Slitherine

o Some armoured spearmen (sergents de pied) added to French 1320-1349 list.

sergents `a pied

fogman wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2023 2:37 am o Some armoured spearmen (sergents de pied) added to French 1320-1349 list.

sergents `a pied

Either would be correct. But it is academic, since the term only appears in the changelog, not in the game.

Indeed, both 'sergents de pied' and 'sergents à pied' would be correct (and were used in the Medieval period).

Academically speaking, 'de pied' seems better as it allows to distinguish between the :
- 'Gens d'armes' (contraction of 'Gens de armes') : MAA or Knights travelling and fighting on horseback (and occasionally on foot),
- 'Gens de cheval' : fighters moving to the battlefield on horseback but fighting on foot, such as the French Ordonnance bowmen,
- 'Gens de pied' : fighters both moving to the battlefield and fighting on foot (foot sergeants, brigands...)

('Gens' meaning 'ppl')

Ok I was thinking of modern rather than archaic usage (surprisingly, I found 'de pied' in as late as Voltaire) but it is a moot point.

It is absolutely not archaic. It was used in the 15th century, in the 18th century by Voltaire and his contemporaries, it is still used nowadays as the current version of the reference French dictionary (Dictionnaire de l'Académie française) (and my examples above) show it :



'de + something' only means here "(ppl) who do the same work/activity/business" :
- gens d'Eglise = clergymen
- gens de mer = sailors
- gens de pied = infantrymen
- sergents de pied = kind of infantrymen, sergeants serving on foot
- etc.

However, in current everyday langage between non-specialists, "sergents à pied" is certainly preferred to 'sergents de pied'.

It is archaic if it refers to means of locomotion like on foot or on horse. Archaic simply means it was more widespread in the past than now.

What’s relevant is that ‘a pied’ and ‘a cheval’ are modern standard military terminology, not ‘de pied’ or ‘de cheval’. Napoleon’s Imperial Guard had regiments of ‘grenadiers a pied’ and ‘grenadiers a cheval’, ‘chasseurs a pied’ and ‘chasseurs a cheval’. ‘Chasseurs de pied’ and ‘chasseurs de cheval’ would sound particularly bad and actually sound like ‘foot chasers’ and ‘hunters of horse’.

It seems you don’t perfectly master all the nuances of the French langage.

Ph. Contamine (and other current Historians too) uses « de pied » and « de cheval » hundreds of times in his books about Medieval warfare.

I think Richard provided the right answer above.

Verbruggen you mentioned in another thread also uses the expression, for example :

It's all condescension when it's not outright insult like on the other thread. Such a great guy. One would expect a book about medieval warfare to use medieval terminology.

fogman wrote: ↑Mon Jan 16, 2023 9:12 pm It's all condescension when it's not outright insult like on the other thread. Such a great guy.

No condescension nor insult here. I am not that kind.
But if I sounded so, I do apologize.
Just correcting things that aren't true you keep on stating in informative threads. I guess I shouldn't.

fogman wrote: ↑Mon Jan 16, 2023 9:12 pm One would expect a book about medieval warfare to use medieval terminology.

And one would expect an historical game/wargame like FoG2 to do so, especially in his update log.
La boucle est bouclée.