1439 o 1509 ?

[Cesare]

I finally got the English name of these weapons. is "Bohemian earspoon" and, according to research just completed, "Chiaverina" is the Italianization of Knebelspiess.
Some of my friends confirmed that the type of weapons to the museum is of Germanic origin and dating at the first half of the 15th century. In line with the siege of 1439, described in detail by a certain Sanuto, a few years later.
In that siege, the village and the fortress of Legnago were completely destroyed, but the losses among the German soldiers besiegers, were very heavy.

Thank you sincerely for all the answers. Are giving me a very valuable help

Cesare

[Matchlock]

You sure did an excellent job finding out the correct English term earspoon (German: böhmischer Ohrlöffel) - brilliant

That type of sturdy hafted weapons was of course both the follower of the Late Carolingian Flügellanze and the ancestor of the famous Friaulischer Spieß (English equivalent urgently sought ...), with its robust down curved side hooks!

As Thilo superbly pointed out, it obviously did matter in terms of stability whether the straps were fixed on the broad or on the small side of the socket!

Thilo, could you please post a few images or line drawings of those two differing ways of strap fixing, as those are esteemed very valuable by me concerning later hafted weapons like pikes and halberds? Thanks a lot! I'd come on in right after with never seen actual material.

Best,
Michael

[mrwizard]

What kind of drawing do you have in mind?
Something like this?

[Matchlock]

Exactly!

The most important thing is that they clearly show the different places of the straps, as mentioned by you.

Best,
m

[mrwizard]

3D-modelling is fun, so I just made another image with rivets attached and with the shaft attached.

[fernando]

Picking up Michl's post #3 ...
...That guy blowing his horn and holding his dogs (Fig 130 from Bern manuscript by Boners Eldestein) suggests some familiarity between the lances being discussed and those used for hunting. The first of such lances had no "wings" or "ears" and date from classic antiquity. As very often they penetrated to deep into the game's body, allowing the animals that used to fight back (bears and boars) to reach for the hunter, a cross bracket was developed in order to retain the lance head at a limited depth. This device was implemented in Portugal by the XIII century, some later than in other countries.
This tipe of hunting lance was called in Portugal "Ascuma", a term that tends to disappear from modern dictionaries. This word derived from the German "Asc", meaning "Esche" or "Ash", due to one of the selected woods used in their shafts.
Illustrated are a boar hunting scene by Gaston Phoebus (XIV century) at the Paris National Library and an engraving from the Tryumph of Maximilian (1526), showing bear hunters with long ascumas.
Can one actually consider these hunting lances predecessor to chiaverine?

.

[Matchlock]

Clever input indeed, 'Nando,

Though I am not expert enough by far to competently answer your query I am sure that the spears shown by Gaston Phoebus were the formal predecessors of the so called Froschmaul-Spieße (frog's mouth spears) that came in use in the times of Maximilian I, and the heavy bear or boar spears depicted by Hans Burgkmair in the Triumph of Maximilian were widely in use for hunting from at least the 15th to the 18th centuries.

I attach images of the Maximilian frog's mouth spear from the Graz armory, ca. 1500-20, and cut down to 2.60 m in the 1560's, in my collection (on top of the halberds).

Best,
Michl

[Matchlock]

Two more Bohemian earspoons, ca. 1460-70, in the museum of Schloss Grandson, Switzerland (the two below the group of pikes).

m