[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Visigodo

I simply asked a question to the forum.

Coming from the spanish "Tercios"?


It is known that the crown contemplated the marriages of our men in Italy and Flanders, among the troop as well as among the officers, like a source of problems. The commentators thought that the family weakened the soldier and distracted them from the service. There was even a late ordinance that prohibited the soldiers to marry (unfortunately probably we got lost good blood because descendant lack as losses during the wars). So it was even established norms that regulated the use of prostitutes. And there were possibly a lot of sexual contacts with the local population. If this has been able to influence or not in certain mediterranean strains in the areas where they stay that it is pure speculation but I thought at that time that some influence they could have left since Lundman wrote only about weak mediterranean strains. Anyway just some speculations.

What's the source of this?

We had a related discussion some time ago, where I noticed that you presumed that the average soldier of the glorious Spanish Tercios were mostly of Gothic descent. I'll say here the same thing that I told you then:

Having served in the army in a time when it was not a bed of roses and a complete waste like it is today, and in a unit which was considered as elite and hard enough to provoke serious psychiatric problems and even suicides, I can assure you that the soldiers there would have eaten up the world if they had been ordered to do so.

Most of my comrades there did not come from accommodated social classes, but from the roughest neighbourhoods or from small villages. One would assume then that the pay was what made the unit and the longer term attractive to those men, as opposed to the symbolic pay that the men serving in conscripted units had. But again, it was only a little less miserable and it would only allow us to afford one or two days and nights out per month.. if we were lucky to be allowed out. And you can be sure that the background of the Spanish soldiers of the Tercios was at large similar to those, in a different time.


But never mind, let me ask you this. You say: "There was even a late ordinance that prohibited the soldiers expressly to marry (unfortunately probably we got lost good blood because descendant lack as losses during the wars)."

I have never heard of such an ordinance. Not that I say that it didn't exist, but I would like to see it. Are you sure that you are not referring to the ordinance that forbid the soldiers to carry their families around with the Tercios?

By the way, look what I found in this forum of Galician genealogy. Anything in squared brackets are my comments:

In Pontedeume [a small parish in Galicia], in the book of baptized of 1752 I found a big number of children from soldiers of the Tercios. The fathers were Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish, married with women from other countries as well as from Spain (I believe that from Lleida [Catalonia] and also some from Galicia); many of the godfathers were the officers in command. The parties are well detailed with regards to the place of origin of the fathers and of the military grade, among which I remember one Purcell from Ireland and one Meylan, who was from Florence, married to Lorena Fernández, from Pontedeume.

Forums-viewtopic-Los hijos de los Tercios

Also interesting to a discussion about the Tercios, it would be to classify El Gran Capitán, don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the second son of the 5th Lord of Aguilar de la Frontera and of a noble lady who was the great-grandauther of the Infante don Fadrique Alfonso of Castille, and a Knight of the Order of Santiago.

He was the man who designed the military reform that gave way to the invincible Tercios and which kept them invincible for nearly two hundred years, and who defeated France on many battles winning Italy to Spain.

Originally Posted by searcher of truth

Not a bad speculation though I'd assume the impact might havebeen limited as the number of spanish officers and soldiers acting er...inapropiately (Bill linton recomended me to use this word...wander why ) with local populaton shoud have been less important than those of the older strains which at their moment represneted whole populations

The Tercios, like other armies before them, did count with a number of barraganas. This was a word used exclusively to define the prostitutes in the military service.

Although they stayed invincible for nearly 200 years (at least the Spanish companies which were the elite and the vanguard of the Tercios), they weren't exempt of problems.

One such were rebelions caused by the money paid to the soldiers which arrived late more often than not. And by late I don't mean a few weeks, but months and even around a year. This was the cause that ignited now few problems and rebelions, which lead to abuses over the civilian population.

However, having said that, it is also fair to say that the men known for rebelling at the late pay were the Landskenets, German mercenaries of the Tercios. They were too used for acts such as the Sack of Rome.

In the book of Alatriste, when a Spanish captain hears the complaints of some Spanish soldiers because they had not had been paid in months and had not had clothes to change, he asks if "we are Tudescos (Germans) who have to get paid before fighting, or Spanish soldiers". End of argument.

If the portraits of Mr Huygens are accurate A-M strains in Netherlands are older than that (no trace of spanish tercio ancestry in Huygens family as far as I know)

To a lesser extent, The Netherlands is still a western lands and the Atlantic Mediterranid types are probably older than any Nordid or other type arrived from the East.