"Franconian Uniforms for 1683" Topic

Roider, Klaus. "Die Fränkischen Kreistruppen 1681-1698". Buvin-Verlag, Borgholz 2015

I've contacted the author. Hopefully, he'll be along to answer your questions.

I did a search for the book and came across a TMP thread by the author:
TMP link

- which led to his Gallery of beautifully painted flats:
link

Koth and Andlau are on pic #4

Any special questions? Just ask.

Well, the Köth and Andlau picture aforementioned show the earlier, (first) pattern 1681. In 1683, I'm afraid, the uniform was less colourful, just light gray-blue/-red. But at least you may add a blue / resp. red lace to their hats and a small blue-white / -red flag to their pikes. Do I have to comment on "white", "light-grey", "white-grey" "pearl-grey? No.

The cuirassiers (Christian Ernst von Brandenburg-Bayreuth Inhaber) were present at Vienna with only 6 companies, the dragoons in full (only a squadron, OL Hedesdorff).

There is a short appendix concerning the Bamberg-Würzburg regiments of horse (no uniform available), dragoons Hedesdorff (green), Thüngen (Inhaber the famous Hans Carl von Thüngen) and von der Leyen, the information obtained from the the invaluable Helmes.

Perhaps I'll find something on the swabians, I must look that up.

Annoyingly, there is a thorough description of the upper rhenish contingent, but they came too late for Vienna.

Your assumption is open to question.
I know, Kühn and others like to give reversed colours to NCO, Drummer and officers (i.e. everyone their uniform they don't know), because they want to show all a collector wants to know. But from the rather scarce evidence, this is unusual, not to say based on no evidence.

In the WSS, officers wear facing colour (or perhaps the rather popular red?) – at least the two gentlemen I know about. White facings I never came across. The white, red facinged (is there such a word?) Jaxtheim-NCO & drummers in the 1710s had the same white and red (but better and dark red material) coats – but the WSS is quite another story.

A curious coincidence: Exactly 1 1/2 hours (it is 13:10 p.m. here) ago I came across a Totenschild (some sort of Epitaph) of a franconian and Nuremberg lieutenant (Johann Benedict von Tetzel, +1686 Hungary) of IR Hedesdorff containing his portrait (which is extremely unusual!): Light grey coat & red facings: I'll have to re-paint my Erffa officer.

The Bamberg-Würzburg regiments:
Veit Heinrich Truchseß von Wetzhausen (raised in 1675 as Johann Andreas Poyger) cuirassiers, 6 companies; just the usual equipment, no uniform available.
Philipp Jacob von Hedesdorff dragoons, 6 companies, green uniform.
Kraft Cuno von der Leyen, 10 companies, dark grey-yellow
Hans Carl von Thüngen, dark grey-red

Swabians:
P.C. Storm, Der Schwäbische Kreis als Feldherr:
1682 only information concerning some companies raised by smaller territories:
1. Company Stift Kempten and others: light grey, green cuffs; drummers & Fourierschützen green coats, white cuffs (oh!); drums green and white with arms of the resp. territory. Yellow leatherwork, cartridge-pouch red leather, covered with green cloth and green and white tassels. Pikes small green and white flags.
2nd Memmingen: red instead of green.
Horse: Chabraques green with white tassels.
Earliest orders from the Kreis too late for you, in 1684.

Colours/standards:
1682 Stift Kempten companies: black and yellow, with the Kreis-arms
July 1683, Kreis: Standards and colours (apart from Leib-) yellow and black with the Kreis-arms (cross, 3 lions). A copper has yellow & black horizontal, oval shield, arms (3 lions, cross)
There is also an article in Zeitschrift für historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde 6/1914 by Courbiere I don't remember the content of.

Perhaps Robert Hall has already written one of his thorough studies.

The first swabian artillery-uniform I know of is the iron-grey coat the combined swanbian and franconian artillery adopted in 1695 or 96.

But there is an city of Ulm (Ulmish, Ulmian?) drum c. 1670s in the collections of the army museum Ingolstadt showing an officer like this:

link

(the picture with the strangely shaped mortar).

Dear Franconicus, do you have any picture of this Totenschild of Nuremberg lieutenant Johann Benedict von Tetzel?

"piquenirer"= pikemen
"Reuttern"= horsemen i.e cavalrymen in this context
"Rockh"= coat
17th C German has a lot of variety in how words were spelled and in some cases adds in more or less germanized versions of foreign words like "piquenirer" in this text.

Brian,
Daniel S is right. I love the original spellings, but if you don't speak German, it is really not easy to get the meaning.

Perhaps you have to live with the fact that there might be no uniform in the artillery? In the WSS Nuremberg sent artillerymen with the guns they lent to the Reichsarmee, and these artillerymen were, although trained, civilians. Their names and professions are known. Same thing applies to Vienna 1683 and the following campaigns in Hungary, I think. I'd have to look that up. So, if there were swabian gunners originating from one of the swabian Reichsstädte (wealthy ones who could afford guns), they might wear civilian clothes, the city's uniform (if there was one so early) or a "swabian" uniform (if …).

Generals: How can you dare to prescribe an uniform to a general…? The first time the franconians had such a thing officially was in 1793! In the SYW it seems the generals adopted the austrian uniform, but blue instead of White coats, facings not known.

Don Sebastian: Yes. E-Mail?

Reutter, Rockh both are old spelling. Same as undt, gantz, (und, ganz), or zue (zu). And so on.

Sorry, no County.
It's a bit tricky. The Circle (same as the Reichstag) was organized in "benches", i.e. groups of members of the same rank. And rank was important. There is a "bench" ("Bank") of clerical princes, secular princes, counts & Lords (Grafen und Herren) and imperial cities. The members of these benches sometimes cooperated, so in this case the counts agreed on the uniform described for the two companies they provided, one in each of the regiments. In my bad English:

The proposals made by the (franconian)counts quoted in the section on cavalry have concerning infantry, i.e. the resp. single company in the two infantry regiments, gray colour, "a good [quality, not size] lined coat of cloth covering the body and standing wear and tear. Breeches made of calfskin, the legs not too wide at the lower end, good stockings made of cloth that go over the knees, good shoes not cut out but closed [covered?] and that resist water ["resistant in water" literally] …
A sword …, but less heavy, belt and pouch/bag made in the cavalry manner, in which the musketeers carry their cartridges, but the pikemen [may carry] something else [whatever]. A hat like the cavalrymen.

Yes, the first sentence is a bit longish and twisted. Mea culpa.

In modern German something like: "einen guten, gefütterten Tuchrock, der den Leib bedeckt und haltbar ist. Lederne Hosen aus Kalbfell, deren Beine am unteren Ende nicht weit sind. Gute Schuhe, nicht ausgeschnitten, sondern geschlossen und wasserfest. Einen Degen wie schon bei den Reitern beschrieben, aber leichter. Das Gehenk und die Taschen auf ebendie Art wie die Reiter aus braunem Leder. In dieser Tasche können die Musketiere die Patronen und die Pikeniere etwas anderes mitnehmen. Einen Hut wie bei den Reitern."

The mounted General is my personal interpretation. As I wrote before, there is no known uniform that early. If you have a look at the painting of Christian Ernst von Brandenburg-Bayreuth, you'll see a possible form of clothing of a man of his rank. I took in account red as the favourite colour of contemporary officers. I may, of course, be wrong. If you want to paint a general, just look for portraits. There ought to be enough on the net.

Artillery. Well, the original piece in the Hersbruck Museum is the same type as the regimental guns, perhaps even out of the same series cast. Weight and calibre are identical at least. A gun with no frills, just cast for use, not parade in the arsenal. It presumably came to Hersbruck (a Nuremberg town) early or mid 18th cent. and was kept until the mid 19th century for giving fire-alarms (others were sold late 18th century, bad luck).
I painted my model red on a source mentioning red carriages of small calibre guns early 18th century. Another way of protecting the woodwork was (colourless) linseed oil, so both, Wood or red, are possible.