| Inkpaduta | 11 Jan 2012 1:10 p.m. PST |
When did the Tuetonic knights start wearing the elaborate helms with horns, wings ect? What time period? I am wanting to do early Baltic Crusades (ie against the Prussians and Estonians)but anytime Tuetonic Knights are listed by a company, they have the horned helms ect. I thought that came later on in their history. |
| DeanMoto | 11 Jan 2012 1:26 p.m. PST |
Crest were likely added sometime (maybe soon) after the introduction of the Great Helm. Some sources indicate the Great Helm developed in the late-12th Century – the period you are interested, I believe. I say go for it, they sure look cool. Dean |
| DeanMoto | 11 Jan 2012 2:28 p.m. PST |
Love the Nevsky flick too. Awesome music! And interesting treatment of the Mongols. |
| Swampster | 11 Jan 2012 2:29 p.m. PST |
I doubt that they really did.
Personal displays of heraldry (which included crests) were frowned on, being forbidden by the rule. There are some instance of the masters' arms combined with those of the Order but these are likely a special case and may even be only for tombs. OTOH, the Eisenstein look is cool, and I do have a few of the Mirliton types wearing crests in my TKs. As a compromise, you could have non-Order Germans wearing them – there would have been plenty of them accompanying the brothers. |
| Inkpaduta | 11 Jan 2012 2:49 p.m. PST |
I would prefer not to use them. But I can't seem to find any companies that make the Tuetonic Knights without them for the Baltic area. I didn't think they wore them. Then, I wondered if I was right because that is what all the figures have. |
| Ran The Cid | 11 Jan 2012 3:27 p.m. PST |
Fire Forge Games has plastic knights coming out at the end of January. The helmets have crests and such, but are designed so that they can be removed for a cleaner look. |
| just visiting | 11 Jan 2012 5:08 p.m. PST |
In the film Alexander Nevsky most of the knights do not have crests, but rather simple "bucket" helms. The knights with crests are the commanders. And of course, the Grand Master has the neatest looking getup of them all. I only have a single, small unit of a dozen mounted Teutonic Knights; and only a third of them have any crests; not coincidentally, patterned after the film…. |
| The Last Conformist | 12 Jan 2012 12:14 a.m. PST |
Apart from the distinctive colour scheme (which might not have been instituted in the early 13th century anyway – IIRC it's first documented in 1244 or so), Teutonic brethren were equipped much like secular knights, so you might simply want to use "normal" German knight figures to avoid the elaborate helmets. Note incidentally that the conquest of the Estonians was carried out by the Sword Brethren and secular crusaders, not the Teutonic Order proper. |
| Swampster | 12 Jan 2012 1:09 a.m. PST |
Ditto the Last Conformist. This book link even says that the white caparison for the horse wasn't worn, even though that has become an iconic feature in modern times. The cloak – another iconic aspect – could well have been removed before battle and probably was only a winter thing anyway. So even once the colour scheme was adopted, normal knights in surcoats on unbarded horses are probably most suitable. OTOH, mine have white caparisons, cloaks and a few helmet crests :) |
| Wardlaw | 12 Jan 2012 3:32 a.m. PST |
Alexsandr Nevski is not a good soucre for the look of Teutonic knights but, unfortunately, fogure designers have chosen to use it to make them look distinctive and different. Everyrthing suggests that the Order was wearing trhe contemporary armour for whatever period you are looking at. the distinctiveness, I would argue, comes from the Eastern looking sergeants and other auxiliaries, who would almost certainly have been wearing Polish/Russian and Baltic style armour. |
| Griefbringer | 12 Jan 2012 5:04 a.m. PST |
Fire Forge Games has plastic knights coming out at the end of January. The helmets have crests and such, but are designed so that they can be removed for a cleaner look. Actually, if you take a look at the sprue pictures on their website, you would notice that they come with a choice of both plain and decorated helmets – and there seems to be enough of both types to equip your models as you wish. link |
| TheCount | 12 Jan 2012 8:37 p.m. PST |
Some more pics! link No need to log on to Facebook, BTW. |
| Pete Dalby | 17 Jan 2012 12:49 a.m. PST |
If you're gaming in 25/28mm, Testudo's Teutonic Knights have none of the fancy horns – and of course they look superb. You can check out pictures here: pdminiatures.com/shop/start |
| wisehowl | 27 Apr 2013 5:41 a.m. PST |
Just a short contribution about crests and horse bardings…. Teutonics and Templars had a similar rule, so we could reasonably expect they followed the same regulations. A fresco in the templar church of San Bevignate, in Perugia, clearly shows the Beaussant, and…. horse barding and even a small crest (se the helm of the knight who is killing an enemy in the second picture). Since Templars lived in this abbey, we should expect they did not consider these frescos as "unsuitable or unseemly"
|
| Lewisgunner | 27 Apr 2013 9:53 a.m. PST |
I'd have no problem with crests. Rules in the Middle Ages are sporadically enforced so what we tend to see are the written attempts of a leader to impose order. That action would not have been undertaken if people had not already being doing a bit of their own thing in the area of dress. There's also the matter of wealth. If you were from a wealthy family more slack would be cut and you would get away with defying immediate authority rather more… that's just the way things worked.
Even modern armies can end up with quite a bit of variation from regulations, especially in time of war. British and Commonwealth troops in the Western desert regular used non standard weapons and sported many varieties of deress. Commanders were more interested in effectiveness than uniformity. However, once peace came the bureaucrats reasserted themselves.
Roy |
