LITHUANIAN-RUSSIAN MEDIUM INFANTRY 1ST HALF XV CENTURY

Even at the end of the 13th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a relatively small and pagan country covering more or less the area of today's Lithuania and part of Belarus. However, in the course of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, thanks to such outstanding great dukes as Olgierd or Kiejstut, it definitely extended its reign to almost all of today's Belarus and Ukraine, reaching the Black Sea with its borders! It was also the ruler of this country - Jogaiłło - who concluded a personal union with Poland in Krewo, was baptized and married Jadwiga. As Władysław Jagiełło he started the rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty in the Polish-Lithuanian state. One of the most important members of the Lithuanian army was infantry. In the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century, the heavy-armed Lithuanian infantry was armed with shields resembling heavy transoms, scale armor or chain mail, and helmets - very often with a chainmail coif. As an offensive weapon she used a one-handed sword and a spear. Some Lithuanian infantrymen also used crossbows. The medium and light infantry also used swords and spears as offensive weapons, but more widely used missile weapons, especially bows. It can be assumed that its protective armament was much weaker. Nevertheless, the image of the Lithuanian infantry presented, for example, by Henryk Sienkiewicz in "The Teutonic Knights", where he mentioned wooden clubs and swords inherited from his grandfather-great-grandfather, is very far from the truth.