Researches about Ezzelino III army

Good evening to everyone..!

First, I must tell I’m writing in english because I’m an Italian reenator who doesn’t know german..so please be patient with me..:)

Second, since I use your site using Google Translate, I apologize for anything I’ve done wrong with this post. Hope the moderatora will forgive me, I’ll try not to break any rule.

I found this forum while searching for some sources and informations for some researches I’m making involving the imperial Germany. I thought "Why don’t ask to some German reenactor? They probably know such argument much better than Google".

I’ll explain what I need.

With my reenactment group we try to recreate a group of German fighters under the rule of Ezzelino III da Romano (you probably know who I’m talking about, something is available here), the period being from 1200 to 1260. In Italy (especially the northern part with the communes) we have quite plenty of written sources concerning how city militiamen must be equipped to fight in an army, first of all the single communal statutes (with written laws about that), and then some other documents. So if we want (there are lots of Italian groups recreating a communal army) to be italian militiamen, we can do it quite well.

We are German militiamen. By now, the only sources I can use are the german miniatures of the period. But I want to expand my knowledge base, either for reenactment purposes and for personal curiosity.

It is quite a wide research area. Here there are some points I’m trying to solve.

The first thing I want to discuss is about the context. I assume Ezzelino III and Frederick II had many knights following them to fight Italian communes. And I assume these knights had their own retinue of warriors, formed by lesser knights or infantrymen. Am I right? I’d like to contextualize our group in a more precise and historical way than now, we are simply "Ezzelino’s mercenaries"…

When we defined the context, I’d like to discuss from whom these retinues were formed. First, obviously, who the leading knight was, if a member of the feudal aristocracy or coming from the cities. Then, who he would have hired as his troops. Were they city militiamen? The knight’s personal guard? Mercenaries? In particular, since there were Italian communes fighting alongside the emperor, could they employ communal militiamen? Finally, were there "normal" (non-fighting) people who could have followed such knights? I think about merchants of any other figure a knight might have taken with him..

After such points are ok, then we get into the deep of the discussion. This is about arms&armors. In Italian contemporary statutes each soldier must be equipped according to his wealthy, and there are precire rules about what he need to have. Is there anything similar to this in Germany? I’m interested in every literary source: city regulations, laws, compensation requests (for example..we have some in Italy) or literature or whatever you have.

A little but important (to me) thing about sources: since probably they are in an old german, which I probably know even lesser than modern one, please translate your quotes in english if you can..that would be much appreciated :) and obviously provide me where you take them..thanks a lot.

Since I really don’t know much about medieval Germany, and I’m trying to gather as much sources as I can, I need your help if you can. We can talk quite freely about this argument, but I need to ask you to give precise informations about the sources on which you are basing your assertion. That is what I really need.

I’m very grateful to to everyone losing some time to answer me.

P.s. Since I’m Italian and I don’t know german, please forgive me if I don’t participate to other discussions. But since I know quite well the Italian reality of the XIII century, if you need something particular, feel free to ask.