Thinking about Teutonic Knights

[babyshark]

Because this thread has wandered into topics more appropriate for "Modelling" I have used my mod powers to slide it to the more appropriate forum.

Marc

Note the tag line on Marc's location and also that power corrupts.

Mwahahaha!



Marc

[Ghaznavid]

DiendeBrudern
These Brothers were those not of Noble birth. Their military role was either as lesser men at arms forming the rear ranks to the RitterBrudern and HalbBrudern or as infantry. Their infantry role was usually that of an officer commanding non-Brethren foot. The closest equivalent would be that of an NCO in modern armies as usually a Lay or Brethren Knight had overall command. The Diendebrudern wore a light grey Jupon with a tau cross. A Tau cross is the shape of a capital T.

WRONG. Ospreys and other anglistic authors (who obviously couldn't get the differences right) nonwithstanding Dienende Brüder used a black full cross, just like the Brother Knights, the only difference was the lack of a cloak and the greyish color of their garnment. (Actually the brother knights tended to adorn their black full cross with a thin silver lining at least on their cloaks, but that's next to impossible to paint even in 28mm without making it stand out way to much.)

HalbBrudern (Half Brothers)
These were members of the Order but whose period of service and duties were less than the RitterBrudern or DiendeBrudern. Unlike these Brethren the HalbBrudern did not take monastic vows of service for life. These Half Brothers may well have been an attempt to encourage people unwilling to join the Order for life or those fulfilling lesser Crusader vows. The HalbBrudern wore a light grey Jupon with a tau cross. Unlike other Brethren of the Order it appears that the HalbBrudern were allowed to combine their family coats of arms with that of the Tau Cross. This may explain why examples of such have been found even though the Statutes of the Order expressly forbid such practises. That said even some Hochmeisters quartered their coats of arms with the Order's Cross."

After this information, I was thinking about painting the feudal knights as HalbBrudern.

I wouldn't, the Halbbrüder info is only partially right at best and leaves out the most important point. Halbbruder = noncombatant. A Teutonic army should not have anyone with a Tau Cross on the battlefield (ok, maybe in the camp). Most Halbbrüder were priests, accountants and similar. They used a black Tau-Cross on a short cloak.

As to quartering the arms. While this was technically forbidden (repeatedly, which alone shows that it was probably done anyway) Brother Knights from influencial families usually did, especially from the 14th century onwards, it was certainly tolerated (if not necessarily officially permitted) from the 15th c. on.