''Rodeleros'' ("shield bearers"), also called ''espadachines'' ("swordsmen") and colloquially known as "Sword and Buckler Men", were

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

troops in the early 16th (and again briefly in the 17th) century, equipped with steel shields known as ''rodela'' and

sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...

s (usually of the

side-sword The ''spada da lato'' (Italian) or ''side-sword'' is a type of sword popular during the late 16th century. It is a continuation of the medieval knightly sword, and the immediate predecessor (or early form) of the rapier A rapier () or is a ...

type). Originally conceived as an Italian attempt to revive the

legionary The Roman legionary (in Latin ''legionarius'', plural ''legionarii'') was a professional heavy infantryman of the Roman army after the Marian reforms. These soldiers would conquer and defend the territories of ancient Rome during the late Republi ...

swordsman, they were adopted by the Spanish and used with great efficiency in the

Italian Wars The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The pr ...

during the 1510s and 1520s, but discontinued in the 1530s. The majority of

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...

's troops during his campaigns in the New World were rodeleros: in 1520, over 1000 of his 1300 men were so equipped, and in 1521 he had 700 rodeleros, but only 118

arquebus An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier. Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...

iers and

crossbow A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long fi ...

men. Bernal Díaz, the author of an account of Cortés'

conquest Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms. Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...

of the

Aztecs The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

, served as a rodelero under Cortés. When the Spanish adopted the ''colunella'' (the first of the mixed

pike and shot Pike and shot was a historical infantry tactical formation that first appeared during the Italian Wars of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and was used until the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century. This type of formation ...

formations), they used small groups of sword and buckler men to break the deadlock of the

push of pike The push of pike was a particular feature of late medieval and Early Modern warfare that occurred when two opposing columns of pikemen (often Swiss mercenaries or German Landsknechte) met and became locked in position along a front of interleave ...

, as the Swiss and Germans used

halberd A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The word ''halberd'' is cognate with the German word ''Hellebarde'', deriving from ...

iers, comparable to the role of the German ''

Doppelsöldner ("double-mercenaries", "double-pay men", from German ''doppel-'' meaning double, ''Sold'' meaning pay) were ''Landsknechte'' in 16th-century Germany who volunteered to fight in the front line, taking on extra risk, in exchange for double payment. ...

'' during the same period. At the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, they proved to be very effective with this tactic; however, when facing a fresh, well ordered

pike square The pike square (German: ''Gevierthaufen'', lit. 'square crowd', or ''Gewalthaufen'' lit. 'crowd of force') was a military tactical formation in which 10 rows of men in 10 columns wielding pikes, was developed by the Swiss Confederacy during th ...

, they were vulnerable, as at the

Battle of Seminara The Battle of Seminara, part of the First Italian War, was fought in Calabria on 28 June 1495 between a French garrison in recently conquered Southern Italy and the allied forces of Spain and Naples which were attempting to reconquer these t ...

. They were also very vulnerable to attack by

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...

, while halberdiers were not. Halberdiers also had greater reach with their weapons than did swordsmen. As battlefield tactics evolved during the early 16th century, the Spanish ultimately concluded that the vulnerability of the rodeleros on the battlefield outweighed their strengths, and they were dropped as a troop type when the Spanish infantry were reorganized into

tercio A ''tercio'' (; Spanish for " third") was a military unit of the Spanish Army during the reign of the Spanish Habsburgs in the early modern period. The tercios were renowned for the effectiveness of their battlefield formations, forming the el ...

s in the 1530s. Their role was replaced by halberdiers. While Spanish infantry formations were 50% pikes, 33% swords, and 17% firearms in 1502, their ratios had shifted to 10% halberds, 30% pikes, and 60% firearms by the end of the 16th century.J. R. Hale: "War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450 —1620." London 1985, p. 52. Occasional attempts were made to revive them, such as by

Maurice of Nassau Maurice of Orange ( nl, Maurits van Oranje; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was '' stadtholder'' of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at the earliest until his death in 1625. Before he became Prince ...

, who armed his guard troops with a sword and buckler in addition to a

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

. Later during the

Thirty Years War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an es ...

, some military theorists proposed deploying swordsmen equipped with large iron shields in front of the pikemen to protect them from being shot by enemy

musketeer A musketeer (french: mousquetaire) was a type of soldier equipped with a musket. Musketeers were an important part of early modern warfare particularly in Europe as they normally comprised the majority of their infantry. The musketeer was a pre ...

s, but it is doubtful whether this fanciful tactic was either successful or much employed in practice.

References

*{{cite book , first=Charles , last=Oman , authorlink=Charles Oman , title=A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century , year=1991 , publisher=Greenhill Books , isbn=978-0-947898-69-4 16th- and 17th-century warrior types Military units and formations of Spain Military units and formations of the Early Modern period Military units and formations of the Italian Wars

See also

References