Ca. 1500 to 1650: Bandeliers for Arquebusiers and Musketeers

[Matchlock]

Finally there are some photos of extremely rare and well-made Swedish bandeliers, ca. 1620, the main belt consisting of seal skin (!).

I do not know of any records of the use of bandeliers after the end of the Thirty Years War (1648). We may therefore assume that by the mid-17th c., leather cartridge/cartouche bags had taken over. Similar to the 16th c. patrons, they were fitted with a wooden block, slightly curved to fit the musketeer's belly, and drilled with compartments to receive an average of 10-15 paper cartridges.

Attached are

- a view of a row of such bags in the Emden Armory, mid- to 2nd half 17th c.; they are displayed right under the bandeliers

- a plain, tooled leather Austrian cartridge bag

- two similar samples in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Wien (Army Museum Vienna), one showing the inner wooden core.


Best,
Michael