Incendiary quarrels/arrows/crossbow bolts

[Matchlock]

The watercolors are from the 1485 Landshut/Bavaria armory inventory of which I posted some firearms illustrations in another thread.

Note that the arrows have only one point - as Stekemest wrote, a feature preferably characteristic of South German and Austrian quarrel heads. Thank you again, Peter.

The line drawings were done in the 19th century after the famous South German Hauslab manuscript dated 1442, now preserved in The Royal Armories, Leeds. The watercolors illustrating the making of incendiary arrows posted here earlier are from the same ms. Luckily, those two pages of that book were open on display when I took the photos in the Tower in 1990.

Note that the burning mass on two of the arrows is lit, with smoke curling up. The ankle that both crossbow men and harquebusiers are aiming denotes that the projectiles are planned to cross a town wall and set the wooden tiles of the houses on fire - together with ship sails the main purpose of incendiary projectiles.

Michael

[Matchlock]

Instead of attaching these, I twice enclosed the picture of the cut open fuse.

Next to the two big gray clay grenades there is the small cast iron hand grenade that I posted above.

There is an interesting story to the clay grenades. Hundreds of them were discovered in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt in May 1983 when a subterraneous garage was built. The grenades were found alongside the old town wall stored on boards covered with straw, all perfectly preserved in the clay ground - see b/w photos.

As they weigh about 4 kilos each I would not refer to them as hand grenades. Being kept ready and primed along the town wall rather indicates that they were lit and just dropped to explode among the besiegers.

Michael

[Matchlock]

More clay grenades of the Thirty Years War, all dug up in Ingolstadt.

I found these pictures on Ebay in November 2007; one image even shows the actual weight of a (comparatively small) grenade: 2,873 kilograms. Some of them were heavily damaged, probably due to the crude teeth of the dredgers.
The fuses are all gone and I doubt whether they had retained their 'fillings' ...

Michael

[Matchlock]

Mid 15th century.

They were analyzed and X-rayed a few years ago. The substances of the incendiary mass were found to be almost the same as in the Swiss arrows in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum Zurich (see my earlier post), with the exception that the outer layer of the Nuremberg arrows is made of tissue.

Mchael

[Matchlock]

Offered by an Italian auction house in June 2008.
Although the estimate was relatively low I think it failed to sell.

Michael

[Matchlock]

17th century, smaller and of much lighter weight than the ones dug up in Ingolstadt.


A huge iron throwing ball for a catapult above and a pair of mid 16th century miniature cannon below.

Michael

[Matchlock]

Back to incediary arrows:

Their making, from an Alamannic ow Swiss manuscript, ca. 1430.

m