "Land" (as opposed to the "Berg", the Swiss mountains).

This site has a good collection of works on the early development of the Landsknechts, though most are written before WW1 (in German) and are largely unavailable today, unless you mange to get them from a university:
landsknechte.at
link

That's great, Puster! And the "Land" he had at his disposition were his hereditary fiefs in the low countries, right (he also had access to his family lands in Austria and adjacent regions, but I don't the assemblies of those regions would be very pleased to send men to fight that far away)?

The like is not working. I keep getting redirected to "turf-times.de" ):