"Early Great Italian Wars" Topic

Hello all. I am currently building a collection for the early period of the Great Italian Wars, 1494-1515 in 15mm and hope to get some input from those with more knowledge of the period.

In my research I note that most writers refer to French lances and Italian men-at-arms. I understand that traditionally a lance would have around 6 members, no more than 3 being combatants. Would that still be the case in this era or would it be closer to 2 combatants? Would the "second" combatant be hived off into units of their own or would they fight with the Gendarme?

At Agnadello in 1509 the Venetians had close to 20,000 mercenary and militia infantry. Can any one help me with a break down of troop types? I would expect to find pikemen, not only the Romagnol but also militia and mercenary; crossbowmen, both formed and unformed; spearmen/halbardiers; unformed arquebusiers; and sword and bucklermen. Am I missing any troop types? What would be the approximate percentages of each troop type?

I thank my colleagues in lead/plastic for their anticipated assistance.

Hi,

Agnadello was unusual in that the Venetians fielded several thousand native Italian pike. After Agnadello the Italians thought pike fighting was unlucky and generally hired mercenaries to fill that role.

There were, from my sources 3000 Romagnol pike in red slashed white. There were three other bodies of Italian pike heavily supported by crossbows and arquebusier (I have 15,000 according to Sides) plus another body of 2000 Italian Militia.

I'm always a bit puzzled by the make up of Italian State armies. Outside of mercenary bands of pikemen (Landsknechts and Swiss) they seem to be mainly shot, many mounted. Some say that the crossbow was used well into the period but others site the armoury records of Venice where there are lots of arquebus in store – I don't have these lists and I've received this information second hand. From contemporary prints most militia seem to be armed with assorted bills and other pole-arms or swords, sometimes with buckler. Oman says the halberd was unheard of beyond the Alps until the Swiss arrived in 1495 but I find that hard to believe.

The Venetians had 1700 Men at arms and 3000 Stradiots, at Agnadello though I suspect the 1700 heavy horse were lances.

When it comes to lance structure you can get into conversations that last for weeks and invariably leave you none the wiser. Personally I usually count a lance as 2.5 heavy cavalry, which seems to work quite well. Personally, I don't field them with crossbow armed Archer cavalry – they all are in full harness and carry a lance.

Olicana,may I ask a "dummy" question? When you say "red slashed white, does this mean the outer garment is red,slashed to show underlying white?

As someone who guiltily avoids the accusing looks from the tubfull of unpainted 25mm Italian Wars figures on my workroom shelf, I have to say your work is both inspiring and discouraging. Anyone who has seen your jaw-dropping armies will know what I mean!

BTW,more knowledgeable heads than mine have told me that a bit of Oman's information in his Renaissance and Medieval books are,let us say,somewhat "imaginative".

At the start of the Italian Wars the French lance was still at its original establishment as from 1445; there seem to be different accounts as to whether this included two or three archers per lance, but a lance in total was of five or six men, four or five of them combatants – man-at-arms, coustillier (partially-armoured heavy cavalryman), two or three archers (mounted longbowmen evolving into lance-armed cavalry, as discussed in other threads on this forum) and a non-combatant page or varlet.

However, according to French wikipedia – link – by 1498 the organization was changed into one with six combatants, by increasing the number of archers per lance to four – and to five archers in 1515! Ferdinand Lot (Les effectifs des armees francaises…) cites an ordonnance of 1534 reducing the lance to 1.5 archers – three archers per two men-at-arms – but I do not know if the number of archers had begun to fall much earlier than that.

Lot also suggests that in the Italian Wars the coustillier was also a non-combatant, though earlier in the 15th century we have descriptions of their armour and weapons and of them in combat

Italian lances are different, and generally smaller.

Yes, red outer slashed to show white shirt / linings.

The term archer is quite misleading because most archer cavalry were probably lancers by this time. My understanding is that two would be heavily armoured in 'full harness' – the Gendarme and his 'squire' (to use that term very loosely), the only real difference being that the squire's armour would be munition quality. The third and fourth archers would be probably be demi lancers (again, using the term loosely) or mounted crossbowmen, but here is where things get tricky. Some people believe that these men were not heavily enough armoured, or well enough mounted, to stand in line in a heavy cavalry charge. If they were mounted crossbows they would probably hang around at the back, perhaps to cover a retreat in the case of a reverse, or they might possibly have been dismounted to fight alongside the infantry or hived off to fight with the Argulets (?). I rather suspect that the coustillier if present, would certainly be some way back, probably holding a spare horse or two for the Gendarme and his squire. The groom would be absent and would, no doubt, be guarding the Lance's spare kit in the camp, possibly with the coustillier. I've heard lots of argument about the make up of lances, so much that I doubt anyone knows for sure how they operated. One must also remember to take casualties due to battle, sickness, lack of horses, dead pays, etc. into account. Lance size would vary over a campaign.

Italian lances were smaller.

Oman was (with all probability) not lazy nor an idiot, but operated from a limited base of information paired with contemporary bias that he cannot be blamed for (except that he probably does not realize this situation, but who on earth does). For its time and scope his work is imho quite good. We just need to respect its limitations.

I just found my copy of "An ill junrey for the Englishmen", which contains a list of the English expedition army to France in 1523. In this army list, the "Demi-Lance" to the total strength only counts up if its 5 strong. As the numbers seem to be pretty precise I would deem this the book-strength for a Lance (for England, that period).

If in need I can dig out the exact refence both as citation and page/ISBN.

Can't recall exactly where I saw it, but recall mention Italian lances for the early 1500s consisted of about 2.5 – 3 fighters.

I think I also read about as few as 2 in a lance, as well, during this same period.