Teutonic Knight's Turcopoles

[peteratjet]

I am building up a Teutonic Knights army, and I am not entirely sure how to represent the Turcopoles. It seems pretty clear that the Knights re-used the familiar terminology from Outremere for locally recruited auxiliaries when they established themselves in eastern Europe, but there is no reason to think that their equipment would be the same. At the moment I am working on the assumption that the Turcopoles in Prussia/Livonia retained their customary dress and equipment, so I am using the Black Hat medieval Prussian cavalry figures (very nice detail), with the Teutonic black cross on white shield. Several manufacturers have Turcopole figures, but they seem to be more suitable for the Holy Land than the Baltic.

I turned up an interesting article on the arms race between the Teutonic Knights and the locals. Among other things, it talks about the horseflesh. The Knights at first imported the warhorses they required, and later established stud farms. The local breed of horse, the Sweik, was much smaller, a hardy breed suitable for draught use and light cavalry use, but not capable of carrying a fully armoured knight in a battle. The inference is that the locally recruited Turcopoles rode Sweiks, as was their custom, and that is what I am going with, but I would be interested in any other sources.

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/a ... ekdahl.htm