Faction Nationality

[Sir Zeppelin]

If each faction were to be a country, which one do you think it would be? The Crusaders would probably be English (for obvious reasons), the Black Falcons would be German (the eagle has always been a German symbol), would the forestmen be Scottish? The Scotts fought for independance for a long time, and the forestmen in their sets seem to be set up like that. I don't know about the Black Knights, Fright Knights, or Crownies. What do you think?

[gormadoc1]

I think the Royal Knights would be english, a big clue from Lego is that King Richard the Lionheart was in some sets and he was an English Monarch.
I think the Crownies would be French-their design and colour scheme is similar to that of the French in the Middle-ages.
I think the Forestmen would be english pillagers because of their Robin Hood design.
The Dragon Masters remind me of te Welsh during the time of King Edward I (of England) becaue they seemed to live in hills and they had a lot of mythical-magical elements.
I think the crusaders were not part of a nationality but of a mix, bassically crusaders from the 11th & 12th century.

Thats all I can think of for now.

[gedren_y]

Both Black Knights and Dragon Knights had dragon emblems, and would both be Welsh (Cymru) but of different noble lines. Wales is a Principality under English rule.

Dark Forest could be considered Scottish lowlanders.

Wolfpack could be Irish.

Crusaders carry the LIon Rampant. They could be from anywhere from Aquitaine (France) north. Richard the Lionheart was of the Norman nobility line who ruled the Brittish Isles during the 11th and 12th centuries.

Forestmen could be considered Anglo-Saxon peasantry.

Black Falcons could be southern French or possibly Spanish.

The Lion Knights are mostly a mixture of Crusaders, Black Falcons and Black Knights

Knights Kingdom I has the Crowned Lions, they strike me as English after the Magna Carta in 1215, and the Bulls, who seem to be eastern European.

Fright Knights I don't know. . . maybe Portugese?

Knights Kingdom II has to be 13th or 14th century middle European. The reason, plate armor. Of these, only Sir Kentis seems to have a definite nationality: Scottish. The Unicorn is a symbol of the Scottish royalty.

Fantansy Era "crownies" seem to be Itallian.

[DerBum]

Well I would say that there is an equal chance that the Crusaders could be English or Scottish, if you go by the Coat of Arms of the respective royal families. Both Scotland and England have rampant lions, but Scotland has only one, like the Crusaders of Lego's Classic Castle lion. England, however, had one, two, or three rampant lions on their coat of arms, depending one what time frame you are dealing with. Neither Scotland or England had a blue rampant lion charge on a gold gold field, or a gold rampant lion charge on a blue field in their coat of arms, so that part is impossible to decipher. Of course there were other nations, city states, and families (clans) that had a single rampant lion on their coat of arms, so who the Crusaders really are is still up to the imagination in my opinion.

[Ye Olde Republic]

The Fright Knights are obviously Romanian. Basil=Vlad Drago? No?

[Jojo]

Hello!


Since the concept of "nations" as we know them today does not apply to most if any territories in mediaeval times, the question is void...

For instance, the "Holy Roman Empire", whose coat of arms indeed was the Eagle (in Lego: the Black Falcon), incorporated Northern Italy and most of what is Germany today. Yet it wouldn't be proper to call this territory "Germany" nor its inhabitants "Germans" in terms of a "nation". For within the boundaries of the Empire several more or less souvereign princedoms existed, some of them not even being "German", neither in terms of ethnicity nor language, Bohemia for example. On the other hand the Emperor of the Empire also was the ruler of territories far outside this empire, such as princedoms in Spain, which also was not "Spain" as we know it today.

Also, the most frequently used animals for heraldry easily are the lion and the eagle. So no wonder Lego used them as well. If only I take a look at the coat of arms of today's Germany's federal states (of which some have their roots in mediaeval princedoms) I see:
Baden-Württemberg: 3 Lions (coat of arms also flanked by 1 Stag and 1 Gryphon)
Bavaria: 1 Lion + 3 different Lions + blue Panther (coat of arms also flanked by two even different Lions)
Brandenburg: 1 Eagle
Hesse: 1 Lion
Lower Saxony: 1 Horse, the "Saxon steed" (OK, that's odd. But the former ruler of this territory, Duke Henry the Lion, had ..well.. the Lion.)
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 2 Bulls, 1 Eagle, 1 Gryphon.
North Rhine-Westphalia: 1 Horse (actualy the same as Lower Saxony)
Rhineland-Palatinate: 1 Lion
Saarland: 2 different Lions and 3 Eagles
Saxony: (No animal at all.)
Saxony-Anhalt: 1 Eagle and 1 Bear.
Schleswig-Holstein: 2 Lions
Thuringia: 1 Lion (same as Hesse).
Berlin: 1 Bear
Hamburg (a castle with three towers) flanked by two Lions
Bremen (a key) flanked by two Lions

I guess the Lion wins. So most Germans would identify with the so called Crusaders, the knights from set 1592, the Royal Knights, Knights Kingdom 1 or with the Knight of Gryffindor, while some others rather pledge loyalty to the Black Falcons or Jayko, very few to Santis, even fewer to the Bull knights or Sir Adric. Some Swabians could identify with the Forestmen, while I myself only could carry this shield of the Indians, for it got a horse on it. Well, I'm also German, so maybe I stick to the Black Falcons...


Bye
Jojo

[quaraga]

let me think the black knights and the dragon masters, I agree, are welsh the black falcons work for germany. the wolfpack look very wallace-esque so they are the jacobites/scotts the woodsmen, in that case, are irish then the royal knights are english the crusaders are french ,who's left? oh the fright knights ok Ill go with romanian.crownies ,the new ones, are spanish. maybe the dwarves are from the arabian peninsula area. the goblins are northmen. then the skellies are akin to celts.(not the football team ) oops! I forgot kk2 well maybe the morcian knights are automon turks because of the whole outlandish thing. the shadowknights are the byzantines.

[elwurmogrande]

Hi,

Well, each noble family has/had its own coat of arms, so there were thousands of them. Think about it. Scientists believe that there were approximately more than 25.000 castles in what today is known as The Holly Roman Empire (HRE). Now assume for each castle at least one noble family and you have a wide variety of different coat of arms, not counting all those, who lived in more humble locations, tows or who were just travelling around.

Consequently, you cannot really categorise the different coat of arms concerning today’s nations. Moreover, the word faction is historically wrong. Factions never existed. Only the members of noble families and military orders were allowed to carry their coat of arms. Ordinary soldiers never did.
However, this changed in the very late Middle Ages, when armies got bigger and bigger. An example is the Hundred Years' War.

In fact only very few coat of arms designed by Lego are heraldically correct. In medieval times the rules concerning the design of a proper coat of arms were very strict. For instance there was a limited choice of colours. Those were red, blue, green, black, purple (except HRE), gold, silver.
If an animal - and the choice was limited as well - was chosen, it usually looked to the right, not to the left. That’s why the falcon as a coat of arms is heraldically wrong, while the lion is correct.

Yours,

Thomas

[Mörs]

The Fright Knights are obviously Romanian. Basil=Vlad Drago? No?

That makes a lot of sense to me.

[DerBum]

Consequently, you cannot really categorise the different coat of arms concerning today’s nations.

This is only partially true. As stated earlier, many of the symbols used by Lego to create a faction's "Coat of Arms" were used in varying ways by many nations, families, city states, etc., so that does allow someone to use their imagination as to who that coat of arms might represent. There are, however, current nations that have a royal family, or historically had a royal family who's coat of arms have become the national coat of arms. Scotland and England are two such countries that did existed as a form of nation in midieval times and still presently exist (although under the United Kingdom). Liechtenstein is another (albeit obscure) nation that traces its current coat of arms to its original ruling family in the 11th to 13th centuries. It all depends on how you choose to look at it, obviously it is true that the coat of arms would only be carried in battle by the head of a given family and perhaps we would be better off refering to the Lego factions as families, clans, houses, etc.. I do think though that, in the realm of imagination, it is fair for people to associate different Lego factions with particular nations, or at least geographical areas.

[ottoatm]

Hey all, this seems to deal less with the castle sets than with story/backgrounds we like to make behind them, so I moved it to Stories.

For me, I never really followed this way, but if I had to guess...

Black Knights and Dragon Knights: Some sort of Southern and South-eastern Europe... maybe Italy, Croatia, etc?
Dark Forest: English woodmen (robin hood)
Wolfpack: Forestmen in the Germanic tribes area
Crusaders: English
Black Falcons: Germanic
The Lion Knights: Something like France maybe?
Fright Knights: Eastern Europe - Vlad and friends
Knights Kingdom II: Comedy relief during jousts?
Scorpians from KK2 - Hmm... maybe northern Africa?
Fantasy Crowns: Spaniards

I prefer to make my own backgrounds, cultures, etc anyway, so I can easily accept that there might be some errors above, but anyway, there it is~

[elwurmogrande]

There are, however, current nations that have a royal family, or historically had a royal family who's coat of arms have become the national coat of arms. Scotland and England are two such countries that did existed as a form of nation in midieval times and still presently exist (although under the United Kingdom). Liechtenstein is another (albeit obscure) nation that traces its current coat of arms to its original ruling family in the 11th to 13th centuries.

If you take a closer look at the “Crusaders”, you will see that it is not English at all. The English coat of arms has changed many times over the past centuries. The coat of arms Lego has used is nearly identical with the lion of Guelders, Electoral Palatinate, Kingdom of León and many others and there are definitely some English towns which have an equally designed beast. During the Hundred's Years War the English soldiers used the St George's Cross as their coat of arms and not the Lion of Aquitaine nor the Rose of Lancaster (Henry V).

European history is very complex. That is why I was generally referring to the Early and High Middle Ages . Most European countries have a coat of arms which dates back to medieval times, but from a medieval perspective one cannot say the lion is English or the eagle is German.

I do think though that, in the realm of imagination, it is fair for people to associate different Lego factions with particular nations, or at least geographical areas.

I totally agree on that.

[Sir Zeppelin]

I had never realized that heirechy could be that complicated. However, as DerBum wrote, I do believe that with a little creative imagination you can associate different (historicly incorrect) factions with different countries.

Baden-Württemberg: 3 Lions (coat of arms also flanked by 1 Stag and 1 Gryphon)
Bavaria: 1 Lion + 3 different Lions + blue Panther (coat of arms also flanked by two even different Lions)
Brandenburg: 1 Eagle
Hesse: 1 Lion
Lower Saxony: 1 Horse, the "Saxon steed" (OK, that's odd. But the former ruler of this territory, Duke Henry the Lion, had ..well.. the Lion.)
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 2 Bulls, 1 Eagle, 1 Gryphon.
North Rhine-Westphalia: 1 Horse (actualy the same as Lower Saxony)
Rhineland-Palatinate: 1 Lion
Saarland: 2 different Lions and 3 Eagles
Saxony: (No animal at all.)
Saxony-Anhalt: 1 Eagle and 1 Bear.
Schleswig-Holstein: 2 Lions
Thuringia: 1 Lion (same as Hesse).
Berlin: 1 Bear
Hamburg (a castle with three towers) flanked by two Lions
Bremen (a key) flanked by two Lions

Wow . That was very detailed, Jojo. I never realized just how many federal states Germany has. Thanks for posting that here.

[friskywhiskers]

I think the Royal Knights would be english, a big clue from Lego is that King Richard the Lionheart was in some sets and he was an English Monarch.
I think the Crownies would be French-their design and colour scheme is similar to that of the French in the Middle-ages.
I think the Forestmen would be english pillagers because of their Robin Hood design.
The Dragon Masters remind me of te Welsh during the time of King Edward I (of England) becaue they seemed to live in hills and they had a lot of mythical-magical elements.
I think the crusaders were not part of a nationality but of a mix, bassically crusaders from the 11th & 12th century.

Thats all I can think of for now.

I agree with that, and with the forestmen being Irish. I know this sounds strange, but the KK1 knights ( Danju and the others) have always seemed russian to me. The scorpian knights were Africans. ( No, I have no Idea what there doing in Russia, but then again thare was supposed to be no such thing as magic either so... yeah; whatever !)

[Napoleon]

Crownies: French. They even have fleur-di-liese on their collars.
Forestmen: Irish.
Black Falcons: Germans. That is just what I always thought. BUT, their coat-of-arms resembles one of Charlemagne's symbols, which would make them French, too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Image-Charlemagne-by-Durer.jpg Look at the symbol right above the left side of him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Karl_der_gro%C3%9Fe.jpg The symbol is on this statue, too.
Crusaders: English
Royal Knights: English
Fright Knights: Vlad Dracula's Eastern Europeans.
Scorpion Knights: Same as the Fright Knights.
Black Knights: Spanish. It just fits.
Dragon Masters: Welsh.
KK2: Power Rangers.