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Author Topic: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?  (Read 2264 times)

Offline Ignatieff

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Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« on: March 31, 2018, 12:57:20 PM »
Anyone know???

thanks in advance

Steve
"...and as always, we are dealing with strange forces far beyond our comprehension...."

All limitations are self imposed.  Work hard and dream big.

Offline Big Martin Back

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2018, 03:36:48 PM »
I don't think they did as Canton contingents. They were serving as mercenaries, rather than national contingents.
Tutenes, Atque Cujus Exercitus?

Offline Terry37

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2018, 04:24:49 PM »
Great question and for me very interesting. I am doing a Swiss pike block for my Italian Wars French, and was expecting to have to paint them all in a single set of Canton colors. This really opens the door for a greater variety. So, if they were from various Cantons, do you suppose they would have retained some aspects of their individual Canton colors in their dress?

Terry
"My heart has joined the thousand for a friend stopped running today." - Richard Adams

Offline bluechi

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2018, 04:32:18 PM »
use german Wiki


Schweizer Truppen in französischem Dienst für das Königshaus der Valois 1480-1589

 ;)

No, They dont have the canton colours in their dress. Only the headguards of the command some times...Hertnecks (burgundian wars) headguards are black. City Canton of basel spend 200-300 black/black-white uniforms his soldiers. But this was...you know what i ....

« Last Edit: March 31, 2018, 08:49:48 PM by bluechi »

Offline Ignatieff

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2018, 09:21:06 PM »
So what colours would they have carried???

Offline bluechi

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2018, 09:34:26 PM »
every colour you like to paint :D

red, green, yellow, stripes.....blue,black...and of course a white cross somewhere. In many pictures of the swiss cronicles shows combinations of green and red....but this are the typicall City colours of the alsace(Sundgau)(Colmar) or White/red for Straßburg or Schlettstadt. Many pictures shows canton colours . But this was to understand what happens....because maybe only 5-10% of the people could read.

Hilfskorps Bicocca 1522 (20000 men)
Bern, Uri, Unterwalden, Luzern, Zürich, Glarus, Freiburg,Wallis.

Hilfskorps Picardie 1521 (10000 men)
everywhere.

Hilfskorps Pavia 1524-1525 (20000 men)
everywhere
some Hauptmänner: Tschudi(Glarus), Roverea(Geneve/Bern), Johann von Wattenwil(Bern), Peter von Ardenz, Wilhelm von Trytorrens(Waadt).

In the battle of Pavia died all "Huntertschweizer"
« Last Edit: March 31, 2018, 11:10:08 PM by bluechi »

Offline Arlequín

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2018, 03:31:39 AM »
Bluechi is correct imo.

Apart from those recruited 'unofficially', Swiss forces fighting for France were authorised by the Confederation Diet and formed by contingents drawn from several (or on occasion all) individual cantons. The white cross was the field sign of France and featured on all banners and clothing of those contingents fighting for France in some manner from 1480. I expect it wasn't when they weren't fighting for them.

I'd like to think each contingent wore its cantonal colours, but there seems to be no evidence of this either way. Contemporary illustrations all show a mismatch of clothing colurs in any body of men, with the white cross somewhere on them. Where these images demonstrably show Landsknechts fighting Swiss, the bodies of men are pretty much identical too, apart from their standards.

Offline bluechi

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2018, 04:10:42 AM »
"Der Kommissar geht um , oh oh oh" i like the old Falco hits of the 80th
Think the white cross for all swiss fähnlein under French comand comes later.gonna search for the date....1553 the banner got the colour of the canton.....later changed stripes in flames. 1553 they where not uniformed in canton colours.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2018, 04:56:53 AM by bluechi »

Offline Arlequín

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2018, 10:15:55 AM »
 :D Yes, Falco was very under-rated.

I was working off this excellent Wikipedia article you offered.

 ;)

Apparently there were a small number of (600?) 'Switzers' at Guinegatte in 1479, but there is nothing about them. 1480 seems to be the 'big year' and field signs were de rigeur, so it is sold to me. Obviously I would like to know if this was not the case, but as they arrived too late to fight it's not so important I think.

There is also the distinction between official 'capitulation' drafts of Swiss for French service and the Reisläufer to consider; the former I would expect to be in cantonal colours, while the latter were individuals.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2018, 01:13:52 PM by Arlequín »

Offline bluechi

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2018, 07:23:45 PM »
Guinegatte...mmmh the key could be the Grafen von Romont (Neuenburger See/Lac de Neuchatel).This man shows the flamish pikeman to built a Gewalthaufen and this 600 swiss could be his own Fähnlein. Or some swiss from the rhineboarder or around lake constanz.

For the other questions i have to search...the night iss long and Falco drives me  with his viena slang who makes the song texts really special.

:D

« Last Edit: April 01, 2018, 08:46:16 PM by bluechi »

Offline bluechi

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2018, 02:56:26 AM »
the guilds of the cities have to spend several men in war times. some of them gave  coulored dress. But for the contingents for the french king i found nothing about it. The French begin to give their troops colours....red/yellow...or red ?...or blue ?...at that time

if the guilds dressed in canton colours ?...maybe. For Freiburg could blue/black possible. The old City colours (Seislerbueb)
For Schaffhausen could red/white/blue possible. (Schaffhausener Hansele)
« Last Edit: April 02, 2018, 02:58:15 AM by bluechi »

Offline Stuart

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    • Army Royal
Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2018, 07:09:53 AM »
Here’s how I’ve done a unit of Landsknechts in French service;

https://paintinglandsknechts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/case-study-ii-landsknechts-swiss-in.html?m=1

Swiss in French service would have been very similar in dress with the exception that they did not carry the short katzbalger sword.

The flags when serving in French pay were striped or one colour with a white cross for which you can see examples in the link above.

They wouldn’t have been in cantonal colours nor carried any Swiss banners, essentially they were wearing their own clothes in various colours as per their Landsknecht adversaries. Some would have a simple white cross on their breast, arm or leg as a field sign.

Hope that helps
Stuart

Offline Ignatieff

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2018, 07:32:26 AM »
Fabulous one and all.  Many thanks.

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2018, 08:56:10 AM »
If I can expand this question a bit - what's the relationship between the Swiss and the white cross? Did they use it on flags when not fighting for the French?

If I had a small band of mercenary Swiss fighting for anyone other than the French, would they be using the white cross flag? Either late 15th or early 16th century.

Offline Arlequín

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Re: Which Swiss cantons fought at Pavia?
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2018, 12:09:42 PM »
Difficult to say, the illustrations in the chronicles seem to show Swiss troops with them, but not on their banners, some of the time. Other times they are completely absent, or also on the banners.

A mercenary band wouldn't be using them, they'd pretty much surrendered their rights by leaving the country to become mercenaries; a whole host of legislation was created to deal with Reisläufer that returned. I guess they'd adopt their own, like the Saubannerzug did, although they were disgruntled 'official' Swiss mercenaries.