Ethnographic Arms & Armour
 

Go Back   Ethnographic Arms & Armour > Discussion Forums > European Armoury
FAQ Calendar Today's Posts Search

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 26th September 2012, 08:10 PM   #1
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default 14th-15th c.: How Powder and Ball etc. Were Kept Before Powder Flasks Appeared

As both additional and preliminary notes to my thread on earliest trapezoid powder flasks of the 16th c.,

I would like to post the few earliest sources of period artwork depicting vessels like bags, belt pouches, ammunition chests (Zeugtruhen) and late 15th-early 16th c. powder horns.
Again, this is a subject nobody has cared to do research in so far.

The earliest known dated illustrated sources seems to be as late as the 1480's. Unfortunately, we do not know how arquebusiers carried their ammunition on them for about 100 years before. They must have used some kind of leather bags or pouches though which must have been logically equiped with compartments for powder, balls and wadding - plus some early sort of powder measure for one round.
By the early 16th c., depictions of powder horns, bandoliers and flasks have become quite frequent; such small accouterments did not seem important enough to illustrate during the 14th and 15th centuries although they must have been in use.
Remember: clothes did not have pockets before ca. 1600!

The earliest devices to go and carry ammunition and small accouterments, such as wadding or cleaning tools, seem to have been leather bags and pouches, either worn on the belt or around the shoulder. Early-16th c. arquebusiers are also frequently shown to carry leather 'purses' which actually were belt bags and contained a lot of small compartments, accomplishing manifold purposes and helping the soldier carry all those little things of importance - including ammuntion and tools for his arquebus. In many cases, an additional powder horn and shoulder bandolier with powder measures for each round can be identified.

Powder horns
are recorded from the 1480's to the 1530's when flasks - either wooden and trapezoid or wooden and round, as well as of staghorn (antlers) - seem to have taken over.


Interesting enough, powder horns saw a late 18th c. revival as scrimshaw horns in the U.S. colonies.



Attachments, from top to bottom, showing excerpts from
- the Swiss Berne Chronicle, 1483, by Diebold Schilling
- the Lower Bavarian Landshut Armory Inventory (Zeughausinventar), 1485, by Ullrich Beßnitzer (small wooden powder measures, the predecessors of bandoliers!)
- the Tyrolean Maximilian Armory Inventories (Maximilianische Zeugbücher), 1495-1515
- Hans Schäufelein, The Triumphal Procession of the Emperor Maximlian I, ca. 1513
- a North German watercolor of ca. 1515-20, in the Museum of the Fürstentum Lüneburg
- the Löffelholz ms, Nuremberg, ca. 1525-30, depicting a shooting range with an ammunition chest and powder measures and - in color - all the many arquebusier's accouterments!
- the Battle of Pavia, 1525, in a painting by Ruprecht Heller in the National Museum Stockholm, and a series of Brussels tapestries in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
- The Battle of Alesia, Bavaria, 1533, by Melchior Feselen
- Nuremberg Landsknecht woodcuts of the 1530's
- a Swiss Landsknecht watercolor by Johann v. Schwarzenberg, 1530's-40, Kantonsbil. Appenzell, CM ms. 13, 54r




Best,
Michael
Attached Images
            

Last edited by Matchlock; 26th September 2012 at 11:58 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 26th September 2012, 09:49 PM   #2
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

The remaining attachments.
Attached Images
            

Last edited by Matchlock; 26th September 2012 at 10:27 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 26th September 2012, 10:30 PM   #3
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

And the rest, including

- a stone sculpture of an arquebusier and his horn, ca. 1490-1500, in the cathedral in Chartreuse, France

- and a painting of the Resurrection, from the Herscheider Altar, ca. 1510, in Burg Altena, depicting an arquebusier with his leather belt bag, small round priming flask worn on the chest, and powder horn


m
Attached Images
        

Last edited by Matchlock; 27th September 2012 at 02:46 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27th September 2012, 12:16 AM   #4
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default The First Cartridges!

I addition to the attachments from the shooting rage of ca. 1520-30 posted above, depicted in the Löffelholz manuscript, I wish to point out some details.

The first close-up attached shows an arquebusier's ammunition chest containing a couple of loads (Ladungen) explictly labeled as comprising powder and ball in the description (!), spare powder in the drawer on the left, and balls assorted at the bottom.
This makes this tiny bottled load (illustrated not to scale because it was important for the Late-medieval artist!) the ancestor of paper cartridges which are recorded by at least the midldle of the 16th c.
Illustrated on the right is a powder bucket, and a funnel for fiilling the powder below.

Another close-up of such a bottled load is attached.


m
Attached Images
   

Last edited by Matchlock; 27th September 2012 at 12:32 AM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27th September 2012, 12:57 AM   #5
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

For more information, please refer to my related threads and posts:



http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...est+bandoliers

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...s+powder+flask

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...d+flask+munich

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...s+powder+flask

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...s+powder+flask

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...artridge+boxes



m

Last edited by Matchlock; 27th September 2012 at 03:08 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th September 2012, 02:06 PM   #6
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

In the Museo d'Arti Applicate (Museum of Applied Arts), Milan, there is a highly interesting and small, beveled container of thin, embossed and blued/browned iron, the top fitted with a hinged lid, the sides fitted with four loops for suspension.
It is dated 18th c. by the museum and believed to have been used for grenades.
Its measurements are 19 x 18 x 11 cm, at a weight of 60 grams.

Stylistic comparisons clearly denote that the riveted petaled decoration on the lid is characteristic of the Late-Gothic period, 15th c., corresponding to the decoration on a huge number of wooden caskets and chests, mostly West or North German or French.


In my eyes, this little portable container was most probably meant to carry the ammunition of an arquebusier: a forerunner of mid-16th c. cartridge boxes.



Best,
m
Attached Images
      

Last edited by Matchlock; 28th September 2012 at 08:23 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th September 2012, 04:45 PM   #7
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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
Attached Images
   
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th September 2012, 05:18 PM   #8
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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
Attached Images
  

Last edited by Matchlock; 28th September 2012 at 06:30 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29th September 2012, 12:10 AM   #9
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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
Attached Images
       
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 8th December 2013, 02:35 PM   #10
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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
Attached Images
   
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 8th December 2013, 03:38 PM   #11
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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
Attached Images
   
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th March 2014, 01:48 PM   #12
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19th March 2014, 11:58 AM   #13
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

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
Attached Images
    

Last edited by Matchlock; 19th March 2014 at 02:16 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 22nd March 2014, 05:28 PM   #14
Martin Moser
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Near Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Posts: 12
Default

Hi Michael,

a very nice purse indeed (and of course as I am especially interested in all things leather)!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matchlock
... in a period before ca. 1600 when pockets in garments had not been invented!
While you are certainly right for the most part, for the record there actually is a leather jerkin found in the wreck of the ship Mary Rose (sank 1545) that has a single pocket on the inside of the jerkin's left flap (Julie Gardiner: Before the Mast: Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose (The Archaeology of the Mary Rose). p39).

Best,
Martin
Martin Moser is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 22nd March 2014, 05:48 PM   #15
Matchlock
(deceased)
 
Matchlock's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
Default

Hi Martin,

Alright, a jerkin made for a certain soldier and for a special purpose may be the proverbial exception that proves the rule.

m

Last edited by Matchlock; 22nd March 2014 at 06:10 PM.
Matchlock is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12th June 2017, 12:48 PM   #16
Spiridonov
Member
 
Spiridonov's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Russia, Leningrad
Posts: 355
Default

Medieval german Containers for medicines looks like powder measures from Landshut Armory Inventory (Zeughausinventar) 1485
Attached Images
 
Spiridonov is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:39 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Posts are regarded as being copyrighted by their authors and the act of posting material is deemed to be a granting of an irrevocable nonexclusive license for display here.