A Beautiful Mid-14th Century Handgonne

[fernando]

A gun with a similar profile may be seen in Prestige de lármurerie Portugaise, an exhibition held at Musee d´Armes de Liege, in 1991.
It belongs (or belonged) in the collection of Rainer Daehnhardt and is said to have been excavated in the field of the battle of Aljubarrota, which took place in 1385. We know that this is a very early date and a Portuguese specialist doesn't agree that small artillery was used in this battle by Portuguese, also there is a chronicler of the period (Fernão Lopes) who describes how the Spanish side used a number of 16 heavy bombards (trons). Mr. Daehnhardt pretends that, for the same logic, nothing rejects that small hand cannons were used by the Portuguese side.


.