Earliest Arquebusier's and Musketeer's Trapezoidal Powder Flasks, ca. 1530-1590

[Martin Moser]

Hello Matchlock and all,

I think I understand the mechanism of these powderflasks, but would like to know for sure. Could you perhaps point me to a description or sectional drawing of these?

Thanks and best,
Martin

[Matchlock]

Hi Martin,


I can but provide you with a detail from Jacob de Gheyn's exercise manual Wapenhandelinghe van Roers, Mvsqvetten ende Spiessen, 1608, showing a caliverman loading his matchlock caliver (German: Schützenrohr) from the flask.
First he had to push the lateral cutoff lever against the pressure of a spring, then he would turn the flask uspide down allowing powder to fill the nozzle. Next he would release the cutoff lever, thus saving the correct amount of powder in the nozzle, and hold the nozzle over the muzzle of his caliver. By pressing the long top lever he allowed the measured amount of powder to run down the barrel.
This last step is depicted in the attached engraving, with one difference: as the type of flask shown does not seem to have a long spring-loaded top lever he had to use his thumb to close the nozzle and measure the right dose of powder.

This procedure was basically the same with both caliverman's and (trapezoid) musketeer's flasks.


I also attached an image of the detached top mount of a trapezoid flask and view of the internal mechanism of such a flask, illustrating the thin oval cutoff plate moving on the same rivet, and parallel to the cutoff lever, and closing or opening the nozzle entrance.
The fact that you see two nozzles on the same top mount is due to the special construction of that unique two-way flask:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...teer%27s+flask


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

No post.

[Martin Moser]

Hi Michael,

thank you for the detailed description and the link to the pictures showing exactly the details I wanted reconfirmed. The meachism works as I imagined it would. This was most helpful, highly appreciated!
Now I need to build one of these for my little arquebus :-)

Best,
Martin

[Matchlock]

Hi Martin,


As an optimum fit with a ca. 1525 snap-tinderlock arquebus like yours, I would recommend either a powder horn terminating in a mechanism at its broad end, as shown on a series of tapestries of the Battle at Pavia which are now preserved in the Capodimonte museum Naples, a small round flask with top mechanism, as depicted in a drawing of ca. 1520-30, or the earliest type of a trapezoid flask combined with a leather pouch (most certainly not for balls but for cleaning tools that could be screwed to the threaded iron finial (German: eiserner Setzerkopf mit Innengewinde) of the ramrod - the ramrod on your arquebus is not fitted with such a finial, I realize, as it was missing from the original gun that Armin copied):
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...rapezoid+flask

Tomorrow, I will take good images of small and round ca. 1560 Nuremberg flask in my collection, the obverse also with a nailed-on leather pouch much too delicate to hold balls.

Generally spoken, the mechanism on such early flasks was nearly identical to that on later 16th c. samples.


Best,
Michael

[Martin Moser]

Hi Michael,

excellent! Many thanks for your efforts, this is very kind indeed. I will talk to a friend of mine who does wood turning to look into a circular flask. I will definitely also do a small trapezoid one. Need to finish some shoes first, though :-)

Best,
Martin

[Matchlock]

Hi Martin,


I found the perfect flask to go with your snap-tinderlock arquebus; it is part of an arquebusier's bandelier, early to mid-16th c., in the reserve collection of the Historisches Museum Basel.
On the same bandelier, together with six small tinned-iron and leather covered powder measures, is a contemporary wooden flask, the leather tooled with the city arms of Basel, an episcopal staff. This is the earliest type of trapezoid flask I have ever seen, with very straight sides, just like the High Gothic quivers for crossbow bolts!

The more curved the sides are the later is the flask but this of course is relative: the earliest trapezoid flasks seem to have appeared in the 1520's (we see them on Heller's painting of the Battle of Pavia 1525), and again on Melchior Feselen's Battle of Alesia, 1533, when they still had straight sides; then the curving became more notable and soon reached its climax, as did the contemporary buttstocks of the Nuremberg muskets (dated samples of 1567 and 1568 in the Landeszeughaus Graz, Austria). So there was no real stylistic development to trapezoid flasks after ca. 1570-80, and as I said, their production generally seems to have ceased by the end of the 16th century.

My rough-and ready rule for dating a trapezoid flask has always been to look at the curving of the buttstock of a contemporary arquebus or musket because the gun and flask followed the same stylistic principles and had to match in style.

I attached some early 16th c. artwork depicting both powder and water flasks, and a finely crafted drinking flask in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (GNM) Nuremberg, the leather carved with Late Gothic foliage.

As you will see, what all these Early Renaissance flasks had in common was the small stand at the base, and so does the flask in Basel.

Please see also
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18294


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

Here is another very early trapezoid flask, North Italian, ca. 1520-40, with a characteristically Italian dosing device (a horizontal cutoff) to the nozzle, a stage of development that is missing on the Basel flasks, the leather tooled in the Italian manner, and both sides completely straight, with no curving.
Imperial Castle Nuremberg, author's photos.

Bottom attachment: this the shape of a typical High Gothic quiver for quarrels/crossbow bolts; its basic form with the straight sides - and the later, concavely curved types - strongly influenced the earliest trapezoid powder flasks and, for the complete short span of time of their production, which was only from ca. 1550-1590, the rare patrons for paper cartridges:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...per+cartridges

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...per+cartridges

First quiver: Bavarian Army Museum Ingolstadt, the second in a private collection.
Author's photgraphs.


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