landsknechts with zweihandersEurope in the late 15th and early 16th centuries was a place of almost constant warfare. With no organised national armies, battlefields were the domain of the mercenary companies of the day chief amongst these were the colourfully dressed Landsknechts. Landsknechts were instigated by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian I, as a reaction to the Swiss mercenary pikemen that had dominated battlefields for decades before the Italian Wars (1494 1559). They