Content uploaded by Lucian Staiano-Daniels
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Lucian Staiano-Daniels on Sep 26, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
Manuscript Studies Manuscript Studies
Volume 5 Issue 1 Article 5
Scribes and Soldiers: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Scribes and Soldiers: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century
Military Manuscripts Military Manuscripts
Lucian Staiano-Daniels
Tel Aviv University
, luciasdan@gmail.com
Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims
Part of the European History Commons, Military History Commons, and the Renaissance Studies
Commons
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Staiano-Daniels, Lucian () "Scribes and Soldiers: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military
Manuscripts,"
Manuscript Studies
: Vol. 5 : Iss. 1 , Article 5.
Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu.
Scribes and Soldiers: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Scribes and Soldiers: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military
Manuscripts Manuscripts
Abstract Abstract
The history of early-modern European manuscripts has rarely focused on the use of manuscripts in
armies. Some historians have even presented early-modern armies as unconcerned with daily records of
the common soldiers under their command. Others have used early-modern handwritten documents as
sources of information, without examining them as artifacts. But these documents are interesting works
of vernacular art, created under di=cult circumstances. They also provide clues to things like the literacy
rate of some common soldiers. This article introduces early-modern military manuscripts. The focus is on
the army of Electoral Saxony during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).
Keywords Keywords
Thirty Years' War, Electoral Saxony, History of daily life, Ephemeral documents, Military records,
Seventeenth-century paleography, Seventeenth-century literacy rates, Military literacy rates, Manuscript
Studies
This article is available in Manuscript Studies: https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
MANUSCRIPT STUDIES
A Journal o the choenberg Institute or Manuscript tudies
,
(Spring )
Manuscrit tudies ( - ) is published semiannually
by the University of Pennsylvania Press
1
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
MANUSCRIPT STUDIES
,
(Sp ring )
ISSN 2381- 5329
Copyright © 2020 University of Pennsylvania Libraries
and University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.
Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press,
3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 1910⒋
Printed in the U.S.A. on acid- ee paper.
Manuscript Studies brings together scholarship om around the world and across disciplines
related to the study of premodern manuscript books and documents, with a special emphasis
on the role of digital technologies in advancing manuscript research. Articles for submission
should be prepared according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, and follow the style
guidelines found at http://mss.pennpress.org.
None of the contents of this journal may be reproduced without prior written consent of the
University of Pennsylvania Press. Authorization to photocopy is granted by the University of
Pennsylvania Press for libraries or other users registered with Copyright Clearance Center
(CCC) Transaction Reporting Service, provided that all required fees are verifi ed with CCC
and paid directly to CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 0192⒊ This consent does not
extend to other kinds of copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional pur-
poses, for creating new collective works, for database retrieval, or for resale.
2020 subscription information:
Single issues: $30
Print and online subscriptions: Individuals: $40; Institutions: $94; Full- time Students: $30
International subscribers, please add $19 per year for shipping.
Online- only subscriptions: Individuals: $32; Institutions: $82
Please direct all subscription orders, inquiries, requests for single issues, address changes, and
other business communications to Penn Press Journals, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA
1910⒋ Phone: 215- 573- 129⒌ Fax: 215- 746- 363⒍ Email: journals@pobox.upenn.edu. Prepay-
ment is required. Orders may be charged to MasterCard, Visa, and American Express credit
cards. Checks and money orders should be made payable to ‘‘University of Pennsylvania
Press’’ and sent to the address printed directly above.
One- year subscriptions are valid Januar y 1 through December 3⒈ Subscriptions received a er
October 31 in any year become eff ective the following January ⒈ Subscribers joining midyear
receive immediately copies of all issues of Manuscript Studies already in print for that year.
Postmaster: send address changes to Penn Press Journals, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia,
PA 1910⒋
Visit Manuscript Studies on the web at mss.pennpress.org.
2
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
MANUSCRIPT STUDIES
A Journal o the choenberg Institute or Manuscript tudies
,
Yemeni Manuscripts Online: Digitization in an Age
of War and Loss
N U 1
Opening the Text in the Flore e Bible (London, BL Add. MS
): From Ways of Seeing to Ways of Touching
D M 45
Li erae orissae in English Manuscripts in the Late Twel h/
Early irteenth Century
S C 79
e Durham Latin Prose “Brut” to with a Continuation
to : A Nationalistic Chronicle of England and Its
Manuscripts
T R S 120
A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth- Century Military
Manuscripts and Military Literacy
L S- D 142
Annotations
How Many Glyphs and How Many Scribes? Digital
Paleography and the Voynich Manuscript
L F D 164
In the Orbit of the Sphere: Sacrobosco’s De sphaera mundi in
UPenn MS Codex
A M 181
3
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
iv | J M S
Reviews
Erik Kwakkel and Rodney ompson, eds. e European
Book in the Twel h Century.
J F 203
Paul M. Love, Jr. Ibadi Muslims of North A ica: Manuscripts,
Mobilization, and the Making of a Wri en Tradition.
A P 206
Je rey F. Hamburger, Robert Suckale, and Gude Suckale-
Redlefsen, eds. Painting the Page in the Age of Print: Central
European Manuscript Illumination of the Fi eenth Century.
G C 210
Erik Kwakkel, ed. Vernacular Manuscript Culture, –.
H M 214
Gaudenz Freuler. e McCarthy Collection, Volume I:
Italian and Byzantine Miniatures.
B C. K 218
List of Manuscripts Cited 223
4
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth- Century
Military Manuscripts and Military Literacy
L S- D
Tel Aviv University
A
of handwriting. Since they move people around
and separate them om one another, they also induce people to write
to one another, whether to communicate with absent relatives or
iends, or for administrative reasons.1 Yet the history of early modern
European manuscripts has rarely focused on the use of manuscripts in
armies. Although military manuscripts were an essential part of regimental
and company life, military historians use military manuscripts as sources of
information but rarely study them as artifacts in their own right. But these
manuscripts are not only evidence of things like soldiers’ literacy rates, they
are also finely produced cra objects. This article introduces early modern
military manuscripts by focusing on the army of Electoral Saxony during
the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). This conflict consumed central Europe,
catalyzing the formation of large armies. which produced a large amount of
written material. Electoral Saxon military records om this war are unusu-
ally numerous, especially those om the 1620s. The ones I have examined
are housed in the collections of the Saxon Privy Council and the Council of
War in the Saxon State Archives in Dresden.
1 Martyn Lyons, The Writing Culture of Ordinary People in Europe, c. 1860–1920 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), Chs. 5, 6, 7, and ⒐
5
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 143
Printed military materials like manuals and treatises proliferated in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thanks to increased literacy and more
efficient and inexpensive means of book production.2 Some historians have
claimed these books are evidence of greater literacy among the officers who
implemented them because advancements like drilling would have required
well- educated supervisors.3 Yet the extent to which ideas in manuals trick-
led down to real practice in the daily lives of common soldiers was probably
minimal.4 One historian of literacy has argued that the limited practical
importance of early seventeenth- century military manuals for common
soldiers means that military literacy was restricted to officers.5 His argu-
ment implies that interaction with written materials in general was also
confined to the higher ranks. This conclusion overlooks the vast number
of handwritten documents circulating in early modern armies that suggest
otherwise. Whether or not seventeenth- century soldiers could read and
write, they routinely used and interacted with documents, including mus-
ter rolls, pay books, housing records, permission slips for soldiers to travel
om their companies, and passes of safe conduct sold to civilians at extor-
tionate rates. Further, secretaries recorded every military trial, and the offi-
cers and soldiers serving on the tribunals signed their names to the verdict
in their own hands.
By the seventeenth century, administrative practice in western European
armies had become increasingly organized. As early as the end of the four-
teenth century, military records like lists of soldiers, identification papers, or
passes for soldiers began appearing, and their use increased in the fieenth
2 John R. Hale, “Printing and the Military Culture of Renaissance Venice,” in Renaissance
War Studies (London: Hambledon, 1983), 429–71; David R. Lawrence, The Complete Soldier:
Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Nina
Lamal, “Publishing Military Books in the Low Countries and in Italy in the Early Seven-
teenth Century,” in Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, ed. Richard Kirwan
and Sophie Mullins (Leiden: Brill, 2015): 222–3⒐
3 R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education, 1500–1800, 2nd
ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 1⒑
4 David Parrott, Richelieu’s Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624–1642
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 2⒋
5 Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe, 1⒑
6
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
144 | J M S
century.6 But surviving military manuscripts om the early seventeenth
century are rare. We could argue that Electoral Saxon units were unusually
good at recording information, and that the absence of extensive surviving
records elsewhere means record keeping during the Thirty Years’ War was
rudimentary or perfunctory for most armies. However, studies of other
contemporary armies also rely on detailed handwritten evidence.7 When
Jürgen Pohl analyzed the account the Imperial high command took of their
resources immediately aer Wallenstein’s assassination, he examined docu-
ments in the Kriegsarchiv and the Haus- , Hof- , und Staatsarchiv in Vienna,
transcribing some in detail.8 Cordula Kapser’s analysis of the structure and
funding of the Bavarian army in the last half of the war used letters, diplo-
matic documents, financial and ration statements, muster rolls, and strength
returns as sources.9 That so many military manuscripts survived in Dresden
is a stroke of good fortune, but most handwritten military documents prob-
ably did not survive. For instance, the Saxon army during the Thirty Years’
War peaked in September 1635 at about 37,000 troops, but only nine com-
pany muster rolls om the entire 1630s survive in the Saxon State Archives.
What we can see are agments. They allow us to make inferences about
what we will never see.
An early- seventeenth century army was a paper- producing organization.
To give a sense of how much paper was produced, it is helpful to understand
how an army was constructed. An army was composed of several regiments,
led by powerful colonels. In the 1620s, full- strength infantry companies
were 314 men, and infantry regiments oen had ten companies. Thus, on
paper an infantry regiment exceeded three thousand men. Full- strength
Saxon cavalry squadrons numbered a hundred horses, which meant around
6 Valentin Groebner, Who Are You? Identifi cation, Deception, and Surveillance in Early Mod-
ern Europe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 112–18, 17⒊
7 Early modern military printing—printing carried out by or on behalf of military person-
nel for military aims—is an interesting topic that I intend to analyze in the future, but it is
outside the scope of this article.
8 Jürgen Pohl, “Die Profi antirung der Keyserlichen Armaden Ahnbelangendt”: Studien zur
Versorgung der Kaiserlichen Armee, 1634/1635 (Horn, Austria: F. Berger & Söhne, 1994).
9 Cordula Kapser, Die bayrische Kriegsorganisation in der zweiten Hälfte des dreissigjährigen
Krieges, 1635–1648/49 (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 1997).
7
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 145
thirty fighting cavalrymen plus attendants. Cavalry regiments comprised
more than one squadron, oen around ten. One list of regimental staff at
the beginning of a company muster roll has nineteen officers and function-
aries in it.10 Although not recorded and difficult to track, high officers were
also followed by large entourages, which may have also required paperwork.
Altogether these were big forces, which is borne out by the surviving mate-
rial evidence. One Saxon infantry regiment produced at least four muster
rolls per company per year in 1620: these counted the troops, noted whether
each soldier was present or absent, and noted their rates of pay. Companies
kept provisioning accounts: records of the food, drink, and fodder they
obtained and consumed. The Saxon Hoffahne (court company; the Elector
of Saxony’s personal cavalry company) produced one payroll a month in the
early 1620s. But it is difficult to tell exactly how much paperwork early
seventeenth- century regiments produced not only because much has not
survived, but because many daily operations were ad hoc and decentralized.
Colonels, quartermasters, and other high officers probably kept their own
financial records.
From the historian’s point of view, the Musterschreiber (muster- writer) is
the most important man in the company. He not only kept the muster rolls,
he oen handled the rest of the company’s paperwork: we see the units
through his eyes. Company- level muster- writers were officers, and so were
regimental secretaries. They were central to the operation of their units.
Paul Jahn was the muster- writer of the Saxon Hoffahne. He bound three of
his payrolls into a single volume himself and signed the ont cover. A piece
of paper stuck between the pages says this volume was found in Jahn’s
papers in 165⒈ Two of these rolls date om consecutive months in the late
winter and early spring of 1624 and the third a month and a half later; they
were labeled Months 43, 44, and 45, implying the original existence of at
least forty- two other monthly paybooks.11 Jahn also kept some financial
notes in this volume. For instance, in addition to pay, he also noted that he
doled out Vertheil (money for distribution) to some officers, one trace of the
10 Saxon Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (SHStADr) 11237 10841/20 doc ⒈
11 SHStADr 11237 10840/11 doc ⒉
8
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
146 | J M S
elusive informal entourages that surrounded them. Jahn was not just a
record- keeper, he helped keep the Hoffahne running. According to his
notes, he ended up lending the Elector of Saxony a large sum of money to
cover his cavalrymen’s pay. During 1623 Jahn paid them a total of 663 gul-
den, one groschen, and six cents to escort convoys and river traffic, which
the Elector should have eventually covered. When the Hoffahne toted up
their pay in June 1624, the money om the Elector fell short by 930 gul-
den, thirteen groschen, and three cents, which Jahn made good. The total
amount the Elector of Saxony owed him came to 1,596 gulden, three gro-
schen, and nine cents: more than a hundred times what an average pikeman
could make in a month.12
In the German- speaking world, muster- writers made muster rolls at
least once in a company’s lifetime, when it was mustered in for the first
time, but they could be made up to several times a year. Most were updated
every time the company was paid. Contemporary French armies’ paths were
mapped out beforehand with stopping- places along the route, and civic
officials in these places made lists of how many soldiers were to be fed. This
was directed by the French government.13 Warmaking in the contemporary
Holy Roman Empire was not this centralized; muster rolls om Electoral
Saxony were made at such irregular intervals that their creation was prob-
ably up to the individual. The words muster- writers used for different ranks
also varied and were probably up to personal preference. But all Saxon mus-
ter rolls list soldiers’ full names, oen their place of origin. Cavalry rolls list
each trooper’s number of horses. Infantry rolls in the 1620s also list pay. In
the early seventeenth century, Saxon rolls did not list soldiers’ partners or
children, their ages, their civilian occupations, or their religions. Some
other armies’ rolls did, and Saxon rolls did by the 1680s.
As the muster- writer was to a company, the secretary was to a regiment.
Mattheus Steiner was the bailiff and secretary of a regiment belonging to
the Saxon colonel Wolf von Mansfeld between 1625 and 162⒎ He presided
12 SHStADr 11237 10840/11 doc 2, 190.
13 Bernhard Kroener, Les routes et les étapes: Die Versorgung der französischen Armeen in Nor-
dostfrankreich (1635–1661): Ein Beitrag zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des Ancien Régime (Münster:
Aschendorff Verlag, 1980).
9
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 147
over trials, investigated crimes, and acted as a notary. He kept the regimen-
tal legal records and copied them into three large volumes, two for the
infantry and one for the cavalry. Steiner was well organized: he put a tabbed
index at the beginning of the first volume that listed every soldier who
appeared in the legal records alphabetically by first name. Steiner was proud:
on the cover of every volume, in display script beneath his colonel’s sono-
rous titles, he wrote that everything that happened in the regiment was
“logged and described with special diligence, by me: Mattheus Steiner,
Regimental Bailiff and Secretary over the Regiment.” Figure 1 shows the
kind of diligence Steiner meant, and his desire to leave a record of his pres-
ence. This is the cover of his third volume, the cavalry’s legal records. His
handwriting on the cover is brave and flourishing, and the contents are a
mistake- ee fair copy. But the paper is rough, and the edges of the pages
are grimed with mud. The cover is bound in plain, undyed leather, and the
book ties shut with pink silk ribbons.
Mattheus Steiner was not always a secretary, which implies common
soldiers may have been more literate than historians think. He first appeared
in Saxon records in 1620 as a common soldier: a pikeman, making ten
gulden a month. He was om Römerstaddt (modern Rýmařov) in Moravia.14
By 1621 he had moved to another company in the same regiment and made
fourteen gulden a month, which means he had probably been promoted.15
How he made the jump om pikeman to regimental bailiff and secretary is
unclear, but this social mobility may not have been uncommon. Hans Leo-
pold om Ziegenrück in Saxony began his career in the same company
Steiner did: he was a musketeer in February 1620 and became his company’s
muster- writer on 10 January 162⒈16 If at least two common soldiers could
eventually become professional scribes, then a larger number of literate
men may have been common soldiers than historians have considered. But
when scribes rose, they rarely became colonels; they became legal officials,
like Gottied Reichbrodt, one of the Mansfeld Regiment’s provosts and a
14 SHStADr 11237 10840/3 doc ⒏
15 SHStADr 11237 10840/4 doc ⒈
16 SHStADr 11237 10840/3 doc ⒏
10
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
148 | J M S
. Origina l cover of Wolf von Mansfeld’s regiment’s third legal book
with the regimental secretar y’s message below Mansfeld ’s titles, 1625–1627.
Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10024 Geheimer Rat
(Ge h ei me s A rc h iv) , N r 9 73 9/5.
11
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 149
former muster- writer.17 This may indicate some clerkly training, formal or
informal.
Documents like Steiner’s legal books may have been kept by every regi-
ment, but they are rare now. Some of the most common military manu-
scripts that still survive om the Thirty Years’ War in the Saxon State
Archive are company muster rolls.18 Muster rolls are large, flat booklets
made of at least fieen sheets of paper, folded over and sewn down the spine
with coarse twine in two or three big stitches, like basting stitches. The
paper is coarse, usually creamy to golden brown, with brown flecks. It was
cheap, and sometimes bad. Many military records were stitched together
but unbound, thin and floppy; some still bear the marks of an officer fold-
ing them in half or in fourths to carry in his purse. When record- keepers
bound their own documents, they used undyed untooled leather and labeled
them on the ont in pen (fig. 2).
Many muster rolls om the 1620s in the Saxon State Archive were
bound aer they were filed, in parchment- covered cardboard inscribed in
ink or painted cardboard with the title written on a slip of paper and glued
onto the ont cover. Some of these rebound rolls were stamped with the
arms of the Elector of Saxony in gold leaf, and some tie shut with black silk
ribbons: ornate jackets over humble interiors. Black is difficult to dye, espe-
cially using natural pigments. One method of making black dye used a
source of tannin plus an iron mordant, but this was chemically corrosive.
Other methods involved dying the fabric multiple times with different col-
ors that combined to produce black.19 These processes were hard on fabric,
and these ribbons crumble to dust in the hands now.
Both cavalry and infantry kept rolls, but in the 1620s infantry muster
rolls were more formal than cavalry muster rolls. Another word for infantry
17 SHStADr 11237 10840/4 doc ⒋
18 For letters to and om soldiers, see Fritz Wolff , “Feldpostbriefe aus dem Dreißigjährigen
Kriege: Selbstzeugnisse der kleinen Leute,” Hundert Jahre Historische Kommission für Hessen
1897–1997, Vol. 1, ed. Walter Heinemeyer (Marburg: Historisches Kommission r Hessen,
1997), 481–5⒓
19 Charles O’Neill, A Dictionary of Dyeing and Calico Printing: Containing a Brief Account of
All the Substances and Processes in Use in the Arts of Dyeing and Printing Textile Fabrics (London:
Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1869), 77–89; Michel Pastoreau, Black: The History of a Color
(Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2009), 90–9⒉
12
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
150 | J M S
. Original cover of the provisioning account (Proviant-
Rechnung) for Wolf von Mansfeld’s general sta , his personal
cavalry squadron, and two other squadrons in his personal cavalry
regiment, 10 October 1623–19 January 1624. is account track s
provisions by housi ng unit, not by squadron: these three squadrons
and the general sta lived together in the Hauptquartier,
commander’s quarters. e original binding is undyed leather and
ties shut with leather thongs. Inscribed with ink by Hans Ebhardt,
interim provisions-master, and generations of archivists in the
Chancery of War and Saxon State Archives. Sächsisches
Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 11237 Geheimes
Kriegsratskollegium, Nr 10940/20.
13
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 151
officers was prima plana, first page, which comes om the fact that infantry
rolls in this decade listed the officers on the literal first page, ordered by the
honor of their office. The common soldiers followed at five names to a page,
which le room to write new information beneath each name if someone
died, le, or was cashiered. In most infantry rolls om the 1620s the pike-
men come first, then the halberdiers, then the musketeers. This order
reflected the order of honor and precedence. In general, common infantry-
men were listed roughly in order of seniority—“rough” because the names
were probably written according to the order the soldiers stood in line to be
mustered in, which varied slightly om roll to roll.
Cavalry rolls, in contrast, are more casual. Cavalry officers never appear
all together on the ont page: prima plana was metonymic for infantry
officers because listing the officers on the first page was an infantry prac-
tice. Rather, these officers appear throughout the rolls, separated by small
blocks of common troopers’ names: the captain and the flag- bearer, then
about twelve troopers, then another officer, then another twelve troopers.
The trumpeters either go last of all or before all the rest. Whereas infan-
trymen were probably listed in the order they stood in line, cavalrymen
were likely listed in the order they formed up for combat, with one officer
per ten or so men.
Like other seventeenth- century written cultures, central European mili-
tary writers still made the old distinction among levels of formality in
script: scripts that were more upright, less round, or had more defined feet
where the scribe stopped the pen to square off the line were more formal,
and more cursive scripts were less formal. The first pages of infantry muster
rolls om the 1620s were formally written with the officers’ names in ele-
vated script; generous white space set off these names and gave a sense of
dignity and power to the composition, as shown in figure ⒊ The cover pages
are equently elaborately decorated (fig. 4). If the roll distinguishes the two
or three most senior pikemen or the senior squad leaders (Gefreyter Corpo-
rals) om the other enlisted men, their names are also written in a more
elevated style.
Rolls were working documents, but a lot of effort went into preparing
them. Military record- keepers knew when they should use formal script
and when they should use informal script. They were familiar with standard
14
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
152 | J M S
Latin abbreviations, like a line above an omitted M or N, and used some of
them when writing in German: they knew something about the cra of
writing and its history. Infantry record- keepers were conscious of hierarchy
and status and how to express them in writing.20 They were aware of their
20 Giora Sternberg, “Epistolary Ceremonial: Corresponding Status at the Time of Louis
XIV,” Past & Present 204, no. 1 (2009): 33–8⒏
. Elaborate textura on the prima plana of an infantr y muster roll.
Haubolt von Schleinitz’s company, Jonas von Schliebens’s regiment, 1620.
Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 11237 Geheimes
Kriegsratskollegium, Nr 10840/3 doc 7.
15
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 153
honorable status as soldiers. Their flourishing, knowledgeable script, the big
sheets of paper, and a muster roll’s generous white space all signified elevated
social standing. But this was out of keeping with the coarse, rough paper and
untooled undyed leather bindings they used: these rolls were written equiva-
lents of the grimy finery soldiers wore when they could scrounge it.
The cavalry was more honorable than the infantry, yet cavalry rolls om
the 1620s were not only less formally organized than infantry rolls but also
in most cases less formally written. But they were not poorly written: it
takes as much technical expertise, as much control over the swi, small
turns of hand and wrist, to produce casual slanted cursive script as it does
to produce the self- conscious archaic textura of infantry first pages. This
. Origina l infantr y roll cover pages with upright textura, elaborate display script
on the right. Captain Friedrich von Reppichau and Captain Friedrich Venus, Carl von
Goldstein’s regiment, early 1620. e original covers of muster rolls varied. Sächsisches
Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 11237 Geheimes K riegsratskollegium, Nr 10841
docs 9 and 10.
16
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
154 | J M S
script spread out, leaned around; like cavalrymen themselves it sprawled
and swaggered, as we can see in figure ⒌ While infantry scribes expressed
their conception of their own status with stiff, formal writing, cavalry
records have a deliberate dishabille. Perhaps this casualness was a power
move: cavalry scribes already knew they belonged to the senior service.
There are fewer surviving rolls om the 1630s and 1640s in the Saxon
State Archives. Both cavalry and infantry rolls om these decades are oen
less carefully prepared than rolls om the 1620s. There are more names per
page, less room for notes. The handwriting on both infantry and cavalry
rolls is less formal. Many of these documents may be copies of original rolls
. Initial pages of cavalry rolls. Formal script on the le , cursive-in ected script on
the right. Le : Carl von Gersdorf’s arquebusier company, 1620. SHStADr 11237 10839/27
doc 10. Right: Moritz Herman von Oynhausen’s cui rassier company, 1631. Sächsisches
Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 11237 Geheimes K riegsratskollegium, Nr
108 41/2 doc 1 .
17
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 155
that no longer survive, but aer decades of draining conflict the muster-
writers could also have been trying to save paper or save time.
Surviving muster rolls have come down to us folded, smudged, covered
with inky fingerprints, blobbed with ink, and crammed with notes in ink
and pencil. Sometimes corrections were written on slips of paper, trimmed
to size, and glued over the mistake with red sealing wax. The writing on
some rolls is crusted with coarse, glittering sand: at the end of a long day
you rake sand out of your hair with your nails. These physical traces of use
and exposure as well as a number of paratextual features supply us with a
vivid portrait of soldiers’ lives. Tick marks, little Os, or little Cs counted
soldiers; tiny crosses go beside the names of the dead. When a soldier le
the company, the muster- writer inscribed a line under his name with a rule,
thick and straight, and wrote his replacement’s name underneath. A tiny
gallows sketched beside a name indicates the soldier was executed.
Common infantrymen were listed five to a page, and the pages were big.
In this case the white space was for notes under each name. Some of the
most extensive notes were kept by companies active in the 1630s. These
notes offer glimpses of the daily activities of common soldiers. Paul Schre-
iter, common soldier in an infantry company belonging to Dam Vitzthum
von Eckstädt in 1635, was stabbed by his captain- lieutenant and died.21
Nicholas Möller enrolled in Hans Ernst König’s infantry company early in
163⒍ He should have conveyed a horse to Eisenach, but on 5 July 1636 he
deserted with it instead.22 Some muster- writers kept regular working notes
in their margins, which we can see in the muster roll of one of the compa-
nies in Carl von Goldstein’s regiment, early in the war. Between 7 August
1619 and 24 October 1620, this company mustered in six times. The muster-
writer designated each muster with a capital letter in the white space in the
margin, A through F: when a soldier appeared at that muster the relevant
letter was written beside his name. These muster- writers and lower officers
kept track of the movements of their men to the day.
21 SHStADr 11237 10841/3 doc ⒈
22 SHStADr 11237 10841/3 doc ⒊
18
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
156 | J M S
. Excerpt from muster records of Dietrich von Starschedel the Elder’s
company, Carl von Goldstein’s regiment, 1619–1620. Lorentz Naumann from Leipzig
was absent for Muster C, 9 October 1619. He came back later. Sächsisches
Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 11237 Geheimes K riegsratskollegium, Nr
108 41/7 doc 2 .
19
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 157
Strength tables compiled information like that in muster rolls in a sim-
plified form.23 Most military strength tables in the Saxon archives om the
Thirty Years’ War date om the 1640s; I have found two om the 1630s.24
These list by company or regiment categories like sick, wounded, dead,
mounted, unmounted, prisoners, women, and children. Regiments used
the largest tables as wrappers for collections of other documents. If a regi-
ment’s records have not been broken up and all the company documents are
still together, sometimes a strength table is still wrapped around a stack of
company rolls, just as the company muster- writers handed the bundle to
the regimental secretary. The strength table protected the rolls, kept them
together, and when unfolded, provided a large amount of information om
the entire regiment at a glance. Strength tables became more common in
the late seventeenth century; in the 1630s and 1640s the graphic display of
information in a table is ultra modern. But the handwriting in these tables
is only sometimes as modern as the tables themselves; oen it is as stiffly
archaic as infantry primae planae (fig. 7).
Before photos, fingerprints, or ID, soldiers carried passports. These little
documents were single small sheets of paper. If a soldier wanted to leave his
company legitimately, his captain or lieutenant wrote a passport for him
stating this and sealed it with red wax. Deserters sometimes forged pass-
ports, and mutinous soldiers forced their officers to write them. They must
have carried their papers with them, folded in a thick, messy wad in their
purses or satchels: by 1681 and 1682, just before the formation of the Elec-
toral Saxon standing army, Saxon muster rolls list the prior service of all
soldiers in little paragraphs under their names, broken down precisely by
month. These lists contain so much detail that they were probably based on
written documentation: soldiers also received records of their service when
23 Jack Goody, “What’s in a List?,” in The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977), 74–111; Martin Campbell- Kelly, Mary Croarken, and
Raymond Flood, The History of Mathematical Tables: From Sumer to Spreadsheets (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007).
24 The two om the 1630s are in SHStADr 11237 10831/2, Jaroslav Hoff man’s regiment
and a tabbed casualty report om several regiments. Some tables om the 1640s are in the
collection SHStADr 11237 10841/⒔
20
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
158 | J M S
their companies were disbanded, which showed whom they had served and
for how long. Some lists of prior service date back decades, like the personal
history of squad leader Hans Bothfaldt, sixty years old in 168⒈ He served
His Imperial Majesty for 360 months under four different colonels and then
the Elector of Saxony for seventy- three months in the Life Regiment, for a
total of thirty- six years and one month. He had been twenty- four years old
when he joined the Imperial army in 164⒌25
25 SHStADr 11241 000001 doc ⒋
. Table summing up e ectives in three cavalry squadrons at Luckau at some point
in the 1640s. From the collection Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden,
112 37 Ge heim es K rie gsr atsk oll egiu m, Nr 108 41/13.
21
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 159
Early modern European soldiers carried identiing papers like passports
or personal service histories with them because they were highly mobile,
but their subculture valued reputation. Companies and regiments spent the
fighting season on the move, and soldiers shuttled om unit to unit in the
same army, or om one army to another. Soldiers deserted casually, and at
any moment one could die. Civilians moved around equently in this period
as well: records om villages in England show high rates of population
turnover.26 Both civilians and soldiers interacted with others at a distance
as well as face to face, and equently met strangers who needed to be
identified. But soldiers were more mobile than civilians, and they or their
female partners carried most of their possessions on their bodies: the papers
that identified them, verified their credit, or recorded the outcomes of their
lawsuits were probably small. Most have not survived, only their copies in
Mattheus Steiner’s legal books. When two officers went to court over a
complaint, Steiner wrote out a legal ticket (Gerichtlicher schein) stating one
had complained against the other, like a receipt.27 Soldiers who owed one
another money appeared before Steiner, and he gave them tickets certi-
ing the debt and its amount.28 These documents recorded honor, dishonor,
and reputation, allowing soldiers to calibrate their relationships to other
soldiers whether or not they happened to end up in the same location dur-
ing their travels.
Although during the 1620s infantry muster rolls listed soldiers’ pay, it
seems that no Saxon cavalry rolls om any decade of the Thirty Years’ War
did. Cavalry pay was probably kept in separate books, like the Saxon Hof-
fahne records. The Hoffahne rolls contain signatures, which allow us to
adumbrate military literacy during the Thirty Years’ War using this unit as
26 Peter Laslett, “Clayworth and Cogenhoe,” in Family Life and Illicit Lov e in Earlier Gen era-
tions: Essays in Historical Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 50–102;
David Rollison, “Exploding England: The Dialectics of Mobility and Settlement in Early
Modern England,” Social History 24, no. 1 (1999): 1–16; Edward Higgs, Identifying the English:
A History of Personal Identifi cation, 1500 to the Present (London: Continuum, 2011), 40–4⒈
27 SHStADr 10024 9539/6, 2⒏
28 SHStADr 10024 9119/38, 201–⒎
22
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
160 | J M S
a sample. Each cavalryman and officer in the Hoffahne was supposed to sign
for his pay in these rolls, just under his name and the amount of money he
received (fig. 8). A sign- off once a month, every time cash changes hands,
implies a relatively sophisticated record- keeping procedure. We can see only
agments of it now.
Of the 212 officers and troopers who signed these payrolls over three
months, 165 signed for themselves with relative facility and five did so
poorly, for a total of 170: just over 80 percent. Thirty- nine entries were
either blank or signed by someone other than the subject of the entry, the
phrase hat nicht schreiben konnen (“he can’t write”) appears beside the names
of two troopers, and one man—Abraham Parietzsch, nicknamed Tatar—
le only his mark. That is a total of forty- two, slightly under 20 percent.
. Saxon Ho ahne payroll open to show signatures of troopers beneath their
entries. Note Zdenko Sigmund Wallenstein, third down on the right, young cousin of the
famous general and nancier Albrecht Wallenstein. At the time, the armies the two cousins
worked for were allies. Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 11237
Geheimes Kriegsratskollegium, Nr 10840/11 doc 2.
23
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 161
This result does not necessarily indicate that 20 percent of this company
was illiterate, but it does suggest a certain proportion of literate versus
non- literate members of the Hoffahne.
How to assess early modern literacy is a complicated topic.29 Some his-
torians argue that people who were familiar enough with letters to sign
their own names with facility probably knew how to read fluently.30 The
Hoffahne troopers who signed their payrolls did it in cursive. Some could
barely scrawl, but most knew how to work the pen without spattering or
skipping or spilling ink everywhere. This indicates not only the basic ability
to write but some ease with the physical movements of writing, which takes
practice. But if the criteria are signing your name with facility and reading
fluently, this generates a minimum number of the literate. Early seventeenth-
century armies also contained people who read and wrote but were bad at
it—those whose writing was unpracticed, or who stumbled through their
words. It is also possible that some troopers could read but not write,
whether because they did not know how or some other reason: some Hof-
fahne troopers who did not sign may have been absent or sick, and one had
hurt his hand in a fight. Therefore, the evidence presented in these payrolls
indicates that the literacy rate for this company was at least 80 percent. This
is high for 162⒋31 David Cressy examined signatures in ecclesiastical court
records, comparable to the signatures in the Hoffahne payrolls, and found
that literacy rate by occupation increased roughly following the gradation
om heavy outdoor labor up the scale to respectable specialist pursuits. At
only 20 percent illiteracy at most, the members of the Saxon Hoffahne were
comparable to skilled crasmen and businessmen, people with a specialized
trade—which is what mercenaries were.32
Not only were the men who signed these payrolls mostly literate, but
some also used different ink om the muster- writer who prepared the rolls,
29 Roger S. Schofi eld, “The Measurement of Literacy in Pre- Industrial England,” in Literacy in
Traditional Societies, ed. Jack Goody (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 310–2⒌
30 David Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart
England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 54–5⒌
31 Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order, 119–2⒈
32 Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order, 130.
24
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5
162 | J M S
indicating that they carried their own writing supplies. From classical Rome
until the nineteenth century, ink in Europe was iron- based. It goes on
gray- black and darkens to black or purple- black, but as it ages it turns
brown, and different inks turn different shades as they age. This is one way
to tell the difference between one batch of ink and another. The main text
of the payrolls is now a deep coffee brown- black iced with osted gray
where the ink was thick and now has oxidized. So were many signatures:
these men stood in ont of Paul Jahn’s table, his open paybook, his pens,
and the tiny horn vial of ink beside him, and when somebody dropped their
pay into their open hands, the soldiers picked up one of his pens and signed
their names. But some signatures were dark slate gray, burnt sienna, watery
pale brown, or other shades. These signers used different ink. Most came
earlier in the rolls: officers and troopers with higher social status were more
likely to carry their own writing supplies. They probably carried their ink
and pens in little cylindrical leather pen cases tied to their belts or the eyelets
of their breeches with leather thongs; consider the priorities of a horseman
who brings his pens and ink to war.
Records om the Saxon Hoffahne may not be representative of the
entire Saxon army: it was, aer all, an elite cavalry unit based in a major
city. Yet this article argues that reading and writing mattered to at least
some early seventeenth- century soldiers. Early modern central Europe was
a partially literate society, with many gradations between complete illiteracy
and great fluency in reading and writing. Literacy varied depending on
gender, social standing, and occupation. So did the extent to which people
cared about literacy.33 Members of the military community were more likely
to read and write in their daily lives than some other people: if some profes-
sions were literate, so was the profession of arms.34
This article examines a selection of the handwritten documentation of
early seventeenth- century military units not only as a source of statistical
33 David Cressy, “Literacy in Context,” in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John
Brewer and Roy Porter (London: Routledge, 1993), 305–⒚
34 For literate soldiers during the eighteenth century, see Ilya Berkovich, Motivation in War:
The Experience of Common Soldiers in Old- Regime Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2017), 39–40.
25
Staiano-Daniels: A Brief Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Military Manuscripts
Published by ScholarlyCommons,
Staiano- Daniels, Military Manuscripts | 163
information about common soldiers but as a way to look closely at their daily
actions. These documents were made of rough materials in difficult condi-
tions. Their use and production give some insight into the harsh lives of the
people who made and interacted with them. We began with military manu-
scripts as humble products of cra, but we end with the experience of ordi-
nary soldiers in early seventeenth- century central Europe.
26
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5 [], Iss. 1, Art. 5
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol5/iss1/5