"Flemish mercenaries?" Topic

I'm looking to paint some perry European mercenaries up as Flemish, but I can't find any pictures of Flemish mercenaries. Specifically looking for clothing colours. I'd like to do them in a livery, and as the Flemish flag is yellow with a black lion rampant, I'm thinkIng yellow, maybe yellow and black ? I'm going to be using them for wotr. What do people think ? Livery, no livery, yellow as good as anything else ? The perry figures have lots of livery jackets, so it sort of makes sense to do them in some sort of livery? Surprised I can't find lots of painted examples of mercenaries, google is a wash with examples of perry miniatures usually. (I can find burgundy examples but not much else). Is it really a case of no ones knows we're just guessing, do them pink?

I may be wrong, but wouldn't they only wear Flemish livery when in the service of Flemish towns or lords?

Did late Medieval mercenary companies wear their own livery? Or maybe that of their Captain? Or even their employer?

Hmm the Flemish were I think paid for by Charles the bold and I'm trying to avoid painting them as burgundy ( well avoiding white and blue). So I guess I'm really just looking for a plausible livery colour ( ideally not red either, got too many red liveries)

How about murray (wine-red)? Goes with the House of York, for whose benefit they're fighting. It's a fine-appearing and not-too-expensive dye, and I would find it plausible that the wealthy Charles might have sprung for livery jackets for mercenaries "on loan" to his "dear cousin" Edward.

How about murray (wine-red)? Goes with the House of York

The York livery was blue and murrey (note spelling)
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There may have been some Flemings in the troops supplied to Edward by Charles the Bold but they would have been liveried as Burgundians in whose pay they were.

There could have been some Flemings in Schwarz's army at Stoke Field in 1487.

If there have been Flemings in Schwartz unit, they would be integrated into the Fähnlein and not as a Flemish contingent.

Try to paint them in the colors of the city that fielded them. Brugges, Ghent, Antwerp etc. These were usually the organizations that fielded and equipped units of citizens.

Ok thanks for the advice. Seems to me Flemish would be the same as burgundy then(which is no doubt why most people paint them like that). Most my figures are painted for bosworth, so I could just paint them as blue French with a cross(avoiding the red) I was hoping to make them a bit generic so I could reuse them, but maybe I shouldn't sweat it so much.

There are records of some troops sent to Charles the Bold in 1474 by Low Countries towns. Some are in green, some in red, some in red and yellow. The town provided the cloth.
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This doesn't mean that mercenaries would necessarily be in livery, but it shows that even Charles's own troops weren't all in the same livery.

His ordnonannce units most likely were in Burgundian livery, but these formed only a part of his army.

A useful thread! I like the idea of the phalanx with different contingents within it.

I think the black lion on a yellow field was Flanders, but there were quite a few others as well. Blue and white comes to mind, but I don't remember the town. Several units of these fought at Bouvines in 1214 against Phillip.

This lion? This is from the art in the Perry box.

Inspired by this thread I plan to do as many minis, again, but mostly in different colours per Swampster and with guild flags if I can find them.

I hope this isn't too late
link has the guild flags.

If you can find an archived version of the krigsspil site, they had them for printing.

Given that most of the Low Countries were part of the Duchy of Burgundy then Burgundian colours are quite possible.

Another option would be a town livery or two towns*. Red/black, red/white, green/yellow all work. If you can track down some town flags or banners (try Bruges, Antwerp or Ghent} then the colours of the flags may be reflected in the uniforms, as the Swiss cantons did.

If you are doing a large unit, then half* in one livery and half* in another will make it appear that two town companies have been brigaded together to make a unit.

EDIT: I see that Swampster (above) has raised pretty much the same point but with examples.

Barry