Italy at War troop trees discussion

[Narf of Picklestink]

In trying to plan out and design the models and such for this mod, I have already done a fair amount of research.  I have been thinking it would be good if others on this board would like to offer their knowledge or advice as well on the types of troopsr we should have for the various regions- as well as ideas for their. 

After posting the preview pics of my first transitional armour, I was sent this message by GodHandApostle, which I thought would make a good opener to the topic:

Re: Armors for Italy at War
Quote from: GodHandApostole on September 23, 2009, 06:15:14 am

    Hello.
    Just saw the work you've done for the mod (the new armor) and it's really good!
    But, I'd like to ask about some of the future suits you'll make. One important thing about the kind of soldiers in Italy during the late 14th century is that they were mostly non-noble, which usually meant poorly trained in comparison with the rest of Europe knights. The so called men-at-arms. They were mostly merchants and artisans that fought for the city council, but since they were rich enough, they did so using plate armors, warhorses and knight's weapons. I might suggest something similar to Rath0s as well, but something that might be important to give a realistic idea of the Italian situation, is to give the troop tree a secondary branch: if you're aiming at portraying men-at-arms, then those suits are more then perfect. The one you showed, for one, would do with a closed bascinet. Also, men-at-arms rarely had any sort of heraldry, not being nobles. As an alternative, maybe it would work to make a tree dedicated to the Italian barons. The nobles of Italy were not as rich as those in the rest of Europe, so they often used their fathers' or grandfathers' armors with the family heraldry. They still had warhorses, but barded and also showing the heraldry of the family, while men-at-arms would not have it. To represent this difference, it would be great if you could make some armors that look less advanced, somewhat more poor. Something like this one
   
    Or maybe like the first or second from the left in this
   
    Those knights were often independent from the city council and even used to hire foreign mercenaries as guards or to sworn loyalty to either the Pope or to the crown of the south. That could add some realism and, of course, some variety in the equipment of high tier troops 
    Hope I do not bother you with this message and again great job!

Hello GodHandApostole, nice to meet you.
...
  I think I will not make any armours with long surcoats, however, as these pretty much went out of style after the 1350s.  Almost every portrayal of a surcoat I've seen after that time is thigh-length.  As for the rest of the harness, there will be some with studded leather and splinted cuisses (thigh) and vambraces(forearm), as well as rerebraces (upper arm) of cuir-builli with rondelles as the only shoulder protection.  I may make several variations of each armour, with combinations of splint and steel (damn, I've got a lot of work to do!).

  As to actually mapping out troop trees... Well, that's beyond my scope for this project.  Rath0s will be the one to do that.  I was, however, having similar thoughts about the men-at-arms and mercenaries, with a separate branch for militias.
Quote

Those knights were often independent from the city council and even used to hire foreign mercenaries as guards or to sworn loyalty to either the Pope or to the crown of the south. That could add some realism and, of course, some variety in the equipment of high tier troops 

   

  This was kind of what I'd been thinking about when I was deciding what kind of stuff the mercenaries would wear- French, and particularly British, armour was fairly advanced due to their constant warring with each-other, and would give us license to add some variety to the armours.

  Again, thank you for offering your thoughts on this.  If you have any further research you'd like to do for equipment, I'd be happy to hear from you.  I think there should be a thread on the board specifically for equipment and troop trees research-  after all, I end up spending as much time doing that as actually modeling the stuff.

Regards,

Narf of Picklestink

Thanks for the reply.
The surcoat topic depends mostly on who we're talking about: those nobles loyal to the Pope were most likely very poor in comparison with the rest of the European nobles, wich perhaps (but these are often conjectures) meant a poorer equipment. Italy was a particular case during the middle ages, and even more during the last centuries, because the north was extremly advanced in tecnologies and in armor creation. Milan armors were famous and appriciated in Frace as well as in other kingdoms accros Europe. Instead, the south of Italy and the roman principality(that is how the nobles loyal to the Pope are usually refered) were both "late" in developping war tecnologies. They used mercenaries more then the cities in the north, but that meant their armies were, surely smaller, but more trained. But those small armies were actually led by those poorly equiped but highly trained prices from Rome; they were more or less like the English nobles, where the upcoming merchants and clergy powers were conquering fiefs from them, forcing them to partecipate in the war against France to earn enough with loots to pay their debts. The King also promised to pay the debts himself to those who served in France. This is similar to what guilds and various associations did to the roman principality: merchants from the north took their estates and they where forced to go outside Italy to earn enough to come back and buy their lands again. To portray this aspect, they should also be quite stronger then northern men-at-arms, being veterans. Some of them were probably even former crusaders.
I thought that lornger surcoats could help giving the idea of them being less whealty. But of course this belong more to the troop trees. So it will be discussed elsewhere, I assume 
For now, thanks again for the quick reply and I wish you luck for the coming work on the mod!

...my reply forgotten,

The native long surcoat can be retextured as well I think, as done with the Britain at War templar one...that is already something close to a early-to-mid 14th century not-so-wealthy armor 
And when I first read the huge number of passages and menpower needed to realize a simple piece of textile, clear it, colour it and stitch it with the heraldry, I came to think it was quite expensive...Not in Venice, since there the textile market was extremly advanced for the period and had a pre-industrial structure, wich worked faster and at a lower cost then in the rest of Italy, thanks to the good relationship they had with Bisanzio (used the Italian word, since I can't remember how it translates in English  ) But then, Milan, for istance, should have less surcoats and tabards, 'cause only knights and lords were able to afford them. Milanese men-at-arms would probably were plates, since there the armor industry was well developed, able to compare to the German forges, but no heraldry, not even the one of the city, since the textile merchants were less lucky then those from Venice and had to get the wool from England and the norther Europe. So Milanese, Sicilian, Roman nobles had mostly wool stuff, the first came from the the north through France, while Sicily had it from Puglia and Sardegna (again sorry, but I can't translate these words. Both are names of regions of Italy) and used to sell it to the Pope and the Vatican state, while Venice probably used both cotton and silk, bought from Crete, Bisanzio, Alessandria(the Egiptian city...need to learn their English versions ). Many thinks that relationships with the eastern part of the sea were lost with the end of the Crusaders states, but Venice kept them going until the end of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Turkish invasion. And when the Emperor got tired of them, they even conquered the city, during the fourth crusade.
But is not something strictly needed...it would be already enough to have a version of that templar surcoat with a Pope heraldry, like crossed keys on white or red field.
Last question about the whole armore topic: you plan on realizing some closed helmets as well? Because there are a couple I've found that should look good 

So there you have it, a long post, but GodHandApostle has put some time and thought into this, so I thought it should be shared with the rest of the team.

[Rath0s]

Good stuff, keep the info coming. 

[GodHandApostole]

I was mostly concerned about the look of high tier troops, but one thing that should be shown when recruiting new soldiers is that it was a timeframe where one would see less peasants and more profesionals...There was this evolution with cities and villages; if they had to pay with men for their Lord's protection during the period between 9th and 13th century, in the 14th they started to pay him a new tax to compensate the lack of soldiers...it was like telling him: "why don't you hire a good, hardened, warrior with these money, instead of bringing our lads to be slaughtered?" 
It would take a lot of coding I guess (and that is really a mere guess, since I have no skill with that) but I believe it would be possible to make it so that village elders offer you some money when you try to force their fellow villagers in the army (that as Lord of the village...otherwise they could just laugh at you  ) Sort of taking out the chance for them to just refuse and let you leave with no men to fight 

[Kocken]

maybe you could have a system that lets us recruit professional soldiers from castles or cities and miltia class soldiers from the villages. like in The Hundred Years War mod.

[GodHandApostole]

Considering it is Italy we're talking about, I'd say Cities. But, yes it would work

[Narf of Picklestink]

Can anyone tell me if the Normans still existed as a distinct cultural group in Sicily (and or Lombardy?- my history is pretty spotty here ) in 1380?  I recall reading that even in the 11th century they were a small minority, so I'd imagine they would have been assimilated into the population by this time.  In short, did there still exist an 'Italo-Norman' state in 1380, that we could build a distinct troop-tree and equipment for?

[GodHandApostole]

In sicily perhaps, but there were french in southern Italy then

[Imnotwhatiam]

Can anyone tell me if the Normans still existed as a distinct cultural group in Sicily (and or Lombardy?- my history is pretty spotty here ) in 1380?  I recall reading that even in the 11th century they were a small minority, so I'd imagine they would have been assimilated into the population by this time.  In short, did there still exist an 'Italo-Norman' state in 1380, that we could build a distinct troop-tree and equipment for?

I should check but the southern state (Naples and Sicily) was under a norman/french king (the norman conqueror's direct blood line was extinguished soon after the death of holy roman emperor Frederic II).

Nobles' culture was still norman/french style.

Common people were not so tied to highborns' culture: it's quite a mess, today there are still some places in south-east of Italy where the local dialect derives directly from ANCIENT GREEK.

[Cèsar de Quart]

Can anyone tell me if the Normans still existed as a distinct cultural group in Sicily (and or Lombardy?- my history is pretty spotty here ) in 1380?  I recall reading that even in the 11th century they were a small minority, so I'd imagine they would have been assimilated into the population by this time.  In short, did there still exist an 'Italo-Norman' state in 1380, that we could build a distinct troop-tree and equipment for?

I should check but the southern state (Naples and Sicily) was under a norman/french king (the norman conqueror's direct blood line was extinguished soon after the death of holy roman emperor Frederic II).

Nobles' culture was still norman/french style.

Common people were not so tied to highborns' culture: it's quite a mess, today there are still some places in south-east of Italy where the local dialect derives directly from ANCIENT GREEK.

You're wrong, Normans had nothing to do with the Frenchmen that came with Charles d'Anjou at the second half of the XIIIth Century. In the Continental part of Naples, the nobility was half French, half German, since the old Norman lines had already died or disappeared mixed up with French / German lineages.

Also, in insular Sicily, the French had no influence. It was rather a domain of the Aragonese. At the end of the XIIIth Century the king of Aragon, Peter III the Great, defied Charles d'Anjou's claim to the throne of Sicily. Peter was married to the last of the Hohenstaufen maidens, so he had claim. Charles, on his side, didn't have any blood claim, but he had the support of the Pope and the Guelphs.

Peter won Sicily while Charles kept the continental part as king of Naples. Sicily ended up under one of the minor sons of King Peter, named Frederic (he intitled him Frederic III remembering Friedrich II, who was Second in his title of Emperor, not as king of Sicily. So this Frederic might have been II rather than III, but tradition keeps it that way), who began a Catalan dynasty in the island, which lasted until Frederic IV died in 1377 and he left but one daughter, Maria, 20 years old in 1380, and single...

Although, in 1380, the current king of Aragon, Peter IV the Ceremonious, de facto controlled the island. A Sicilian noble of Catalan ascent, Guillem Ramon de Montcada, captured the Queen while she was on her way to marry a Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and took her to Barcelona, where she was kept until she married an Aragonese prince, Martin the Younger, the son of the future king Martin I of Aragon. Meanwhile, Aragonese lords controlled Sicily.

Maybe you have interest in this: while Maria was young, four vicars were regents: Manfredo Chiaramonte, count of Modica and of Sicilian ascent; Guillem de Peralta, count of Caltabellotta and of Catalan ascent, Artal d'Alagón, of Aragonese ascent, and Francesco Ventimiglia, of Lombard ascent.

The way I see it, Sicily could be the Apple of Discord on Italy. Queen Maria is single in 1380 (although in process of being captured by the king of Aragon), and in Warband marrying a Queen would be... quite rewarding. This, turned into a quest, would be an awesome experience. Either trying to get your sovereign to marry Maria or trying to do so yourself. Maybe even an Aragonese invasion could be displayed...

Some ideas, for in case you find them useful. Take care!

PS: Of course, the Angevin kings of Naples are more than willing to use any inner problem in Sicily to intervene and take over the island. The king if Naples in 1380 is actually another Queen: Jeanne, ruling alone since she ordered the murder of her husband Andras, king of Hungary, around 1340, if I'm not mistaken. But in 1381, Jeanne died and her adopted son Louis d'Anjou inherited the throne.

Louis already had married with Maria de Châtillon and had some issue by her: Marie d'Anjou (died in 1383), and Louis d'Anjou, 3 years old at 1380.

[Duke Dan]

Yes, there was a few norman warriors left, but the pope's soliders went around killing the crusaders and normans in 1320

Can anyone tell me if the Normans still existed as a distinct cultural group in Sicily (and or Lombardy?- my history is pretty spotty here ) in 1380?  I recall reading that even in the 11th century they were a small minority, so I'd imagine they would have been assimilated into the population by this time.  In short, did there still exist an 'Italo-Norman' state in 1380, that we could build a distinct troop-tree and equipment for?

I should check but the southern state (Naples and Sicily) was under a norman/french king (the norman conqueror's direct blood line was extinguished soon after the death of holy roman emperor Frederic II).

Nobles' culture was still norman/french style.

Common people were not so tied to highborns' culture: it's quite a mess, today there are still some places in south-east of Italy where the local dialect derives directly from ANCIENT GREEK.

You're wrong, Normans had nothing to do with the Frenchmen that came with Charles d'Anjou at the second half of the XIIIth Century. In the Continental part of Naples, the nobility was half French, half German, since the old Norman lines had already died or disappeared mixed up with French / German lineages.

Also, in insular Sicily, the French had no influence. It was rather a domain of the Aragonese. At the end of the XIIIth Century the king of Aragon, Peter III the Great, defied Charles d'Anjou's claim to the throne of Sicily. Peter was married to the last of the Hohenstaufen maidens, so he had claim. Charles, on his side, didn't have any blood claim, but he had the support of the Pope and the Guelphs.

Peter won Sicily while Charles kept the continental part as king of Naples. Sicily ended up under one of the minor sons of King Peter, named Frederic (he intitled him Frederic III remembering Friedrich II, who was Second in his title of Emperor, not as king of Sicily. So this Frederic might have been II rather than III, but tradition keeps it that way), who began a Catalan dynasty in the island, which lasted until Frederic IV died in 1377 and he left but one daughter, Maria, 20 years old in 1380, and single...

Although, in 1380, the current king of Aragon, Peter IV the Ceremonious, de facto controlled the island. A Sicilian noble of Catalan ascent, Guillem Ramon de Montcada, captured the Queen while she was on her way to marry a Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and took her to Barcelona, where she was kept until she married an Aragonese prince, Martin the Younger, the son of the future king Martin I of Aragon. Meanwhile, Aragonese lords controlled Sicily.

Maybe you have interest in this: while Maria was young, four vicars were regents: Manfredo Chiaramonte, count of Modica and of Sicilian ascent; Guillem de Peralta, count of Caltabellotta and of Catalan ascent, Artal d'Alagón, of Aragonese ascent, and Francesco Ventimiglia, of Lombard ascent.

The way I see it, Sicily could be the Apple of Discord on Italy. Queen Maria is single in 1380 (although in process of being captured by the king of Aragon), and in Warband marrying a Queen would be... quite rewarding. This, turned into a quest, would be an awesome experience. Either trying to get your sovereign to marry Maria or trying to do so yourself. Maybe even an Aragonese invasion could be displayed...

Some ideas, for in case you find them useful. Take care!

PS: Of course, the Angevin kings of Naples are more than willing to use any inner problem in Sicily to intervene and take over the island. The king if Naples in 1380 is actually another Queen: Jeanne, ruling alone since she ordered the murder of her husband Andras, king of Hungary, around 1340, if I'm not mistaken. But in 1381, Jeanne died and her adopted son Louis d'Anjou inherited the throne.

Louis already had married with Maria de Châtillon and had some issue by her: Marie d'Anjou (died in 1383), and Louis d'Anjou, 3 years old at 1380.