Bill Boyle's article on Thirty Years War uniforms...

[TheDilfy]

Bought! alongside a few other books. My book stack just got bigger with them and The Armies and Wars of the Sun King 1643 - 1715 as well 

[1ngram]

When did the justacorps become the standard coat/covering for infantry?  Presumably some time betwwen the end of the Thirty Years War and the start of the Nine Years War?  I've seen illos from the 1670s and figures depicting that period wearing them, I'm sure.  But when did they apopear, and where?  France?

[Paul Richardson]

Wikipedia talks about the justacorps being invented by Charles II of England in 1666 but not becoming popular until around 1680. I must admit that I had always assumed (wrongly) that it was derived from the longer jackets worn by the Swedes during the TYW.

[Arthur]

The justaucorps appeared in the 1660's as an essentially military garment before its adoption by civilians circa 1668/1672. Some sources state that it was first adopted by French troops during the Austro-Turkish War of 1663-1664, though things probably weren't as clear-cut as that.

The lengthening of the coats worn by soldiers was a gradual process which spanned the entire 17th century : jackets were originally quite short and ended at the waist (or just below it) until the late 1620's when a longer model reaching mid-thigh was adopted by both Gustavus Adolphus's Swedish army (which was mostly made up of Germans) and Wallenstein's Imperial troops. This longer garment, known as a Hungarian jacket, appears to have been dominant throughout the 1630''s and 1640's and looked something like this :



It is obviously difficult to provide across the board generalisations as we are talking about several European countries over a fairly lengthy period of time. Throughout the period, the length of the coat's skirts probably varied on account of a variety of factors ranging from local fashions and the availability of materials, and different styles were probably in simultaneous use : the French for instance were known to favour shorter jackets though some individual or nuits would no doubt have adopted the Hungarian style by the 1640s. Longer coats seem to have dominated in central and eastern Europe, perhaps because of the colder climate and the Swedes weren't the only ones to wear coats which reached to mid-thigh.

I'd be wary of Wikipedia when it comes to the 'invention' of the justaucorps by Charles II : by 1666, this type of garment had already supplanted the very short pourpoint (which was not unlike a modern bolero jacket) and ultra-baggy rhingrave breeches which had been the latest fashion rage in Versailles circa 1660. Comparing the two paintings below, it is easy to see how the first by Charles Le Brun (depicting the meeting between a young Louis XIV and the King of Spain in 1659 as they prepared to sign the Treaty of the Pyrenees) depicts the older style whereas the second by Henri Testelin has mostly everyone in justaucorps in 1667 as Colbert introduces the members of the newly formed Académie des Sciences to Louis XIV :





Both paintings are nearly contemporary, the first dating from around 1670 whereas the second was probably done between 1675 and 1690.

Returning to Charles II of England, my opinion is that he probably copied what was popular in Versailles at the time, as he was a notorious Francophile who constantly tried to emulate Louis XIX's court.   

Back to the original question, the justaucorps was introduced at some point between 1660 and 1666 and quickly became the standard military garment of the time, becoming pretty much universal between 1670 and 1680.

[1ngram]

I'm just reading that there was a "little ice age" in the 17th Century and weather did not become temperate again until 1700 or so.  Perhaps a reason wy soldiers liked a bigger coat?

[TheDilfy]

This maybe a silly question but was there any variation in clothing styles / colours etc between different units of nationalities? E.g Burgundians, Walloons, German, Italian, Swiss, Scots, etc? I know for that many Spanish forces (certainly at Rocroi) wore red sashes or stitched red saltires on their clothing etc. At Rocroi, the Spanish wore red sashes, red stitched saltires and the French were said to have had white sashes.

[Arthur]

I'm just reading that there was a "little ice age" in the 17th Century and weather did not become temperate again until 1700 or so.  Perhaps a reason wy soldiers liked a bigger coat?

The Little Ice Age actually spanned an era extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries (though some historians and climatologists date it back to the medieval era) so it is unlikely to have had a direct and visible impact on the evolution of clothing styles. The 1650-1700 period has been identified as one of several cold intervals but since the lengthening of coats was a process which had begun a couple of decades earlier, the evolution of temperatures does not seem to have been a factor.

One thing to keep in mind is that a period of cooling does not mean systematically and consistently colder temperatures : spring and summer could still prove sunny and warm - and did even during the cold intervals. During the reign of Louis XIV, the winter of 1709, which proved one of the worst in human memory at the time, was preceded by an uncharacteristically mild late fall and very early winter : period records mention unseasonal temperatures of about 10° celsius with abundant rain on January 1st 1709, and the thermometer then dropping to a freezing -17°C ten days later.   

[Arthur]

This maybe a silly question but was there any variation in clothing styles / colours etc between different units of nationalities? E.g Burgundians, Walloons, German, Italian, Swiss, Scots, etc? I know for that many Spanish forces (certainly at Rocroi) wore red sashes or stitched red saltires on their clothing etc. At Rocroi, the Spanish wore red sashes, red stitched saltires and the French were said to have had white sashes.

Yes, white had been the traditional colour of France since the late medieval era and early renaissance, just as red identified Spanish or Imperial troops. White sashes were worn by officers as well as sergeants and cavalry troopers when the latter could afford one (despite being regular soldiers subjected to pay since the 1630's, cavalrymen still saw themselves as gentlemen who were distinctly above ordinary footsloggers). Sashes weren't a part of the soldiers' clothing issue and it was up to the individual to procure one if he had the wherewithal to so so. The majority of men could not afford that frequently expensive item and made do with a strip of cloth tied around the arm. Coloured hat bands are something of an urban legend as many hats did not have bands at the time and a hatband was not the most immediately noticeable part of a soldier's outfit anyway.

When it comes to clothing styles, there is very little in the primary sources to suggest that foreign troops in French service wore coats and breeches that differed markedly from those issued to the native French units. Batches of cloth or ready-made suits of clothing were purchased at the regimental level or sometimes provided by the state and would more of less follow the dominant styles of the period, irrespective of the soldiers' national origin. The Scottish regiments in particular were indistinguishable from their French counterparts except for their flags. Wargamers love their Scots in bonnets and tartan but the prosaic reality is that such outfits were deemed primitive and barbaric at the time (the romantic fascination for all things Celtic did not really begin until the 19th century), and Scots colonels were anxious to have their men dressed in the best continental fashion to ensure their regiment looked good next to the rest of the army.

The only troops which may have differed very slightly in appearance were the Swiss, who were raised in their native cantons according to treaties signed with France known as capitulations (which in this case does NOT mean surrender but rather something like 'head count'). The Swiss had a few peculiarities which set them slightly apart from the French without making them radically different : their breeches were apparently a little baggier and had 'points' just below the knee, and Swiss regiments had more heavily armoured pikemen than their French employers. So nothing dramatically different, and in any case these idiosyncrasies would be hard to spot on a 28mm or 15mm miniatures, the pikemen's heavier armour excepted.         

[TheDilfy]

Thank you Arthur your knowledge and sharing it, on this subject is greatly appreciated. Knowing how vast and deep the internet is I've been doing some information collation and found the odd article and primary reference source or two. One of the key sources is Lostelnau, Le mareschal de bataille (1647) which I hope to obtain a copy of, the other is the paintings of Claude Loreain(e) sic and lastly Batchelot, Bernard. Louis XIV en Algérie Gigeri 1664. Another source I've found, albeit secondary and a very good one at that, is, Richelieu's Army, Parrot. From initial reading it would seem that the French inherited 8000 Swiss all well armed, clothed, their Pikemen the best armoured in Europe. I cannot recall where I read this now, allegedly the Swiss had a rear rank or two of armoured pikemen. This allowed the Swiss to about face and their opponents facing armoured pikemen instead of unarmoured pikemen.

[Friends of General Haig]

A very interesting read - great details. This sort of stuff, vital for us toy soldiers wranglers, often seems very hard to come by.