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Re: Polish medieval terminology

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Monday, December 16, 2002, 19:52
Josh wrote:
>Quoth Mike Ellis: > > >> 2. What on Earth is a "landsknecht?" > > > > I don't know anything about Polish, but that word looks German. So I >looked > > it up in a German dictionary. I got "farmhand". Does that make sense? >Might > > be a borrowed German word. > >I'm sure it *is* borrowed from German, but "farmhard" doesn't quite work >with the context--the text goes "Our department store received four hundred >hauberks, the 16th century model, used in their time by landsknechts." I >wonder if it's a term for one of the feudal levels? Eastern European >history >specialists, help! :)
I'm certainly not an Eastern European history specialist, but a _Landsknecht_ is a kind of soldier. A late-mediaeval to early-modern German mercenary heavy infantryman. I guess the German bit is optional, but you only seem to hear of German _Landsknechte_. _Knecht_ by itself can apparently mean "farmhand". Andreas _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail