[Gordon Frye]

My belief is that rather than being specifically a protective garment, the bases/waffenrock as used by the gendarmerie was more of a fashion statement. Sometimes the skirt is a part of an over-garment, worn over the armour to both protect the armour and to keep the wearer from feeling the exagerated effects of the ambient temperature (steel is a lousy insulator from the weather), and sometimes it's just the skirt itself. I would imagine that usually in such cases it's just being fashionable. After all, gentlemen's clothing of the period 1500-1550 usually included a based doublet or jerkin/waffenrock, so it makes perfect sense to me that they would wear the same sort of garment in relation to their armour. These WERE men of rank and subject to fashions after all, and not all military fashions in dress are particularly useful or efficient (see "Hussars" ) That the based skirt could also form a protection for the slightly exposed buttocks and upper back thigh was more of an added benefit, I think, than any sort of well thought out plan.

They DO look sharp, though, I must admit!

Cheers!

Gordon

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Well, i have to admit too that a sword or lance can always find its way to the gonads
It´s a matter of thinking twice to say something to those steel ladies.

Maybe it´s only me, but i think that a certain type of helmet, with plumes, big pauldrons and a waffenrock skirt, gives the soldier some attitude or some kind of psychological effect on the enemy like hussar´s wings and those fearsome samurai helmet and masks.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Maybe not the pauldrons, but the plumes, banneroles, and skirts were designed at least partially for morale effect. Heavy cavalry (and some light ones too) retained their plumes into the 20th century and the writers of cavalry manuals all agree on what those plumes and bright uniforms were for.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Not pauldrons for a morale effect but for a more ¨solid¨ armour. I was wondering, if not a silly question, if a heavy cavalry Gendarme (French, Burgundian, italina, etc...) used those big pauldrons shown in the first photo, and if the second armour can wear bases, or they need a special pattern for the fauld.

Thanks

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Well, if you're asking my amateur opinion, I believe some gendarmes would have worn that kind of pauldron--a plainer version, perhaps, not like the heavily-decorated thing in the photograph. As for the second, I have to admit that I'm not sure I've ever seen a base/waffenrock/whatever attached to a peascod cuirass, but since the thing was a fairly loose garment I would consider it far from impossible. I don't know how likely such a combination would have been, though.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

If i´m not wrong the peascod breastplate was a 1550 fashion, that´s why maybe they didn´t used surcoats with those armours. (SeemsI posted the wrong pic )

Do you know if that design of pauldron was used from late XV and early VXI Century till the end of XVI century, or it was a late century fashion too?

Thanks

[Lafayette C Curtis]

The pauldron in which picture? The first or the second? The first looks small and mostly unarticulated, so I suppose it's a late 15th/early 16th-century style. The second, being a large and articulated pauldron, was a style that lasted well into the 17th century but I'm not sure about when it first appeared. I don't think I'm aware of any 15th-century examples, though.

[Guilherme Dias Ferreira S]

What your opinion about who had the best harness in the early sixteenth century, the gendarmes (which, I think, used mainly italian armour) or the german gothic knight, in terms of protection against blows from swords and other weapons (It will be useful if someone show information like weight and thickness).

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Well, if you want more technical info, ask Lafayette or Gordon.
Well, the French had their own style too, wich is similar to italian designs, Check this thread:

http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_delaune.html

If you are talking about a Gothic harness, i can tell you that the fluted surfaces were better to deflect arrows (I think the same goes for the Maximillian style wich, if i´m not wrong is the evolutionary development of the Gothic style) But, as the earlier versions had little pauldrons i think that Milanese style were better for deflecting sword thrusts, or at least it was harder to find the gaps, and thanks to it´s soft round form, i guess it was better against chops. There were both good armours, so i´ll not say that one is better that the other becouse both have their different advantages and disadvantages. For Maximillian style I don´t know how a fluted surface reacts against bullets, but remember that first harquebuzes weren´t very accurate and, as having a round bullet, it slows down quicker, so at certain distance the gun is not very deadly (Of course it still is a deadly armour piercer weapon). The style of armour was a matter of fashion too, so it´s rare to find an entire company with the same style of armour, even French, and Burgundians used Maximillian harness too. The mixture of styles existed too.

[Guilherme Dias Ferreira S]

Correct if I'm wrong but the mainly users of the maximilian harness were the frenchs knights, since the invention of this style, in the early 1500s. I think that in Germany the knights were still prefering to use the later versions of the gothic armour, like this one: http://www.whiterosearmoury.co.uk/New%20Folder/rob2.JPG; and this one: http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/RA2001Guild/JeffinGothic2.JPG

Well, I'm waiting for a more qualificate and technical opinion.

[Ushio Kawana]

Hi all

I have very simple question...
When I hear it with "gendarme", I remember Battle of Pavia.
It is famous that they were surrounded and murdered.

I have very simple question about gendarme in Battle of Pavia.
Most of gendarmes are high class nobles. But they did not become captives. (they are killed.)
Why did not they become captives?

Thanks

[Daniel Staberg]

Pavia is a classic example of what was known as "Bad War", the Spanish and Germans were little inclined to give quarter and take prisoners while the French Gendarmes seems to have resisted with desperate if futile courage. In fact the Imperial cavalry who took the King prisoner had to attack their own men in order to do so. Later on when Francis was escorted of the field by arquebusiers these had to fire up on Spanish infantry who still tried to kill the King.

Previously the French Gendarmes had charged and routed the Spanish cavalry and chased the Spanish who had to run for their lives to find safety in the woods. It is plausible, even likely that the infantry did not do this without losing men who were cut down by the Gendarmes. Seeing this would have increased the ferocity of the Spanish when they were in a position to take revenge.

[Ushio Kawana]

Hi

Thanks Daniel

[Ushio Kawana]

Hi

I found...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_of_pike

* Battle of Ravenna (1512)
* Battle of Novara (1513)
* Battle of Pavia (1525)
* Battle of Ceresole (1544)

But I have new another question.

I

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Ushio Kawana]

Hi

Thanks Lafayette!

[Michael Curl]

I would guess that head pieces means helmet
Brain is the english word for the soft stuff inside your head that lets you think and such. I don't know the word for it in japanese, but here is a picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain

Knocked out means to hit until stuff comes out. So to knock someone's brains out means to hit them in the head till all the organs in their head are on the ground (grissly stuff, very bad).

[Kurt Scholz]

[Michael Curl]

Yes of course but knock means something different when someones says that they are knocking out their brains. A boxer receives a KO, but he doesn't knock someones brains out (unless they are using artistic license, like to say they murdered someone when in actuality they just beat them badly, or saying boxer A was torturing boxer B when in reality he was just beating him up.)

Regardless, if in a melee, your helmet were to come off, I think it would be a real possibility that someone would literally knock your brains out.

Also I'm trying to explain things rather simply, since Mr. Ushio doesn't not speak English fluently.

[Kurt Scholz]