14th-15th c.: How Powder and Ball etc. Were Kept Before Powder Flasks Appeared

[Matchlock]

The Battle of Pavia, 1525, revisited.
Three details from an attachment to post #2, a Brussels tapestry in the Museo di Capodimonte Naples, showing the top mounts of early powder horns comprising nozzle and vertical cut-off measure.

m

[Matchlock]

This is the oldest known large powder horn (29 cm) that ever occurred to me, ca. 1540-60.
The basal plate on the iron top mount shows a Late-Gothic embossed and curved decoration and a combined spring-loaded top lever and cap, on the underside (belly) there is a spanner for a wheellock.

All the iron mounts retain a lot of their original blueing, the item is heavily patinated overall.

Sold Czerny's, 16.2.2002, lot 266.


m

[Matchlock]

Two more Late-Gothic German ammunition chests/caskets partitioned for various accouterments are illustrated in the Kunst- und Wunderbuch (Book of Arts, Crafts and Miracles), Weimar, ca. 1520.

Please note small leather pouches (for bullets?) and longish measures in the fist chest, a very early ball mold in the second, plus another similar mold!


m

[Matchlock]

A Swiss musketeers bandolier, ca. 1600-30, featuring the unusually small number of only five wooden and leather-covered powder measures, plus a priming flask with tapering nozzle, a ball pouch and a length of characteristically 'stiff' Swiss matchcord (Wittstock, Museum of the Thirty Years War, from Fischer, Lucerne).

m

[Matchlock]

When regarding representations like the ones in post #1, reading descriptions such as leatherin pulvertaschen (Old German for leather powder bags), we may resume that the arquebusier of ca. 1500 just reached with his hand into his powder bag, grabbed a portion of powder and rammed it down the barrel of his arquebus together with the ball. Most probably he basically carried a small powder measure in that bag as well.

By the early 17th century, the musketeers trousers had integral pockets, and we know of inofficial reports of early-Thirty Years War soldiers who, instead of using the flask or bandolier, just grabbed a portion of powder from their pants pockets, thus being quicker on the reload than others obeying the strict rules. How many cruel accidents may have happened that way we can all but speculate. And of course, with no wad to hold the sub-caliber rolling ball in the barrel, they could not fire downhill without losing the ball ...


Best,
m

[Matchlock]

For early 16th c. arquebusier's bandeliers with small powder measures of tinned iron etc., please see

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...940#post167940


m

[Matchlock]

Here are two characteristic so-called soldier's 'purses', although the term 'purse' is way too narrowly considered and short-sighted.
Only the few small pouches with pull cords were meant for coins, while the other compartments had to hold all the tiny everyday things - in a period before ca. 1600 when pockets in garments had not been invented! For an arquebusier, accouterments like powder, wadding, pieces of cloth, a little bottle with oil and cleaning tools like a worm and a scourer were indispensable.

So, as I pointed out in my book

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...isse+kostbares

the term 'side bag' or 'belt bag' is more apt.


Both these bags were made in Nuremberg, ca. 1525-30. The first features some tricky and really cunning hidden mechanics to correctly open the iron frame, plus 8 compartments for various utensils and 5 pouches for coins; it once was in my collection. The second I photographed in the GNM (Germanic National Museum) Nuremberg.

Best,
Michael