housecarles

My understanding is that the Housecarles used by King Harold were armed primarily with spears or two handed axes. They also had large kite shaped shields. I also found information that they were a standing professional army of King Harolds.

Were the housecarles used by any other countries besides England? Did the housecarles disappear after between wiped out at the Battle of Hastings?

I am also curious about other professional, standing troops during the 1100-1200's. Did the Brits, French, Spanish or HRE have any professional troops?

Did any countries have any specialized Royal troops? For example, did the Brits have a specialized, professional force of billmen in addition to the regular run of the mill billmen called up for emergencies?

Any information would be appreciated. I finally figured out how to add new units to MTW. Now I need to determine what are appropriate units to add.

The Byzantines had a pretty subtantial professional or semi-professional army. The emperor's personal troops went by several names, the Varangian Guards, and the Immortals.

Grifman

I think I am going to have to buy a lot more books about the armies. It is hard to find the information.

For a good overview of hte period there aer only 4 books required, all published by Wargames Research Group:

Armies of Feudal Europe, 1066-1300
Armies of the Middle Ages volumes 1 and 2 (I forget the date range)
Armies and enemies of the Crusades, 1096 (?)-1291

All by Ian Heath - a little dated now, but Ian is still a erspected author on military history and they're well worth the effort.

They all have a heap of info on army makeup (levies, mercenaries, standing forces, etc), tactical methods, battles and troop equipment and appearance.

They can be picked up 2nd hand sometimes (have a look at http://www.onmilitarymatters.com/wcat1300.htm), (althuogh they seem to be a little on the expensive side at US$34 for some of the things listed!)

Also try Essex in the UK - at UKL14 per volume they seem more reasonable!!
http://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/armyenemy.html

Or do a search on Ian Heath, or WRG rules and see what shows up - IIRC at least some of them are still in print.

Essex also stock the Osprey series if you've got money to spend!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Look at their cataogue at http://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/osprey.html

(and no I have no interest in the company!! lol - but I have bought from them and they do good service)

[This message has been edited by Hakonarson (edited 10-15-2002).]

Quote Originally posted by Jagger:
Were the housecarles used by any other countries besides England? Did the housecarles disappear after between wiped out at the Battle of Hastings?.[/QUOTE]

Basuically yes only the English used them, and they disappeared. however many went to Byzantium and joined hte Varangian Guard - to the extent that anna Comnena, writing a few decades later, calls the Varangians "English".

[/B] Quote I am also curious about other professional, standing troops during the 1100-1200's. Did the Brits, French, Spanish or HRE have any professional troops?.[/B][/QUOTE]

Yep - they all had standing forces to some degree or other at soem stage throug hteh 350 year period covered by MTW!!

Not necessarily household/elite/guard troops tho - often professional infantry as castle garrisons.

Sometimes small standing forces were provided by paid or unpaid service by troops owing some form of service and performing it on rotation - especially guards for towns taken from town militia.

the subject is too huge to be covered by a short post here - there are dozens of books about teh various troop types involved!!


Quote Did any countries have any specialized Royal troops? For example, did the Brits have a specialized, professional force of billmen in addition to the regular run of the mill billmen called up for emergencies?[/QUOTE]

By the Wars of the Roses yes, they had "Retinue" and "Shire levy" troops - both bill and bow.

But not much befoer then IIRC. Royal troops were almost invariably knights - although the King of France maintained a body guard of Scots archers (longbowmen) - they fought on foot but were as heavily armoured as any knight.

Thanks, Hakonarson! I will start by checking out the used book stores. They have some good, big ones here.

Funny thing is that the vikings are called housecarles if you edit the game - strange...

In earlry Medieval there were no professional armies in Europe. Muslim factions had them and used'em in numerical wars. Professional armies appeared in Europe later - in 13-15 centuries.
As for huscarles they were the most experienced troops in viking's army long before english started to use them. Huscarles were bodyguards of king, they were elite. It's not an english invention.

Well hus means house so the name means something like house guard I guess. These shouldn't be confused with the viking raiders though - seems like two different troop types to me - one defensive and one offensive.

Argee. Huscarles did't participate in viking's raides; they defend their king or noble men when big wars ocurred (like conquest of Scotland etc).

I didn't say the English invented them - however the Huscarls of the English King WERE the most numberous and famous of hte type - probably the best infantry in Europe at the time.

IMO the "Viking" huscarls weren't a different troop type - the Scandenavian troops were all essentially the same - infantry with a large shield, armed with sword, spear and occasionally axe, richer ones with mail coats.

Huscarls were rich of course, so all would ahve had mail, but many non-huscarls would have had it too.

The term "huskarl" has its first meaning as "man of the court" (hus - court, karl - man, peasant etc). In England the first meaning of the word was replaced by another - mercenary. In England huscarles represented a kind of professional soldiers. That was a very powerful and very closed organization. Huscarles were the bone of anglosaxon army in 11 century. In viking's army huscarles were a guard, bodyguards of king.
The first written mention of "huscarles" appeared in 1000-1018 in northern Europe (in Yomsborg, Baltic sea). Thet were also called as "tingamannen", mercenaries. Enlish kings and nobility hired them very often and they became a real power in England in 2nd half of 11 century.
the main weapon of huscarl was sword. There were 4800 men in usual anglosaxon army. Usually every earl had 200-300 huscarles as his best warriors. Huscarles were noble men and they were really appreciated by english lords.

In a battle between Alexius Comnenus of Byzantium and Robert Guiscard (sp?) of Sicily the Anglo-Saxon Varangians had an axe to grind. hehe. The battle was on the Adriatic coast but I can't remember the name.
It was around 1080+ and these former Huscarles broke the Norman knights on the right but were cut off and destroyed when the rest of the army failed to follow due to the desertion of some Turkish mercs on the left.
Just read this last night and then saw your post this morning. Fate.

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He moves, you move first.

So if I were to edit the viking troops to include a shield/spear armed viking, a two handed axe viking, a huscarle viking with shield/spear and a two handed axe huscarle viking it would be reasonably accurate within the game parameters and cover most variations of the viking? The huscarle viking would have slighlty better armor and perhaps better morale as "elite" troops?

Were these troops fairly common as mercenaries throughout Europe or restricted to England, Byzantium, Denmark and Swedon?

Whats a Housecarle a viking warrior?

Coeur De Lion

A Housecarle, or Huskarl was an Anglo-Scandinavian warrior in use mainly during the first millenium AD. In England, they were basically Anglo-Saxon knights. They held land from a lord in exchange for military service. From what I can gather, in Scandinavia, they were somewhat akin to the Byzantine Varangian guard, an elite bodyguard. In England, they formed the backbone of the Anglo-Saxon army. They always fought on foot., and were equipped with mail armour, kite shields, and large, two handed axes.

See here:

http://www.hants.gov.uk/education/ng...s/huscarl.html

[This message has been edited by timmy (edited 10-15-2002).]

Jagger teh problem with that approach is that these guys didn't fight in groups with different arms, and usually would only fight with a single weapon type.

So I'd suggest only 2 troop types - Ledang, being eth comon soldier, and beter disciplined Huscarles.

Armour and Armour piercing values in MTW can be alterd to give the Huscarls better performance.

and actually the English Huscarles did attempt to fight mounted once - they usually rode horses to battle, and one Norman commander (in English service) tried to get them to fight as cavalry - I don't recall the batle, but IIRC they didn't do that wel!!

Also the English Huscarls on at least one occasion ditched their axes and heavy armour in order to be better able to fight the Welsh (I think it was) on the hills & mountains.

PAF