Question on earliest use of powder horn
 

Hello all

First, this is my first post here after having read a number of fascinating posts. This forum was very helpful in helping my organization develop a handgonne program.

On that note, what is the earliest known date for the use of a powder horn? We're setting our programming in the 1380s, and are using a handgonne of the type with a short tube set into a groove on a long stock. I've seen illustrations of powder horns from around the first quarter of the 1400s, but not sooner than that.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Any help on this? I've heard elsewhere that gourds were the earliest forms of portable container for handgonne powder. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Thanks!

To me, so far no illustrations of powder horns are known prior to 1400. The earliest powder horn illustration I know so far ist from Amtliche Berner Chronik from second half of 15th century. On which illustration you have seen the powder horn? Can you please post it?

Hi Andi

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't realize someone had answered.

I remembered my source incorrectly on the powder horn- the illustration I saw was from the late 1400s, not early 1400s.

I had been told that gourds were used for gunpowder before powder horns, but they were never able to provide a source for that information. Without something more solid to go on, I'm going to have to proceed with a powder horn as a best guess for the late 1300s for lack of a better choice.

Hi Eric,

Michael has done tons of research on this subject ;)

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16149

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...4&page=1&pp=30

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8519

Hi Eric,


I don't know (but am curious to know!) what illustrations of a powder horn of the late 1400's you're referring to exactly.

The earliest sources of period artwork known to me are two colored drawings by the Swiss historian Diebold Schilling, from his Berner Chronik of 1483 (top attachments).
On an internet site for private photo sharing, I found the attached images of a stone sculpture representing an arquebusier with his arquebus and octagonally shaped powder horn, dated early 16th century and labeled to be part of a cathedral in Chartreuse, France.
The web, however, does not identify such a city, just a French mountain range of that name.

The latest documents of the use of long cow horns, by then fitted with a dosing mechanism comprising both an iron nozzle and sprung cut-off, are of ca. 1530:

- representations of Landsknechte (mercenaries) on a series of Brussels tapestries depicting scenes from the Battle of Pavia, 1525
- a painting by Melchior Feselen, Ingolstadt/Bavaria, called The Batttle of Alesia, dated 1533 (two attachments at the bottom).

Cow horns pressed flat after softened by hot water stayed in use from ca. 1590 to 1620, and then again around 1700 to 1750, with many of them easily identifiable as originally belonging to wheellock guns: often their bodies are combined with a spanner.

Please read my thread
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=alesia


For more information on this topic, also see my thread
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...=powder+flasks - thanks a lot to Marcus for linking it! ;)


Best,
Michael
(on returning home from hospital)

Hi Matchlock

Yes, the one you posted from 1483 is the one I was referring to.

I did read through the other threads but didn't find what I was looking for. My interest is the late 1300s, which I realize is earlier than reliable information provides for.

Absolutely, Eric,


The oldest datable sources of period artwork depicting powder horns - or, generally speaking, any kind of receptacles for keeping gun powder - are as 'young' as the 1480's (by Diebold Schilling, see my post above).
This is why I set up the thesis that the sidebags worn by everybody up to ca. 1600 served as the first 'receptacles' for powder and ball as well before horns entered the scene:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ht=powder+ball

In the 'Maximilian' period, around 1500, they were called 'pulvertaschen' (powder bags).


Best,
Michael