Well, maybe a sturdier version of the stiletto--more commonly called the poniard. I wouldn't call it "thin" since it may be narrow but compensates for that narrowness by having a thicker, often edgeless blade--not rarely of a triangular or square cross-section. Do check the "Forms of European Edged Weaponry" article in the Features section because it will provide you with much more information than I can deliver effectively here.

Beautiful poniard daggers Lafayette. Rondel daggers are beautiful ones too.
While i was reading the features, i stoped in the Italian army feature. And i´ve seen that some of thir clothes were like Turk ones. Do you know if during XVI century, Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Poland, or maybe Hungary were still fighting against Turks?
Becouse, you see, the Italian wars and the French wars of Religion were fought around that period, and, as said before, the Pope and other countries were more interested in defeating the other Christians instead of fighting in the Balcans. (With exception of the Malta knights)

Thanks

Those "Turkish-looking" garment in the Features article are actually Balkan ones. They're worn by the Slavonic mercenaries in Italian (mostly Venetian) service, not the Italians, but some Italian magnates might have adopted such garments for show--not for battle or daily wear.

Thanks a lot guys!

A last question about the battle against Ottomans, Do you know if condottieri fought against turks during XVI century too?

Thanks.

Forget about the condottieri, i forgot that they were destroyed near 1550. But thanks.

During the Italian wars, did every city got their own man-at-arms, or they only hired mercenaries?

Thanks.

The simple answer? Most did both. Where they differed was in the relative proportions of the citizen and mercenary forces.

There's one thing I forgot to mention: some heavy horse of the lance-armed variety also carried a pistol as an emergency close-quarters weapon. There was at least one European power that made a regulation about it, but if I remember correctly it only allowed the practice rather than making it mandatory. Can anybody confirm/refute this?

Read Machiavelli. He advocated the recruitment of foot troops from Florence's citizen base, and many cities (including Florence herself_ tired to follow his advice with varying degrees of success. Of course, some of the cities might still also have had feudal retainers but, as we all know, feudal military service had largely been replaced by scutage since several centuries before the Italian Wars.

The question about the pistol was actually meant to attract Gordon's attention, since after all he's a member of a reenactment group specializing in 16th-century french cavalry. If anybody in this site knows about such regulations, I suspect it would be him. And yes, what I meant by adding the pistol to the list is that they carried the pistol in addition to their usual weapons.

Thanks Gordon.

Maybe this is a silly question, but we always see in movies that when a knight is downed from his horse, it use to run away. I was wondering, if these horses were very agressive stallions trained to bite, quick and make so many scary thing, weren´t them trained to protect their downed rider too, or at least being by his/her side? (In case of being downed by infantry units or other gendarme, not charging)

Thanks

Rodolfo;

Hopefully I'm answering your question properly here, please repeat the question if I'm not.

The biggest thing to remember about films with animals in them is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has a BIG say in how they do things in film these days. Thus rather than bringing down the animal for good (like they did in the old Westerns from the 1920's and 1930's) they train them to go down at command, and when the rider "falls off" the horse just gets up and trots off. In reality, if the horse and man go down, the man is more likely to get up, because if the horse wasn't injured he wouldn't go down, but rather he'd just keep plowing on through things.

I haven't heard of horses being actually trained to stay with their rider to protect them, though I'm sure that it's happened. However, usually the horse's blood is up and he's full of excitement, so he keeps on going when the rider is removed from the saddle in such a situation. He is going to to everything he can to stay with his "herd" of the other charging horses no matter what. There are plenty of paintings from the 19th Century of cavalry charges showing riderless horses charging right along side their companions, having no intentions of being left behind. They'll more than likely obey the trumpet commands, too, rider or not, because they become used to them just like soldiers do. I can go into more detail on that if you need me to.

You are absolutely right in that they were generally stallions (Knights and Gendarme's horses, at least) and they were trained to bite and kick their opponents, and to run them down as well. There is an account by a French officer from the Napoleonic Wars of a battle in Russia (I think it was Borodino, but I can't recall at the moment) in which his Arabian Stallion bit a Russian sergeant on the face, and ripped his face off, then grabbed a Russian officer by the chest and with the Frenchman still aboard, charged back to the French lines with the Russian screaming the entire way. Definitely something to instill a bit of respect for the horses into the infantrymen. Stallions can be VERY aggressive. :eek:

Cheers!

Gordon

Well, even with the horse-to-man bonding caused in years of training together, horse-to-horse herd instinct usually wins out. If you look at accounts of horsemanship from modern pastoralist societies like the Bakhtiari nomads and the American cowboys, it's usually more common for the horse to go along with a charge or stampede and then return to its rider after the charge or stampede is ended.

Horses peeling out of a charge and stopping to protect their riders may be a staple of fantasy but I don't think it was a very common phenomenon in history. Not without telepathy or some other form of supernatural communication, which would be impossible to prove or disprove from the accounts or pictorial representations.

I think i haven´t pointed my question properly. I´m not saying a horse leaving the charge, i mean, a horse whose rider was unhorsed in a casuality against infantry, not in a charge. Was it trained to bite and do wathever even without the asistance of the rider, and staying near the Gendarme?

Thanks.


P.D.

Gordon, do you know where i can find any image of a full armour with the bases cloth skirt whorn over the armour (Like the Gendarme armour)?

Thanks

Rodolfo;

I certainly don't know of any instances where the horse stayed to protect it's master, but I'm sure it could have happened. And they were indeed trained to kick and bite opponents, so it's entirely possible. However, most Cavalry vs Infantry encounters were on a pretty large scale, with hundreds if not thousands of participants, so as Lafayette stated, it would be a lot more likely for the herd instinct to overcome any other feelings or thoughs on the part of the horse, and the horse would tend to go with his herd, rather than stay with his master.

Here's a painting from the Albums section of myArmoury, an allegorical painting of the Battle of Alexandra:

[ Linked Image ]

I'm sure that there are others in there as well.

Cheers!

Gordon

Nice painting Gordon.

Hey Gordon, as i was told that you are in a Gendarmes reenactment group i was wondering if the cloth skirts were for any specifical purpouse?

Do you use to wear the cloth skirt base over the harness when wearing full armour?

Thanks.

Another image worth checking:

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/0JLARY2MAyg5EuT2...201504.jpg

BTW, the painting of the "Battle of Alexander" that Gordon linked to was probably meant to represent the battle of Issus. Sometimes it gets me wondering about what might have happened if Alexander's troops had really worn all those 16th-century armors!