Subject: Landsknecht mercenary infantry

Culture: Imperial German

Setting: Holy Roman Empire, Germany/Italy 16th-mid 17thc

Event Photos

Primary Sources

* Melville 2018 p120

"Another reason [that Doppelsöldner were probably not employed as two-handed swordsmen ahead of pikes in battle formation] is the documentary evidence -- the doppelsoldner are clearly armoured pikemen in the sixteenth-century imperial regulations, while the more lightly armoured or unarmoured soldiers have been converted to arquebusiers. The 1570 regulations (in Artikel auf die Fussknecht von 1570) stipulate that each company of 400 Landsknechts should comprise 100 fully armoured pikemen (of whom fifty were to be doppelsoldner, for the front rank), fifty men armed with two-handed swords or halberds (and pistols!) specifically to guard the ensign and the standard, fifty unarmoured pikemen and 200 armed with arquebuses, swords and helmets. Daniel Wintzenberger, writing in Dresden in 1588, describes a company of 300 men consisting of eighty-two doppelsoldner in armour with pikes, fourteen doppelsoldner in armour with schlachtschwert, eighteen halberdiers, forty-two musketeers and 144 arquebusiers -- the trend is clearly in favour of firearms. On the other hand, a number of illustrations -- woodcuts and manuscript paintings -- do show soldiers, in ones and twos, wielding their two-handed swords in or beyond the front line against opposing pikes, halberds and occasional two-handed swords. These may, of course, merely reflect the romantically valorous imaginings of the artists."

Secondary Sources

Field Notes