Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Wallachian Swords of the 15th Century: What Types?

Samik · 21st July 2009, 05:41 PM

Hi gents ,
wow a pretty interesting discussion we have here

Im gonna add some points to your contributions.
Just like Teodor and Gonzalo (great posts by the way guys I am learing a lot from you here, as always) I have to mention Vasary’s book, that is a "must-have" when one is interested in the history of those medieval nomadic people that inhabited parts of europe.

Emanuel thanks for your exhaustive reply. The splendid picture labelled " Ein Reuter aufs der Walachi" looks very , very (almost exactly) like the "Rac"serb-hussars from the Orsa painting http://www.myarmoury.com/images/feat...c_hussar01.jpg , note the "winged" shield , which Turks called "Rumelian" and westerners "Hungarian" (IIRC, the shields are also represented in Ottoman/German art. Fechtbucher "gladiatora" shows two fencers armed with it , but in a smaller "target-like" scale. The turkish miniature painting of Mohacs Battle also shows Hungarian troops/cavalry armed with such shields as well).

As for the other painting (the fresco) , could you determine the author of the piece? I suspect that because of the "cyrilics" it might have been inspired by similar pieces from Muscovy (or the other southern Russian principalities, not sure which one bordered with Romanian Moldova) and Russians were quite fond of wearing Conical helmets , which were by no means only reserved to Turks (AFAIK , central asian "steepe" nomads, such as the various tatar khaganates ; Mamluks and Byzantine troops wore them as well)... anyway just speculating. If you have more scans of some such frescoes please do post them , I would be very interested in seeing them.

Going back to the overall picture, until recently I was somewhat unaware of the military structure of the medieval Balkans. I have always assumed that the military technology/tactics were very similar and somewhat mirrored the armamament and tactics of the "Latins". As it turned out I was (very) wrong. What suprised me was Heath’s osprey book on the Byzantine later period (that covers 13-14 and 15. century). Not only were the "native" Balkan people (of non-nomadic stock) armed in a similar fashion to nomads (composite bow, both sabres and straight swords , lances, shields of various designs etc.) but served for the emperor in units in which they were grouped together with nomads themselves. Whats even more interesting is that the further "subjugation" of Balkans by Ottomans seemed to be so "smooth" because of the fact that the Byzantine military style of troop commanding was very similar to that of Ottoman (parralles can be seen for example in etymology: "ottoman voynuks" - "balkan slavic vojniks" , or "byzantine greek Allagator" - "Turkish Lagator" etc.) AFAIK, The partial "latinization" and western men-at-arms seemed to have been more present in the western parts of balkans (like serbia , that according to Heath responded to Ottoman threat by fielding italian style arms and equipment.) The "Saxons" in Wallachia are an exception indeed. I dont remember however reading much about Saxon cavalry, or men-at-arms.
A query at the end: was the sword of Stephen the Great produced by local (moldovian) blacksmiths or was it a saxon/hungarian import?

Cheers,
Samuel

Edit: A note on the topic of similarity betwen Serbs and Vlachs that I have (somewhat) touched upon earlier. A splendid article (sadly) written in Czech http://www.livinghistory.cz/node/28 , that muses about the wagenburg tactics also mentions a piece of writing from late 15th century Order of Vlčkov : „A což byste Rácuov jměli a Vlachuov, té zběři, ješto by se k šikování nehodili, ty pusťte všecky na harc a jednomu poručte rozumnému, aby jimi potiskal nepřátel…“

It is written in old Bohemian and says something in the lines of avoiding in giving a free hand in command of the hired Vlach and Rác (Serbian) horsemen (presumably to counter the turks) because of their behaviour (they are literally named "zběř" , similar to modern Czech "sběř" which means rabble/riffraff; which is hardly suprising as light cavalry was always accussed for lack of morals) and instead to hire someone "reasonable" to command them instead (presumably a countryman I guess). As you can see the passage pretty much treats them as a similar/same style of unit (which mayhap points to the common Balkan/Byzantine military heritage).

21st July 2009, 05:41 PM	#33
Samik Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Slovakia Posts: 48	Hi gents , wow a pretty interesting discussion we have here Im gonna add some points to your contributions. Just like Teodor and Gonzalo (great posts by the way guys I am learing a lot from you here, as always) I have to mention Vasary’s book, that is a "must-have" when one is interested in the history of those medieval nomadic people that inhabited parts of europe. Emanuel thanks for your exhaustive reply. The splendid picture labelled " Ein Reuter aufs der Walachi" looks very , very (almost exactly) like the "Rac"serb-hussars from the Orsa painting http://www.myarmoury.com/images/feat...c_hussar01.jpg , note the "winged" shield , which Turks called "Rumelian" and westerners "Hungarian" (IIRC, the shields are also represented in Ottoman/German art. Fechtbucher "gladiatora" shows two fencers armed with it , but in a smaller "target-like" scale. The turkish miniature painting of Mohacs Battle also shows Hungarian troops/cavalry armed with such shields as well). As for the other painting (the fresco) , could you determine the author of the piece? I suspect that because of the "cyrilics" it might have been inspired by similar pieces from Muscovy (or the other southern Russian principalities, not sure which one bordered with Romanian Moldova) and Russians were quite fond of wearing Conical helmets , which were by no means only reserved to Turks (AFAIK , central asian "steepe" nomads, such as the various tatar khaganates ; Mamluks and Byzantine troops wore them as well)... anyway just speculating. If you have more scans of some such frescoes please do post them , I would be very interested in seeing them. Going back to the overall picture, until recently I was somewhat unaware of the military structure of the medieval Balkans. I have always assumed that the military technology/tactics were very similar and somewhat mirrored the armamament and tactics of the "Latins". As it turned out I was (very) wrong. What suprised me was Heath’s osprey book on the Byzantine later period (that covers 13-14 and 15. century). Not only were the "native" Balkan people (of non-nomadic stock) armed in a similar fashion to nomads (composite bow, both sabres and straight swords , lances, shields of various designs etc.) but served for the emperor in units in which they were grouped together with nomads themselves. Whats even more interesting is that the further "subjugation" of Balkans by Ottomans seemed to be so "smooth" because of the fact that the Byzantine military style of troop commanding was very similar to that of Ottoman (parralles can be seen for example in etymology: "ottoman voynuks" - "balkan slavic vojniks" , or "byzantine greek Allagator" - "Turkish Lagator" etc.) AFAIK, The partial "latinization" and western men-at-arms seemed to have been more present in the western parts of balkans (like serbia , that according to Heath responded to Ottoman threat by fielding italian style arms and equipment.) The "Saxons" in Wallachia are an exception indeed. I dont remember however reading much about Saxon cavalry, or men-at-arms. A query at the end: was the sword of Stephen the Great produced by local (moldovian) blacksmiths or was it a saxon/hungarian import? Cheers, Samuel Edit: A note on the topic of similarity betwen Serbs and Vlachs that I have (somewhat) touched upon earlier. A splendid article (sadly) written in Czech http://www.livinghistory.cz/node/28 , that muses about the wagenburg tactics also mentions a piece of writing from late 15th century Order of Vlčkov : „A což byste Rácuov jměli a Vlachuov, té zběři, ješto by se k šikování nehodili, ty pusťte všecky na harc a jednomu poručte rozumnému, aby jimi potiskal nepřátel…“ It is written in old Bohemian and says something in the lines of avoiding in giving a free hand in command of the hired Vlach and Rác (Serbian) horsemen (presumably to counter the turks) because of their behaviour (they are literally named "zběř" , similar to modern Czech "sběř" which means rabble/riffraff; which is hardly suprising as light cavalry was always accussed for lack of morals) and instead to hire someone "reasonable" to command them instead (presumably a countryman I guess). As you can see the passage pretty much treats them as a similar/same style of unit (which mayhap points to the common Balkan/Byzantine military heritage). Last edited by Samik; 21st July 2009 at 06:51 PM.