Historical Spanish military ranks

[Charles Blair]

Could someone point me to source where I can look up historical Spanish military ranks, such as maestro de campo and sargento mayor, and their modern equivalents? In English, for example, we have "sergeant major," but just because this sounds like sargento mayor doesn't necessarily mean they're equivalent ranks, and to translate maestro de campo as "field marshal" on the basis of the Royal Academy's definition for maestre de campo as "antiguamente, oficial de grado superior que ejercía el mando de varios tercios" would still be just a guess. Thanks.

[Eduardo Casas]

It's a question hard to answer, because there is no direct equivalence, but I could try the following table:

Current..............Ancient
Soldado.............Soldado
Cabo.................Cabo
Cabo Primero
Cabo Mayor

Sargento............Sargento
Sargento Primero
Brigada
Subteniente
Suboficial Mayor

Alférez................Alférez
Teniente
Capitán...............Capitán

Comandante.........Furriel Mayor / Tambor General
Teniente Coronel...Sargento Mayor
Coronel................Maestre de campo

However, I am sure there are other colleages they could help you better.

If you need further explanation, I'll be glad to answer.

[Charles Blair]

Eduardo,

Thank you very much. This is a great start. So Pacheco would have been a lieutenant colonel and Rada a colonel, to use the modern English equivalents. Now Ettenhard was Capitan Teniente of the king's German guard. How might one render that, roughly?

Regards,

Charles