Endless Grubs | 11 Sep 2019 9:53 a.m. PST |
Reading about the First Crusade; the Normans and Franks are treated as separate contingents. However, I'm not finding much on differences in armor, shield devices, etc. Any reading (or figure) references appreciated! Thanks in advance! EG |
Cerdic | 11 Sep 2019 11:12 a.m. PST |
You won't find much as they looked identical! Kit and tactics were pretty much the same. The Normans were essentially Vikings who had absorbed Frankish culture for a couple of hundred years. Hence the similarity! |
Sundance | 11 Sep 2019 12:06 p.m. PST |
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Swampster | 11 Sep 2019 12:46 p.m. PST |
To further confuse, some of the Normans were from Sicily and Southern Italy. |
Gunfreak | 11 Sep 2019 1:05 p.m. PST |
Crusading was first and foremost a Frankish thing, (including the normans in England and other places) I think the first crusades was almost nothing but franks, same for the 2nd one too. |
ColCampbell | 11 Sep 2019 1:18 p.m. PST |
And they were collectively called "Franks" by both the Byzantines and the Middle Eastern Moslems. Jim |
skipper John | 11 Sep 2019 3:23 p.m. PST |
So… no Joes, Bills or Johns? |
rmaker | 11 Sep 2019 4:03 p.m. PST |
I think you are confusing Franks and French. To the Byzantines, Saracens, and Turks, any Western Christian was a Frank. This included not only the French, but the Provencals, the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Normans, the Italians, the Iberians, the English (Saxon and Norman), and so on. Anna Comnena, among other contemporary writers, expresses surprise at the diversity among the Franks. |
YogiBearMinis | 12 Sep 2019 7:28 a.m. PST |
You might throw in some random "Norman" figures with turban-esque headgear or slightly different shields to distinguish Italian/Sicilian contingents from northern cousins. Maybe not completely verifiable, but reasonable that southern Norman would resemble closer to some of the distinctions adopted by the Spanish forces of this period than straight up northern figures. |
Perris0707 | 12 Sep 2019 12:47 p.m. PST |
I had read that the Eastern Romans also used the term "Celts" for western European people. |
Swampster | 12 Sep 2019 3:32 p.m. PST |
Anna Comnena used Kelt, Frank, Norman and even Latin. They are almost interchangeable but at times she will say things like 'Kelts and Normans'. Sometimes the use is more specific, e.g. when she refers to the King of the Franks then this is the French. Kelt seems to be the most used term when she describes the Crusade. |