Compagnia Flos et Leo

"Compagnia Flos et Leo" is a historical cultural association aiming to re-enact history with care and love. About middle ages we decided to re-enact XII and XIII century , focusing on Italian communal armies of XII and XIII century. We have over 20 members, most part of them training weekly in me-dieval fencing and medieval martial arts in general, studying both Italian martial arts masters like Fiore de Liberi and Filippo Vadi, but also German ones, focusing on I 33. We are able to make single duels, tournaments, and also to direct battles, as we also are accustomed to fight in thigh ranks, but all always made following the rules of the XIII century communal armies.
But our activities spread also on other fields. We recreate a medieval communal mint, and we mint, with hammer, really as in the middle ages, a XIII century coin, the “Grosso Tortonese”, that could be considered an average silver coin of north Italy in that period. This specific coin was allowed by Emperor Frederick the second in 1249 , and we have also the text of the original act. We do it exactly in the medieval way : we melt the metal material, we hammer it when cold for obtaining a thin sheet, then we made the round, gross coin, and we mint it.
Also we prepare in our large medieval camp the “Hippocras” , “Ippocrasso” wine, the spiced wine of XI – XVII century . If you want a general recipe you can write us asking for it. Usually this wine is offered to public for giving a taste of past times.
Recently we added also archery to our activity. We have a expert Bowman who gives lessons to public. We use historical natural bows.
Also we built a Trebouchet. We gave it a female name, as was used in middle ages, and we called it “Leona”. It is a wood made trebouchet, that can be completely disassembled and easily transported. With the resting arms it is about 6 meters tall, while, in launch position, it is about 2,5 meters tall. Its range is for sure over 120 meters, but we never had the chance to really test it. Besides middle ages we re-enact also the XVII century. We are , in this case , a “Tercio”, the Spanish battalion who mixed pikemen, swordsmen and arquibusiers/musketeers. Italy during the XVII century was under Spanish influence, and in particular Duchy of Milan was directly under the Spanish Crown. We play the “Tercio ordinario del Estado de Milan” also called “El Osado”. In this organization we can also assembly and army of over 35 pikemen, 3 musketeers, several swordsmen, 2 drums and several women. We are expert in medieval Italian history. If you want to re-enact this fabulous period we can give you a lot of advices and directions. Also if you need any information about Italian History please do not be afraid of contacting us.
We are always happy to meet new friends and we give our help with pleasure, So don't be shy and write us !

Email Contact: info@flosetleo.org

Historical Notes

A real Italian Communal Army, according to the “Terdona Civic Law Book”.

Even if seeds were present before, from the XII century central and North Italy started a political evolution independent from the “Holy Roman Empire” ruled by German Emperors. Practically north Italian towns started to act independently from the central imperial power, applying the old imperial powers and rights.  Cities started to form “Communitas”, organization of nobles and rich people born to rule the cities. Sometimes also merchants were included , like in Genoa where this organization was called “Compagna” , from Latin words “Cum Panis”, meaning people sharing the same bread. In Terdona, modern Tortona “Communitas” was created in A.D. 1124. From this moment up to 1346 the city acted as an independent state, with foreign relationship, making wars , peace, minting money and ruling with its own laws. We can remember the famous Siege of 1155, in which emperor Frederick the first “Barbarossa” took the city as rebellious and almost destroyed it ( you can see a more complete chronicle in www.assedioditortona.it ). Laws were gathered in a “Law Book” that, fortunately, arrived to us in a XVI century printing.

This book also contained all the military laws and the organization of the army. We translated it from Latin to have an idea of how worked and Italian Communal Army.

In general we can say that army was composed both by knights “Milites” and infantrymen, or “Pedites”. There were specific rules made for regulating how this army have to be enlisted. Usually any man able to fight from 16 to 65 years old was part of this army. Commanders in chief of this army were, in general, the highest civil ranks, but there could be a “Commendatore”, a  “Deputy", elected only as army commander.

There were specific compulsive rules about the arms and armour of the communal knight and of the communal infantrymen, an also rules were made for bowmen and for crossbowmen. A great attention were also given to horses and the knight who lost a horse in battle or war could have back from the city a horse of the same quality .

Usually a communal army marched with chivalry in front and in back, and in the middle infantrymen, communal flags and wagons. In battle usually chivalry was on wings, or as reserve, on the back, and infantry on the middle, well protected by “Palvesi” and “Tavolacci” , great shields made to resist to arrows. Normally infantrymen could have a long spear, a sort of pike, (it is written “Non bordonis” not a simple stick) a sword or a mace, and a knife. As having a thigh rank were very important there were a sort of inferior officer , called “Serragente” who was in charge of making the rank as thigh as possible. On the back of the army there were other officiers, called “Guardiaschiere”, in charge of controlling the army do not pull back, and of taking note of citizen who run away. Only “Guardiaschiere” and “Serragente” were allowed to give corporal punishments to militiamen, as however there were even in war a strict respect between citizens . If a citizen run away in battle, or in general left his position without an order, he was heavily fined and also his face was painted on the “Wall of shame” inside the Communal Palace of Terdona, for perpetual shame.