"Protestant cuirassiers" Topic

I was looking at the OOB for Breitenfeld

link

and was surprised by the number of cuirassier units with the Saxons & Swedes.

Was this a "courtesy title" or were they 3/4+ armoured?

They were raised in Germany, so I think should be.
Note than none of the native horse are so designated.

Who ever wrote the wikipedia order of battle have not done even basic research into the identity and make up of the Saxon and Swedish cavalry regiments.

That is true for several of the Imperial & Leaugist cavalry regiments as well were the wikipedia order of battle not only misidentifies some regiments type but also lists the same regiment twice (Caffarelli/Haraucourt) and includes att least one regiment not present (Treka)

The Saxon order of battle is particularly bad as it not only includes regiments not present at the battle (Hofkirchen)but also numerous units which did not even exist at the time(!)(Anhalt, Kalckstein, Willhelm Lieb cavalry regiments as well as the Wolfersdorf, Bose, Pforte and Vitzthum infantry regiments)It also confuses the Kurfurst's foot guard with the independet free companies and gives a a fales impression of the make up of the former.

For a slightly dated but essentialy correct order of battle have a look at TMP link
(Additional research in the 6 years since it was posted have allowed me to refine it further)

Aaarghhh!!!

Thanks, Daniel. A more accurate OOB is very appreciated.

I'm from a Napoleonics' background where most of this stuff is reasonably easy to find. The TYW period, with clearly lesser documentation is a ….challenge.

While there is less documentation surviving from the TYW period as a whole compared to the Napoleonic wars the main problem IMHO is the often poor use that is made of the sources that do survive. While I can understand that research in the archives is not for everyone due to the cost in time and money the way in which even published sources gets ignored is surprising. I suspect that the language barrier is the main reason today as a lot of hard to find sources are now freely available as part of google books, europeana and other similar online projects.

I suspect that the language barrier is the main reason today….

And of course that barrier is compounded by the fact that almost every European language has evolved considerably in the intervening 3-400 years, to the extent that modern historians are reading what is, at the very least, a different dialect. Whilst a time-travelling ECW veteran might be speaking "English", he would – especially if he was from one of the remoter parts of England – be almost unintelligible in terms of idiom, sentence construction, and the contemporary meaning of many surviving words.

Interesting, SM.

I can understand Shakespearian English with close to total understanding: though admittedly this is the result of many years of study. At a guess the artistic language WS used should be more complex than a military treatise of the day: though I've never actually read one.

Is German or French or Swedish from the period more or less evolved from the modern tongues? If you picked up a period transcript & you were fluent in the modern language could you understand it on sight or would you have to "translate it"?

On reflection, I suppose I may have exaggerated the concept slightly; that said, it would be interesting to listen to a conversation between two men from Hopton's and Newcastle's armies.

With German of course, you have the extra complication of reading the different style of script.

Despite English not being my native language I've never had much problem reading 17th Century texts but there certainly was a learning curve because word could have multiple meanings to take one example. (The word "charge" being use both for the firing/discharge of firearms and to denote an actual charge)

With German you encounter the problem that unlike today there was no standardised spelling not to mention the fact that you had "Low German" and "High German", each with several sub-dialects. Which created problems as a lot of documents were written as the scribe thought the word sounded. The miliary archive of Johann von Nassau-Siegen (one men who assisted Maurice of Nassau with his reforms) shows a fascinating style of German with Dutch influences)
German Gothic Fraktur script is not that bad once you get used to it, the problem is when you combine fraktur with the way that texts were formated (or rather were not formated at all) and you can get some real headaches trying to read a book. Particularly if the print is faded or of poor quality.

Swedish has a similar problem with no standardised spelling and also used a lot of loan words from other languages which were often written in a "swedish form" with various spelling variations. I actually have make more use of a word book when reading old Swedish texts than when reading English from the same period and that is as a native Swede(!)

But the problem I was refering to above is not only that period sources are underused . There is also the sad fact that even 'modern' non-English/non-native language sources are underused in many cases. As a result knowledge and information is "lost" and otherwise ambitious and well written works of history end up flawed.

Hey Daniel S, could you throw me an email, need to pick your brain about a 10mm 30yw project

If you have the time, reach me at "truls. fjell @ gmail.com"

Spelling was an art in Elizabethan England as well: Shakespeare spelled his own name differently on several examples.

Then there's word play, which was venerated in the period. Not only puns but TRIPLE puns!

Hamlet Act 1, scene 2, 64–67
"A little more than kin, and less than kind"

"Kind" has a triple meaning here. On one hand, Hamlet says that Claudius is less than a direct blood relative, "kind" meaning "ancestral stock." On another hand, Hamlet refers to what he sees as Claudius's unnatural lust, "kind" meaning "natural." Finally, Hamlet indicates his resentment toward the new king for his insensitive haste in marrying the queen. Here, "kind" has it's modern sense: "considerate."

You can appreciate the jest at any level but knowing the layers of punning adds to it.

I'd imagine that any C17th language will have layers of meaning maybe not readily apparent to modern speakers.

Another issue with reading period works is the changing meaning of terms, both geographically and over time. While reading original texts might be the best historical practise, for many of us a modern translation in almost any language that contained explanatory notes would probably be more helpful.

Interesting