painting feudal armies

[footslogger]

I'm thinking about doing a feudal army. I'm wondering what the foot should look like, not so much styles, but colors and such. Would feudal spearmen with shields wear any kind of device on their clothes, or paint their shields, in any way to reflect the arms of the feudal lord?

What about mercenary bands? I understand they were often recruited from a particular region, would their clothes or shields carry the coat of arms of the region they came from?

Is there anything written about this? I read through most of the WRG feudal armies 1066-1300 and couldn't gather anything in particular about the answers to either of these questions.

[gozerius]

Feudal levies are going to be armed peasants, so will be wearing whatever they own. At this stage they would not normally have any distinctive uniforms or liveries. City militias might carry shields emblazoned with their guild devices.
In general, the better armed the figure, the better dressed (more colorful), as this would be a wealthier individual.

[BlackPrince]

Personally for spearmen and crossbowmen I use greys and browns for clothing with some red occassionally. With my knights everyone gets a different shield desgin. For spearmen each base has the same shield desgin and on some of the spearmen bases I include a dismounted knight as the lord.

Keith

[Skullzgrinda]

Perhaps of some use:

Somewhere once upon a time I read that some blues and muted greens were fairly common colors in NW Europe in the Middle Ages.

This brief article addresses dyes and colors available in the Viking age, but would probably carry over into the Feudal period as the same materials were available:
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikdyes.html

Here is an interesting view on the subject: "What fascinates me most about medieval clothing is how little we know. That seems to contradict what I said in the very first paragraph, I realize, but it underscores an important point -- medieval clothing is largely a matter of interpretation. Very little fabric remains from that era, thanks to Europe's climate. Writings contain references to articles of clothing that sometimes can't be identified precisely. Artwork depicts men much more frequently than women, or depicts farmhands laboring in their Sunday best, or gives us representations that are hard to understand." From this site:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/200 ... hing.shtml

[Jilu]

Perhaps of some use:

Somewhere once upon a time I read that some blues and muted greens were fairly common colors in NW Europe in the Middle Ages.

This brief article addresses dyes and colors available in the Viking age, but would probably carry over into the Feudal period as the same materials were available:
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikdyes.html

About the blue colour it was for sure not used before the crusades as the Europeans had lost the knowledge to make the blue die.

[johno]

About the blue colour it was for sure not used before the crusades as the Europeans had lost the knowledge to make the blue die.

My wife choked on her beer when I showed her this!

As part of our Tudor and Stuart re-enactment activities, she is a spinner, dyer and knitter using traditional techniques.

She tells me that cloth died blue with woad is found in Northern European contexts from the Roman period through to the 17th century, when it began to be replaced with Logwood, a South American tree bark!

There are other plant and mineral sources of blue in the European dyer's toolbox, but woad is the simplest to use.

johno

[Jilu]

yes but Tudor is after the first crusade..but it is of course purple and Azur blue that were rediscovered around the 11th century , the blue they made before was quite different.