TYW Imperial Trumpeters

[Paul Richardson]

Please may I ask a rather obscure question. In Osprey's 'Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years War' Volume 2 at plate H3 there's a picture of an Imperial trumpeter wearing a yellow tabard. Do you think trumpeters' tabards would always be yellow or might they pick out a colour in the unit's flag? My Imperial arquebusier unit won't have yellow flags. Should I still give their trumpeters yellow tabards?
 

[Metternich]

At this period trumpeters often served the same functions as heralds during the medieval period (e.g. arrange temporary battlefield truces, arrange parleys, etc.), and were well-paid.  Accordingly, I think they would wear the tabard of their "master" vice in the colors of the unit flag (in this case, the Imperial arms are the black double-headed eagle on a yellow field).  (In contrast, there was a tradition in the Imperial and Spanish tercios for drums to be colored similarly to the unit flag).

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/81/68/60/816860abbd5183bff1585e5d72a519ab--thirty-years-war-modern-artwork.jpg

[Paul Richardson]

Metternich: many thanks. Actually the flags I've chosen for my unit (from Flags of War) have Imperial eagles on a background of 3 horizontal stripes - red, white, red for one flag and blue, white, red for the other. I have two trumpeters and I wonder whether I should have one in a red tabard and the other in a blue one. Or should I have them both in yellow? 

[Metternich]

There were so many Imperial regiments raised in the 30 Years War  that to distinguish them they would change the various colors upon which the imperial eagle was displayed - the small shield that often is shown on the breast of the imperial eagle was itself striped red, white, red (as is the modern Austrian flag), so it looks like that first regiment has adapted those colors for their regimental flag  (there were many variations; e.g. one unit quartered their colors red and yellow, with the eagle overlaying that; another used grand quarters, with red and white horizontal stripes in the first and third quarters, and the yellow field with black double-headed eagle in the second and fourth).

All that said, I guess I'm stumped as to whether the tabards should follow regimental flags or those of the national flag.  The regimental colonel paid for his trumpeteer's clothing and equipment (which would include the trumpet banner and tabard, if worn), so I guess it would be up to the Colonel.  There aren't many examples still extant.  I have never seen a picture of an Imperial tabard of the period that wasn't yellow, but certainly doesn't mean there weren't any.  This is sufficiently abstruse that we may never get a definitive answer.     

[aphillathehun]

I think it's unlikely to have a definite answer.

It seems that by the time of the WSS, the musicians would often wear the livery of the guy who raised the regiment, but in the French army for example, the Royal regiments would have the musicians in the royal livery.  Perhaps it's likely something like that was happening half a century earlier?  I would think you have a lot of flexibility.  The occasional gaudy musician might add some flavor to your units....