The Real Landsknecht Homepage:
	About Landsknechts
A Text by Ragnar Torfason

The Landsknechte were mercenary soldiers during the early part of the sixteenth century. They are famous/infamous as a great developing influence of a fighting style/formation which was the "tank" of its time, though they may be even more famous/infamous for the clothing they wore.

My interest in the Landsknechten is primarily in their clothing. In all my studies of the history of clothing I have found only one other period of western history with what I consider to be great clothing. This other historical period is the time around the bubonic plague, or in the period around a hundred years either side of that monumental "moment" in global history. During this period of great upheaval two garments rose and dominated the western world, The Cotehardie and the Houppelande. You can go to those two sites to learn more about them. Now back to some sexy, sexy, GARB.

The garb of the Landsknechte is often called "Puff and Slash"

Here we see a duel situation.  They are dressed down to their underwear and not wearing more than shirts and hosen.

Now let's go on to how you can make your own Landsknecht garb. To begin with, the garb of the Landsknecht is garb from the "Renaissance"

This armour pattern is from the Carl Kholer book, Fig. 297. It is not protective armour, but it looks COOL and when tied at the waist looks cobra-like at medium ranges. As with much of the Landsknecht clothes the parts alone are moderately interesting, and the whole ensemble together just overloads the senses--it's great.

Here is the pattern I drew when I first got the horse neck for the leather jacket. I thought long and hard about it before I made a single cut.

Another fellow with a great looking hat.

Here is a young boy in his Sunday best

Please have a look at some other texts by:
Herbert Norris, R. Turner Wilcox

		© Ragnar Torfason 2006 March 28