Seven Palm Musket

[Queequeg]

Thanks for the answers, gents. I appreciate having learned about this.

[katana]

Hi Fernando,
in Britain, the measurement you show(in your photo) would be a called a 'span' ......a 'palm' is equal to the width of 4 fingers...3 inches or so.

Regards David

[Matchlock]

Hi there,

I found these line drawings on entering palm measure at google.

It his, as has been suggested, most probably a length measure taken from a part of the human body. My palm, e.g., measures 9 cm in width.

As Willocks' The Religion is settled in 1565, the mentioning of seven-palm and nine-palm muskets should, in my opinion, refer to the overall length of the guns. Let me just point out as an aside that, as I have mentioned previously, the term musket seems to have arisen in mid-16th century. Most of the guns of that period which we have come to call (h)arquebuses nowadays had an average overall length of ca. 70-90 cm. A significant terminological difference between the shorter and the longer guns did not exist yet.

So, as a conclusion, the idea is quite convincing to me that seven to nine palm guns - no matter whether they were called arquebuses or muskets - would have been about 80 cm long.

Best wishes,
Michael

[fernando]

Gentlemen,
Let me completely disagree .
The Palm measurement has often varied through time, but allways within the range of 20 cms.
It would correspond, for one, to 1 1/3 of the Roman piede (foot) antico, which messured 294,5 mm, still in use in 1840.
The Wikipedia considers the Palm a mesurement to be taken with the hand fully stretched, measuring around 22 cms.
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmo
The Span ends up measuring about the same, as it corresponds to half Cubit, in which an (ancient Egiptian) Cubit goes from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
Apparently the (Egiptian) Cubit is the ancestor of the (Roman) Palm. No doubt that both corespond to the length between the tip of the little finger to the tip of the thumb.
I guess the term Palm is a bit confusing, specially in english, due to being identical to the 'hand palm'.
Is not so ambiguous in (Latin) portuguese as we say palmo for the measure and palma for the hand part.
I believe therefore that the muskets spotted by Tannhauser were indeed much larger than what Michael tends to consider, reason why they were worthy of note.
Also considering the ancient laws that established the legal length of swords, the Palm with 22 cms is the plausible measurement.
King Dom João III, for instance, in his ordination of 1539, defined as within the legal mark, 5 palms for the length of swords, from the pommel to the blade tip; this was about 1,100 mm. These laws were not so much obbeyed, by the way.
Here you will find a contemporaneous converting page, where you can see the measurement of a Portuguese, a Spanish and a Texan Palms.
http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_all.htm
You can also confirm in the page that the span measures about the same.
Fernando

[katana]

Hi Fernando ,
there are differing definitions.....


palm [1]
a traditional unit of distance equal to the width of a person's palm. The palm equals 4 digits or 1/6 cubit, which is about 3 inches or 7.5 centimeters. This unit was used very commonly in medieval and early modern Britain. Similar units, all equal to 1/4 the local "foot" unit, were used throughout northern Europe.
palm [2]
a traditional unit of distance equal to the length of a person's hand, from the wrist to the end of the middle finger. In the English system this unit is equal to 9 inches (22.86 centimeters) and is usually called a span. The confusion between the two palm units is ancient. In Roman times, the longer unit was known as the palmus major and the shorter one as the palmus minor. In the nineteenth century, the 3-inch version was more common in Britain and the 9-inch version was more common in the U.S., perhaps because some Americans were familiar with the comparable Spanish palmo (see below).
palm [3]
a name sometimes used in Dutch for the decimeter (10 centimeters, or about 3.937 inches).
palmo a traditional unit of distance in Spain and Portugal. The traditional Spanish palmo equals 9 pulgadas (see below) or 1/4 vara: this is about 20.9 centimeters in Spain and a little more than that in Spanish Latin America. In Texas, 1/4 vara comes to 8 1/3 inches (21.17 centimeters). Under the metric system in Spain, the palmo is an informal unit equal to 20 centimeters. The Portuguese palmo equals 0.1 braça or about 22.0 centimeters (8.66 inches). These units are based on the width of a person's outstretched hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, a definition identical to that of the English span.

All the best

[Matchlock]

Hi David,

Thank you for these differentiations.

I fully agree as your definitions nos. 1 and 3 would lead to a measure between ca. 7.5 and 10 cm which is exactly within the span I pleaded for because when multiplied by factors 7 or 9 respectively, it corresponds very closely to the average overall length of a mid 16th century wheel lock gun, may it be called either an arquebus, pistol, carbine or a long gun.


For an impression of proportions, attached please find scans of three mid 16th century wheel lock arquebuses, from top:

- dated 1541, overall length 90 cm, cal. 11 mm (Capodimonte Naples, inv.no. 3193)

- dated 1548, oa. length 95 cm, cal. 14 mm (Tojhusmuseet Copenhagen, inv.no. B 35)

- ca. 1550, oa. length 100 cm, ca. 11.5 mm (Mníchovo Hradiste, Czechia)


Best,
Michael

[katana]

Hi,
after a little more searching found some more info....


Marsigli (1732) Stato Militare dell Imperio Ottomono : Mid 16th C. muskets were `9 palms long' and had a range of 500 to 600 paces, according to reports during the Siege of Malta. Balbi said "we see
the Turkish arqubusers and their most excellent gunpowder shoots much further than ours and have much more penetration because they are longer and have better gunpowder.:
In 1680s…
Marsigli : "….The Turks relied on Christians for their firearms and that the firearm carried by the Turkish soldier is a much heavier musket than any other and takes a ball of 6,9, 12, 15, 25 drams; and
this is a matchlock. Another gun is very similar to the Spanish type but with a different mechanism… (Patella/miquelet lock). The third is the smallest and can be used in one hand is a pistol made like the
(Spanish-like) gun and takes bullets of 4,6,8 drams. The ottoman muskets were much too heavy to carry on campaign or to shoot without a rest, and the musketeer was forced to step back to
absorb the recoil."

In the book "Guns for the sultan: military power and the weapons industry in the Ottoman" ... By Gábor Ágoston there is a reference to barrel length and caliber ...all 16th - 17th Century.

matchlock 120cms 16mm
matchlock 150cms 16mm
matchlock 133cms 19mm

On that basis, once the length of the stock is added ....a 'palm' of 20cms would be 180cms on the '9 palm' (30cm stock ?) and around 140cms for the 7 palm.
Other references mention that the Ottoman muskets were longer than the Christian defenders' in the Siege of Malta ....but there are no measurements.

Regards David