A fighting churchman was not only a matter of zeal — it was a matter of land. In medieval Europe the higher clergy were also great lords: a bishop or abbot held broad estates from his king and owed soldiers in return, and so rode to war at the head of his own knights. Whole armies leaned on them — on one imperial campaign in 981, roughly seventy percent of the emperor's armoured men were supplied by just nineteen bishops. Some led from the front: Archbishop Rainald of Cologne took 140 knights into a battle in Italy in 1167, cutting a path for the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa himself.

This figure is that world at ground level — not a mitred prince but a priest in the ranks, advancing in a long red surcoat over full mail, his hand dropping to the sword at his hip. Set him beside the mounted Fighting Bishop — Odo of Bayeux, who rode at Hastings — and the Crusader Priest of Jerusalem to show the whole span of the Church at war, from parish chaplain to warrior prelate; the fuller story of how men of God ended up in armour is in this piece on whether medieval priests really fought. In a diorama he belongs a pace behind the front rank of a Crusader charge, sword half-drawn — blessing and bloodshed in the same motion.

Model: MK253 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set