More on the Hungarian 'Black Army'

[Swampster]

I have sometimes wondered about the mercenary knights in the DBMM Hungarian lists.*

The first chapter of "From Nicopolis to Mohacs' is available on Google Books https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/From_Nicopolis_to_Moh%C3%A1cs/QJByDwAAQBAJ?hl=en
The book looks like it would be right up my street except it has the Brill pricing of 135 euros.

The available chapter is interesting.
One thing which struck me was
"It has recently been observed that, contrary to the firmly-held conviction of older scholarship, a great part of these Czech mounted mercenaries employed by Matthias, who were thought to have been heavily-armoured men at arms, were in fact lightly-armoured mounted crossbowmen."
p.35

That caught my eye, as the most recent version of the Hussite list provides for fairly large numbers of mounted crossbowmen which it says are former members of Bohemian, German and Silesian lances. There may also be a continuum with the Polish model of 'knights' supported by 'shooters'.

FWIW, this late 15th c. fresco has some mounted crossbowmen http://warfare.tk/15/St-Ladislaus-Poniky.htm

The reference is to a 2010 book "A honfoglalóktól a huszárokig" - From the Conquerors to the Hussars - which focuses on the development of Hungarian cavalry. A summary in English is here https://www.academia.edu/4141874/FROM_THE_HUNGARIAN_CONQUERORS_TO_THE_HUSSARS_LIGHT_CAVALRY_IN_MEDIAEVAL_HUNGARY but isn't detailed enough to cover the arms of the Czech mercenaries.

Other things which I noticed:
Another theory for the naming of the Black Army - named after the Silesian captain 'Black' Haugwitz.
The names of various mercenary commanders - handy for ideas for flags or shields.
e.g. Haugwitz von Biskupitz, Tettauer von Tettau, Ellerbach (from Austria), Cillis (from Styria)

Another thing it reminded me of is the much earlier Froissart  (in reference to the Nicopolis campaign)""The company of the Christian men were noble and well ordered, and of Hungary there were many cross-bows on horseback." Sigismund hadn't become king of Bohemia by that time, but could these have been part of the same mounted crossbow tradition rather than Froissart making a mistake about Hungarian horse archery. Later, he does make a point of saying "as many cross-bows and archers, all horsemen"



*'MM players will be aware of their advantage due to their formation, though that is another element which I think should have been altered.

[Duncan Head]

Interesting, thanks.

The Czech mercenaries being largely mounted crossbowmen would fit with the works of Uwe Tresp on Bohemian mercenary units in Germany, which I think we have touched on in this forum before

Mildly interesting also that Pálosfalvi equates the Black Army "armati" with "pikemen", whereas the DB* lists treat them as polearm-equipped "blades".

[Swampster]

I think Tresp may have been the reason for the Hussites getting their crossbow armed cavalry in the list too.

[Andreas Johansson]

A funny thing about Tresp's work on Czech mercenary cavalry is that crossbows are prominent and lances/spears almost invisible in documentary sources, but the latter are reasonably prominent in narrative and pictorial evidence. There's also mentions of double armament.

FWIW, in the revised DBMM army list I wrote for the Teutonic Order in the 13 Years War - where Czech and eastern German mercenary cavalry were the dominant troop-type - I went with a roughly 50:50 mix of lancers and crossbowmen. This made them rather similar to their Polish enemies, which seems plausible enough.