"The use of the musket from 1562 to 1598." Topic

Hello everyone,

It seems that the musket was used, for the first time, by the Spaniards, during the siege of Parma in 1521, but as far as ranged battles were concerned, it was at Muehlberg in 1547 that the musket appeared posed on a"fourquine" for shooting.

My question is who uses the muskets and how much, in what proportions, during the first three wars of religion in France from 1562 to 1569?

For example, for the Spanish infantry fighting at Dreux in 1562, it is never mentioned that it used muskets, whereas it was the case in Muehlberg in 1547.!?

From memory, doesn't Parker's "Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road" have figures for the numbers of pikemen, arquebusiers and musketeers in the regiments of the Spanish army? I think it varies by "nationality" – Italian and Walloon units not having exactly the same makeup as Spanish units.

GurKhan we need to deepen this topic on TMP because it will be very useful for players who love the FWOR and this for all belligerent nations or nationality.

In the past, I had found the exact year of the appearance of muskets in the royal and French Catholic army, but I lost it …

In the period you asked about (1562-1569) the musket was still a rare weapon used only by a small number of specialists, according to Pierre Picouet only 8% of the men in the 4 Tercios that Alva brought to the Netherlands from Italy were armed with muskets. IIRC the Spanish troops at Dreux did not come from Italy but rather directly from Spain and were less well equipped than the army in Italy. Even as late as 1596 there was not a lot of muskets in use by the Spanish in France, Picouet quotes a muster list for 44 companies of Spanish infantry as showing that only 6% of the men were armed with muskets compared to 66% armed with the arquebus.

Congratulations Daniel S, it's very interesting, what are your sources?

But what about the% of muskets in other infantry between 1562 and 1598?

When do they appear respectively in each infantry of each nationality and in what %?

There must be some books on it?

It's impossible nobody has this kind of document?

So the armies of figurines from the Renaissance times of the second half of the sixteenth century are all skewed?

Well the problem is that the available information only covers a very limited number of units and is very unevently spread between the diffrent armies. An example of how scarce surviving information is the fact the James B Wood in his study of the Royalist French army 1561-1576 only found detailed information for less than 10 regimental sized infantry units.

The you have the problem that in some cases there was a huge difference between the official organisation on paper and the actual make up of the units in the field. The Spanish army is a good example of this as surviving muster rolls can show units that were very diffrent from what they were supposed to be on paper.

For others such as the Swiss and Germans you have the fact that each regiment could have a diffrent organisation depending on what was laid down in their contract.

And our muskets in all this ?

Here is what I found of very interesting on the last Landsknecht :

They formed at the end of the FWOR around 1590, regiments of 2000 men …

A enseigne (company) of 300 men counted: 80 musketeers, 120 pikemen with corselet, 20 halberdiers, 10 sword players with two-handed swords (espadons ) and 70 morionate harquebusiers (morion helmets).

Sources: Les guerres de religion by George Livet – Presses universitaires de France

Which source does Livet use for that organisation? The fähnlein is not implausible but a 2000-man regiment would not use 300-man companies, it would have 400 or 500 man ones. (200 is remote possibility but Germans seem to have prefered companies of at least 300 well into 30-Years War.)

By mid 1590's ('95-'96) German regiments fighting the Ottomans seem to have adopted ratio in which 50% of the firearms were muskets and 50% arquebus. The number of short polearms such as halberds and twohanded swords was reduced to around 20 in total in most regiments. This was a radical change from previous years, even in the 1580's you found regiments in the Colonge War that were only 1/3 armed with firearms and had no muskets.

We will never be truth because they do not even have a theoretical organization ..?

They did have theoretical organizations, it is just that there was no universal standard. The organisation was laid down in each individual contract which specified the number of companies, size of each company and armaments of the company.
But the same contractor could issue diffrent contracts during the same campaign or changed the organisation several times during a long war.

You would also get small diffrences even when units were very similar and in service the same year. One 2000 man regiment used 400 man companies, the other 500 man companies. The first regiment had 12 men with twohanded swords and 9 halberdiers while the second had 12 men with 2-handed sword and 15 with halberds and so on.

The problem we have is that so few contracts survive for units going to foreign service and there are many gaps for large parts of Germany which we know provided mercenary service or troops for the Emperor.

So with the army of figurines can we do anything at any time?

Anything at any time? I would avoid crossbows for that era…

:-)

Within limitations, much if not anything goes.

I do not know because if the halberdiers of the French national infantry will disappear under Charles IX (King of France from 1560 to 1574) it's him who also made disappear the crossbow of the panoply of the weapons of war by decreeing:

"For what now the bow and crossbows are in use of defense, all the crossbowmen and archers will now be required to wear arquebus instead of bow and crossbows. "

According to Christopher Duffy the musket was first used in the FWOR at the siege of la Rochelle 1573 by Sieur de Strozzi, Duffy's source is Branthome aka Pierre de Bourdeilles.
This fits well with Wood's the King's army which shows no muskets in the units from the 1560's. Unless I had good evidence to the contrary I would not use more than 10% muskets before the 1590's and often less than that in many cases. (This assumes playing a decent sized battle, for smaller actions fought during a siege or as part of the small war during a campaign the number might be higher to represent the use of a body of picked men)

Yes it really appear during the war of the three Henry and unlike what we saw in the seventeenth century, the FWOR musketeers are helmeted.

And the musketeers could use their musket without a bandolier, especially in the sixteenth century, no?

Interesting. IIRC the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Malta and their allies made extensive use of Muskets and even Rifles during the Great Siege of 1565.

Yes, it is interesting, with or without bandoliers ?

During the FWOR, the first army to use the musket placed on a forked end of a wooden pole rest called a fourquine is the Spanish army when the Duc of Alba adds 15 musketeers to each company of shot.

In 1572, Charles IX introduced the musket in the French royal and Catholic army.

In 1580 the musket fired only one ball of 31.35 grams and the arquebuse a ball of 10.18 grams butHenry IV adopted in 1590 for his French royal and Catholic army (But still less catholic than that of his opponents …) the powerful musket "monté à la wallonne", which he endowed with half his infantry.

Sources MA.A.A N°481 page 13.
Le Costume ,l'armure et les armes au temps de la chevalerie tome 2 le siecle de la Renaissance page 56.