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By Rachel Ward
n the late 15th century, Europe looked very different to how it does now. The boundaries of countries that we now consider fixed and permanent were anything but fixed and permanent. These boundaries shifted on a regular basis: when rulers died, married, needed a favor, or went to war. The stakes were high in wars during this period, so generals were constantly working on new ways to gain an advantage over their enemies.
The Landsknechts, German mercenary soldiers who thrived from approximately 1487 - 1556, provided one of these advantages. Originally created as a force to support the Holy Roman Empire-building predilections of Maximilian I, heir to the Holy Roman Empire, they soon began hiring themselves out to the highest bidder (including Maximilian's enemy, the King of France-a practice which Max put a stop to very quickly, ordering all Germans in the pay of the French to come home!)
"Landsknecht" means literally "servant of the country." Recruited primarily from the poor in southern Germany, they became known for their outlandish dress and effective fighting tactics. In their heyday, they were the finest fighting force in Europe.
The Landsknechts were primarily a force of soldiers using pikes (pole weapons 14-18 feet long with 10 inch steel heads) aided by "shock troops" armed with immense "zwei-händer" swords or with halberds (pole weapons 6-7 feet long). Additionally, Landsknecht companies had arquebuses (rifle-sized guns with matchlock firing mechanisms) and a variety of heavy artillery. Using novel-often sneaky!-tactics, they soon earned the respect of their enemies. But developments in warfare, especially in firearms, ultimately made the Landsknechts (along with other infantry forces) obsolete.
Landsknecht clothing was easily the most gaudy and obnoxious in the Renaissance. The Landsknechts were exempt from the sumptuary laws regulating clothing styles that other citizens had to follow-Maximilian granted them this dispensation because their lives tended to be so "short and brutish."
Their clothing was characterized by its "puff and slash" decoration, created by cutting slashes in the outer garments and pulling puffs of the under garments through those slashes. Sleeves often ballooned out dramatically, as did pants. Often, their sleeves were mismatched, with one pattern of puffs and set of colors on one arm and a different puff pattern and set of colors on the other! Pants legs sometimes were mismatched too. They wore large flat hats, the size of pizzas, often festooned with ostrich feathers. Some wore obscenely immense codpieces covering their genitals. Even their shoes were decorated with puff-and-slash. The overall effect could be quite eye-twisting.
The "puff and slash" style of clothing was adopted by non-Germans too, becoming a standard mode of decoration in several parts of Europe. The English nobility was particularly enamored of puff and slash. Henry VIII started wearing it after seeing it on Landsknechts he had hired; in fact, the famous
painting of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein depicts him in a doublet decorated with puff and slash. Other paintings of Henry depict him wearing what looks like a knee-length skirt; he adopted this style from German warskirts worn by some Landsknechts. Henry's children Edward VI and Elizabeth I also wore puff and slash.
Men who joined a Landsknecht Fähnlein (company) usually brought along a woman to care for them-a sister, wife, or daughter. These women were called "Hure"-literally, "whores" -but they were not prostitutes, just campfollowers (Kampfrauen) They cared for the men between battles, and even participated in battles, following behind the fighting, looting the dead and killing the almost-dead. Some even assisted the heavy artillery, stripping enemy houses of wood that was used later for earthworks.
The women also adopted the puff-and-slash style, though not to the extent that the men did. They wore similar hats to the men's. One distinctive aspect of the women's style is that they "kirtled" up their skirts, raising the hem a few inches from the muddy ground and creating a poof of extra fabric around the hips.
The life of a Landsknecht was not easy-punishment for breaking rules was swift and violent, battles were bloody and fierce, and the living conditions were usually uncomfortable. The primary benefit was the pay: a Landsknecht earned more in a month than a farmer earned in a year. If he survived, he could retire wealthy.
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