Here's my somewhat lengthy intro and ramblings to this project and discussion. Lately I've been painting Hundred Years War figures from Perry to create a small force of French soldiers to play Lions Rampant with. I don't have a specific battle or retinue I am working on, but rather have chosen to deal with a mix of Agincourt (1415) up until Joan of Arc's death (1431). Basically I'm using "the rule of cool" and choosing what I'd like to paint that looks good aesthetically.
I love to research everything about what I paint and try to meet my levels of artistic licence somewhere with an agreeable amount of historical accuracy. Most of my painting experience involves doing ancients like Samnites where a degree of artistic freedom is granted, or with World War 2 figures where a lot of the soldiers are uniform. But for me, the late medieval period and renaissance is a bit of a mixture of very loose accuracy as well as documentation, so I hope I am doing both my artistic and historical side justice here in the project.
I have three boxes from Perry, all plastic, no metals (yet). The Agincourt Foot Knight Box, the French Infantry Box, and the Mounted French Knight box. I had to buy an extra 6 horses for the extra 6 knights that the mounted box came with to use all those legs up (They give you 12 horses but you can make 16 mounted men in the box if you buy 6 more horses!). I've also borrowed shields from the Mercenary box set of the later 15th century (they're a bit smaller but still are large enough for pavise). Following the game's unit sizing, I've basically planned my force in the following method:
1) x2 units of Men-at-arms (Foot knights basically, 6 men a unit)
2) x2 units of Mounted Men-at-arms (Mounted Knights, basically. 6 men a unit)
3) x1 unit of mounted sergeants (6 men a unit)
4) x1 unit of Pavise Bearer Sergeants (12 men a unit)
5) x1 unit of Crossbowmen (12 men a unit)
6) x1 unit of "Expert Sergeants" (In Lion Rampant, these are sergeants that ditch the shields and use heavier weapons, they basically get attack bonuses and lose defensive abilities. I'll have the unit contain mixed arms like sword and buckler men, or axe / pole arm users).
I have many, many left over Foot Knight bodies so I might make more generic men at arms later on, or maybe use them to start an English force in the future. I also include a few Scottish men of note that partook in some of the battles in France.
Anyways, here's some of the work I've finished as well as current WIP. Most of them have been what I call "unnamed or generic" men at arms, while some I try to incorporate known individuals or family symbols.
Based on D'Amboise ...
I have Arthur III of Brittany on foot in the back there behind various men at arms.
A Scottish Soldier, Hugh Kennedy of Ardstynchar
Generic Knight / Men At Arms .
Here's some work in progress...
There were two Stewarts of Scotland I noted in the 1420s fighting in France. I've decided to paint the one that died fighting in the Battle of the Herrings (1429), the one of Darnley (not Buchan, who died in 1424).
D'albret. Could be the one that passed at Agincourt, or the son fighting later on.
Jean de Bueil.
This one is a d'Auxy. Died in Agincourt if I remember correctly.
Generic Knight
This one could be Gilles de Rais on foot, or again generic Men at Arms.
I started doing more specific individuals in the second round of Foot Knights and will do so for the other mounted knights as well. I plan get the Count of Vendome and La Fayatte in the mix there somehow as well. For those of you that know your history, you'll see I've mixed in a few coat of arms / symbols that may not have survived Agincourt or only perhaps attend a single battle between 1415-1430 and are never written about again. The problem with individual battles transcribed in English is that its often only recorded with a few commanders present and then they're never mentioned again - So for Lions Rampant I do not mind having a dead individual (such as d'albret the 1st or d'auxy) suddenly appearing in the Siege of Orleans to fill in the ranks. Let's just assume it is someone else for those battles so I don't have to paint so much!
I really enjoy painting and drawing out the various coat of arms and heraldry. One has to apply a certain level of artistic licence when working with them, however, as I believe some of the older recorded versions of the heraldry are either poorly documented, where the newer ones have evolved and changed over time (and we now have digitalized versions in the form of png or jpg files, which is not how they'd look like in the real world!)
A lot of these historical names I have drawn up from various websites, accounts, and manuscripts. Which leads me on to the next and main thinking part of this forum post: Pavise shields. I've decided for my sergeants armed with pavise to give them individual civic (city) symbols on their shields. I have seen many people combine a unit of soldiers with the same heraldry (Such as giving all the soldiers the heraldry of Metz or Toulon in a single unit), but I will give each soldier an individual shield from various cities and communes. My two biggest problems with doing this is going for historical accuracy. It is not as simple as picking some random French town and applying the coat of arms to it. Some towns in this period after Agincourt also stood behind the English, recognizing the English King as soverign, and not the French. Furthermore, some coat of arms were not documented nor distributed to civics during this time and were only noted later, so I had to research historical medieval towns and the date and age of a lot of the civic emblems. To do this I've looked at armorial rolls / manuscripts recorded in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as try to note how they've evolved in more modern times. I've also found a great blog in French to assist:
https://herald-dick-magazine.blogspot.com/2016/02/recueil-darmoiries-de-villes-de-france.html It is a very useful blog because there is so much lost with sources in English! It's easy to hit translate in Chrome and get the general idea.
The two main historical manuscripts I've drawn my sources from are from the Armoiral de Gilles Le Bouvier and something called " Recueil de blasons peints. " The first armorial is probably the most accurate, as it seems to be recorded right after / the end of the Hundred Years War. However, I only recognize and can make out the city of Paris in regards to Civic Coats of arms. There are tons of accurate knights and nobles and families within, but with only English at my disposal and unclear documentation in it, beyond Paris I cannot make out which town or city is what.
On the other hand, the Recueil de blasons peints, or just "Collection of Painted Coats of arms" , which was apparently written in the 16th century has a number of towns and cities with coats of arms. These are the ones I have typically seen modernized, but there are some that are recorded differently. Le Mans, for example, in modern day representation has a "chief" at the top of its heraldry with three fleurs-de-lys. the 16th century manuscript omits these fleurs-de-lys. Secondly, Le Mans only has 3 candles historically, but a fourth was added sometime later.
16th century Le Mans Coat of arms as listed in the manuscript.
Modern Day coat of Arms. A fourth candle added along with Fleurs-de-lys.
So since it seems the fleurs-de-lis are an addition , along with an extra candle, I will probably paint this pavise as the 16th century version: Blue backing with a Red Cross and white key with three candles.
Here arrives the next problem in the bag: Le Mans is apparently invaded and eventualy on the side that recognizes the English crown as King of France in the 1420s... Should I use this on my soldiers? Do I assume that a few anti-english frenchmen travel south to Tours and join up with the local Angers and Tours military? There's not much on specifics, and there's a lot of story telling that could be told. The one great thing about wargaming (and the curse) is there's often a lot open to "What if's" and "could be" scenarios!
In any case, I have a unit of 12 pavisemen , ten of which will be armed proper with pavise (sadly I dont have enough single spears to make the full unit of 12, but oh well!). My current plan is this:
Here I've got 9 pavise designs for civic coats of arms I would like to do. There are some that are potentially problematic however.
1) Angers apparently has only 2 fleur de lys. or none, depending on the source. Orleans and Tours seem accurate, though Tours is often shown with a black backing, not blue.
2) Vendome seems historically correct and is also seen on the duke's coat of arms. I've seen it without a crown and both versions are fine to me.
3) Evreux surrenders and throws its doors open to the English - And Amiens and Troyes are also under English domain for a good chunk of time, and even have treaties written under their name. Should they be on French shields if I am using them say in the Siege of Orleans? Le Mans falls in this category too.
4) Rennes is Britanny, and since I have Arthur III in the lot, I wanted some representation from Brittany. I like the Brtianny forces because they essentially end up fighting either sides at some point in the war.
The thing is.. do I worry about crossover? I'm already doing a little bit with Agincourt knights running around in my forces. Who is to say that A few lads from Amiens aren't too keen with Burgundian or English forces hanging around and prefer the Dauphin of France..?
So it's all about deciding which ones I should put on the Ten shields I want to do, and also decide which is accurate or not. Another thought is to make some simple versions - just the Cross of St Dennis, or maybe just generic Fleur-de-lys to represent "France". The Siege of Meaux would also be interesting. There's a Grene and Red Version with a chief of fleurs-de-lys of that city, but there's also a blue and red version without the fleurs-de-lys!
I think the main thing for me to remember too as I have mentioned is that a level of artistic licence has to come into play. To what extent a lot of these blazons were worn into battle is only really shown in art and descriptions!
Thanks for reading my thoughts and process at painting these lads.
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May 28, 2023, 06:06:43 AM
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