Hi guys,

I'm hoping you can help me fill in a literal blind spot in my mental map of European military history.

I'm looking for images of Germanic military kit from the time of Julius Caesar (or even going back to the Teutones and Cimbri if they were really Germanic and not Celts) through the Migration era and the rise of the Franks.

I can find tons of great, really nuanced and in-depth stuff about the Celts (which I love), but strangely little seems to exist about these Germanic barbarians who harried the Western Roman Empire for centuries and contributed so much to it's gradual collapse.

There are a lot of tantalizing hints from ancient sources, such as Germanicus famous speech to his troops about the Germans lack of iron weapons and their use of stone-tipped spears and clubs (which conjures up an image of something like a primitive baseball bat but I wonder if they might have been something more like the axe-like and sword-like hardwood weapons of the Americas and Pacific Islands)

I want to know what kind of kit the Burgundians and Goths had when they were fighting with the Huns. What the Saxons looked like when they were fighting for control of the British Isles with the Romano-Celts. I'm interested in seeing visually how the Franks progressed from the barefoot tribesmen armed with their Framaea, Francisca, and pilum-like Angon to the armored swordsmen (I gather) who were fighting with Charles Martel at Tours.

I want to see some kind of image of these people with their Suebian knots and bristling moustaches. I want to see the stripes and checkers on their clothing. I want to see the beautifully painted shields.

But other than some good late Migration era weapons (I love the Templ stuf especially) I can't seem to find anything online, the couple of re-enactor groups I've found don't seem to be past the 'wear cloaks and drink mead' stage yet, and there aren't even any good paintings. Other than some of the Osprey Military book illustrations (which I guess are technically accurate but lack the vitality and personality that their Celtic stuff has) there don't even seem to be any good drawings or paintings around.

Can anyone help with this?

J

I have moved this topic from the Historic Arms Talk forum. That forum is described as, "Discussions of reproduction and authentic historical arms and armour from various cultures and time periods". Please note that your topic is about what you call a "military kit". Your topic has a scope covering the dress and equipment of a specific type of people. You're not specifically talking about historical arms and armour.

Please review the descriptions of the forums before posting. Thank you.

This might not be what you're looking for in terms of era, but they do have a lot of photos of various things that might be helpful.

http://www.ulfhednar.org/

Search for images from the triumphal columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.

Where on earth did you hear of Charles Martel's men at tours being armored swordsmen, BTW? I've always been under the impression that the Frankish heribannus at that time demanded spears or bows rather than swords from the bulk of the force.

Oh. BTW, go check the DBA Online site:

http://www.dbaol.com

It's a wargaming site, and you can find some interesting interpretations of Germanic dress and equipment in the "Explore Armies" section ( http://www.dbaol.com/armies.htm ). Not everyone on the site agree about the accuracy of those interpretations, though.

Jeanry!

Ask around here. www.romanarmy.com/rat There is a whole forum on the allies and enemys of rome there...

Good fun bunch of guys too!

Come over to the imperial side my frien!

In one of the history books I have (unfortunately they are all packed away right now as I'm moving) it is said that the germanic tribes were actually a subjugated people, under the celts, as opposed to the migratory newcomers that they are often held to be. If this is true than it would be easy to assume that when the germans initially appear as a force of their own their kit would be effectively the same as the celts of the same time.

It probably will not make much difference to a "Gaulish warrior" kit, but "Germanic Tribes" is a term with very broad (Scandinavian down through Austria) geographical application! If you can find an expert (I am not), you might get some specific variations to certain tribes. If you really want a tribe with lasting presence in modern German territory, you might research Chatti (Hesse), Tencteri, Ubii (Usipetes, Usipians) and some of those considered to have integrated into Frankish settlement early on. The Chatti were still mentioned as late as 8th century by Archbishop Boniface.

If you are trying to be consistent with 100 B.C. through 100 A.D. characterizations, many had little besides an oval shield, spear and very short sword. There is a sword depicted in the hands of a Gaul warrior in one stone carving (believe it is near Cologne) that looks like a typical La Tiene style. He appears otherwise nearly naked. Helms were considered to be possessed only occasionally among chiefs. Their spear was noted as unusual in that it was heavier than the Romans (compared with their own pilum) having squared sides and a small iron head.

On the other hand, many tribes that cooperated with the Romans integrated into Roman forces. You could speculate that these would look like Roman light cavalry or basically equipped Roman infantry.

Hope this helps.

Er...there are a few primary source statements that the Anglo-Saxons could understand the Viking's speech after a fashion without the use of translators. So they couldn't have been all that different.

That group is great, I think, for being honest with headgears. So many reenactment /living-history groups seem to do everything right except that they've got way too many uncovered heads.

Eh. BTW, was the pilum ever a strictly throwing weapon? From what I hear they were perfectly usable as spears in hand-to-hand fighting as well, but I'm not sure about that.

I recall that Robert Graves, in the prelude to I, Claudius, commented that German spears (at least in the Augustan period) could have been similar to the assegais developed hundreds of years later in Africa.

As Claudius is fiction (extremely well-researched, though), you can take it with a grain of salt. Since Graves did do extensive translations of historical work, though, I'd be inclined to believe his suggestion.