Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)

[Wiegraf]

Excellent topic, reading, and painting. I'm really enjoying all the mounted figures and recent gunmen. cannot wait to eventually get to this era and work on my Savoyard forces. Thank you for sharing.

[Charlie_]

Excellent topic, reading, and painting. I'm really enjoying all the mounted figures and recent gunmen. cannot wait to eventually get to this era and work on my Savoyard forces. Thank you for sharing.

Glad it's of interest to you! I'd be interested to see a Savoyard force for this era....

[Griefbringer]

To be honest the big mystery is who the 'Burgundians' were in terms of military organisation..... I mean we know the names of their leaders, and the fact that they hired German and Swiss mercenaries.... but what proportion of their forces in this conflict would be made up of 'true' Burgundian soldiers?
Would these be soldiers from Charles the Bold's army organised in a similar way, or a much more informal gathering of whatever local troops were available - a mix of ex-Ordonnance troops/survivors, the personal retinues of the nobles, hastily raised militias and random mercenaries? I've gone for the latter option.
It's also not entirely clear if the Germans/Swiss were the main strength of their forces or just a significant part of it working alongside the 'locals'.

I think yours is a sensible approach. Even in their prime, the ordonnance companies did not completely replace other types of military organisation in the Burgundian lands, but provided a field army that could be quickly mobilised for campaigns whenever needed - complemented by mercenaries that could be formed into ordonnance companies of their own. For local defense, probably a major role was still played by the traditional militias, levies and retinues, especially when opposing raids and smaller incursions.

However, it is also my understanding that in Franche-Comte a remnant of the Burgundian ordonnance company organisation was retained for a long time - actually for long enough to fight against the Dutch in the early part of the Eighty Years War, almost a century later! However, there had been reorganisations over the years and by that time the companies were cavalry organisations, and much smaller than the original 900 man companies of Charles' era.

[Griefbringer]

Speaking of ordonnance companies in the post-Charles era, on another forum I encountered an old link to a French article "L’armée, le Prince et ses sujets: le financement de la guerre aux Pays-Bas bourguignons après la mort de Charles Le Téméraire, 1477-1482" written by Amable Sablon du Corail:

http://www.institut-strategie.fr/RIHM_83_20.htm

My french being rather limited, I did not try going through it yet - I guess I will need to try Google translator (which might have issues with medieval French terms?).

[Charlie_]

Speaking of ordonnance companies in the post-Charles era, on another forum I encountered an old link to a French article "L’armée, le Prince et ses sujets: le financement de la guerre aux Pays-Bas bourguignons après la mort de Charles Le Téméraire, 1477-1482" written by Amable Sablon du Corail:

http://www.institut-strategie.fr/RIHM_83_20.htm

My french being rather limited, I did not try going through it yet - I guess I will need to try Google translator (which might have issues with medieval French terms?).

Yep that was one of my sources!

Google does do a very readable translation of it. When the odd word or phrase doesn't translate well you can normally work out was it being talked about pretty easy. There's another article by him which was a good source, about foreign soldiers in the Burgundian army after 1477. And I have actually recently located another longer academic article by him, about 28 pages, on the same subject which I haven't yet translated. It might be repeating al the same information, but I'm hoping there will be some new nuggets of info!

[Griefbringer]

Time to give Google translate a try one evening then, I guess.

Speaking of foreign soldiers in Burgundian service, there supposedly were a bunch of Swiss in Charles the Bold's service until he ended up in a conflict with the Confederation.

[bluewillow]

Great work on de Vaudreys'

The project is well researched and delivered bravo

Cheers
Matt

[magyar]

Brilliant research, flawless execution, and exciting read!

[Charlie_]

https://fullharness.blogspot.com/

French heavy cavalry

You've seen the Burgundian cavalry, now here are their French opponents.

There's three units of twenty mounted men-at-arms each. Like the Burgundians, they are primarily a mix of Perry plastics and metals, with a few Steel Fist riders and horses in there too. I wanted them to look potentially better equipped and organised than the Burgundians, as they are more likely to be representing the standing forces of the compagnies d'ordonnance at full strength. (the Burgundians in contrast might be representing the remnants of Charles the Bold's defeated army or new units hastily raised from scant resources). They are are almost all in full harness, with a only a few lightly-armed coustilliers in the back ranks. I also gave them uniform livery jackets, like all my French units.







Two of the three units have heraldic banners to represent prominent nobles leading them - these are both removable for maximum flexibility, so I'm not tied down to the same two nobles. For this photoshoot however, they are led by Philippe de Crèvecœur and Antoine de Chabannes.

Philippe de Crèvecœur, Lord of Esquerdes had previously served Charles the Bold  - he was governor of Artois and Picardy and had been made a Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1468. When the French invaded in 1477 he was one of the most prominent Burgundians to switch sides, handing over the citadel of Arras (from which the city itself was besieged and ultimately captured). He led the French at the Battle of Guinegate in 1479, was appointed governor and lieutenant-general of Picardy in 1482, and under Charles VIII was made Marshal of France. He was in charge of the French military efforts in the Low Countries for all of the 1480s, and died in 1494.



Antoine de Chabannes was by 1477 an elderly veteran of the French military, having fought in the Hundred Years War alongside Joan of Arc. Originally a younger son with no lordship of his own, he became Count of Dammartin through marriage in 1439. His long career had actually seen him at one point an enemy of Louis XI, but by 1467 they had reconciled and he was appointed Grand Master of France. He was also made one of the first knights of the Order of St Michael. In 1477 he was involved in the French occupation of the Low Countries, and he died in 1488 aged eighty.

[Griefbringer]

That's quite an impressive cavalry force - any chance of a group shot of all three units side by side?

Did not spot much horse armour on them - two sets of full barding (for unit leaders) and around fifteen front rank horses with crinets on their head (some of which I presume are from the Perry HYW cavalry sprue).

[OSHIROmodels]

Great stuff 

[MaleGriffin]

Great looking figures! I love how the metal looks! The horses are Fantastic!

[Charlie_]

That's quite an impressive cavalry force - any chance of a group shot of all three units side by side?

Did not spot much horse armour on them - two sets of full barding (for unit leaders) and around fifteen front rank horses with crinets on their head (some of which I presume are from the Perry HYW cavalry sprue).

I might attempt a group shot sometime, but for some reason I find it very difficult to photograph multiple units or whole armies...

You're right there is not much barding. I believe in the 15th century horse armour wasn't as common as some people assume. I happily would have used a bit more, but I think just using the same two sets of barding from the WOTR cavalry set looks a bit odd - if there were lots of different alternatives I would certainly have scattered a few more around in the front ranks! So I've reserved the full barding just for a few commanders - two of the unit leaders here, and a couple of my command stands.

There are a few horse armour bits in the Agincourt cavalry set, but I only ever bought the one frame of them, and have used some of the pieces already. There is one armoured horse head I've yet to use, and the mail horse armour, but I'm not sure about that one, I don't know if it's appropriate for this period?

None of the horses in these units use Agincourt parts - all the armoured heads are from the WOTR cavalry set, plus one of the semi-armoured horses is a metal from one of the command packs (he's a bit smaller and skinnier than the plastic horses, but I raised his base up a couple of mm and he now is the same height as the others).

[Griefbringer]

You could perhaps get a bit more variety from the Perry plastic bardings by putting together a couple of horses that have just partial barding. The gothic (germanic) barding comes with the front and rear parts separate, so it would be easy to just glue on the front parts for a half-barding. This would perhaps look best on a figure located at the edge of the formation - for a one in the middle it would not be so obvious that it is just a partial set.

As for the HYW mail armour, that might look a bit dated by 1480. However, perhaps you could stick it to some unit of noble levies that have slightly less state-of-the-art equipment than the more professional men of the ordonnance forces.

[Ray Rivers]

You're doing a great job, Charlie! 

You're armies will look amazing on the table top!