A highly important tiller gun from the Montjuic castle 1430s

Marcus den toom · 10th October 2014, 10:01 AM

My latest acquisition is this tiller gun which has its origin in the Northern regions of Spain, from the Montjuic castle to be precise. It is part of a series of tiller guns, one of them in the Michael Trömner collection. When researching this type of tiller guns I noticed that on the gun in Michl’s collection there is a sentence which is later inscribed. (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=montjuic In post 42). The later added words are not completely visible but they reveal the words Castillo de Bernat de “…..” and Barcelona Spain. I believe, after some intense searching and translating I can fill in the blank. It think it should read Castillo de Bernat de Cabrera. Cabrera is a little island near Mallorca and it is part of the Kingdom of Spain.
When searching for Castillo de Bernat I found this Spanish Wikipedia article on the Bernat family. As far as I understand it this family has lived in the castle of Montsoriu on Cabrera (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Montsoriu). The first family member (Bernat Desclot ) was also the Royal chronicler for the king of Spain in 1285. Accused by Queen Eleanor of Sicily, Bernat II (son of Bernat Desclot), was beheaded in Zaragoza in 1364, his son Bernat III took up arms against Pedro IV, the fight lasted until the death of the Viscount and it was his son Bernat IV de Cabrera, who signed an according to Pedro IV in 1372 and later in 1381 a second, to recover the possessions of the family.
In the fifteenth century the family falls into ruins but the name stick for ever to those guns.
My theory is that they were later on transferred to the castle of Montjuic, which was constructed only in 1640.

The tiller gun in my collection is the only known sample of this series to retrain its original Spanish oaken haft. It has a total length of 178,5 cm of which 104 cm is within the haft. The barrel itself measures 56,5cm and has a bore of approximately 20mm with the muzzle swamped to 27mm.
It is an impressive gun to hold, but also very heavy and long. In contemporary illustrations we can see that the gun was held with one hand (the left) and the ignition iron within the other hand, the haft was resting between the right armpit or on top of the right shoulder (see illustrations to follow in next posts). Even with my length of 1,93cm I struggled to get this gun under control. The Spanish people of that time were smaller than me so I wonder how they did fire this gun. Most probably the haft was sticking out behind the soldier for quit a large amount. There are even instances kknown where the gun was held by one person with two hands and a second person would handle the ignition iron.
Also an interesting thing to note on this gun is the socket with what appears to be fabric stuck between the seams. This was probably done to ensure a tight fit for the haft with the iron socket. The haft is around 45mm thick at the socket making this one sturdy gun.

Related threads:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=montjuic
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=montjuic
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15381
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ght=touch+hole

Special thanks to Michael Trömner for his help by correctly identifying this rare tiller gun.

10th October 2014, 10:01 AM	#1
Marcus den toom Member Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Netherlands Posts: 494	A highly important tiller gun from the Montjuic castle 1430s My latest acquisition is this tiller gun which has its origin in the Northern regions of Spain, from the Montjuic castle to be precise. It is part of a series of tiller guns, one of them in the Michael Trömner collection. When researching this type of tiller guns I noticed that on the gun in Michl’s collection there is a sentence which is later inscribed. (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=montjuic In post 42). The later added words are not completely visible but they reveal the words Castillo de Bernat de “…..” and Barcelona Spain. I believe, after some intense searching and translating I can fill in the blank. It think it should read Castillo de Bernat de Cabrera. Cabrera is a little island near Mallorca and it is part of the Kingdom of Spain. When searching for Castillo de Bernat I found this Spanish Wikipedia article on the Bernat family. As far as I understand it this family has lived in the castle of Montsoriu on Cabrera (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Montsoriu). The first family member (Bernat Desclot ) was also the Royal chronicler for the king of Spain in 1285. Accused by Queen Eleanor of Sicily, Bernat II (son of Bernat Desclot), was beheaded in Zaragoza in 1364, his son Bernat III took up arms against Pedro IV, the fight lasted until the death of the Viscount and it was his son Bernat IV de Cabrera, who signed an according to Pedro IV in 1372 and later in 1381 a second, to recover the possessions of the family. In the fifteenth century the family falls into ruins but the name stick for ever to those guns. My theory is that they were later on transferred to the castle of Montjuic, which was constructed only in 1640. The tiller gun in my collection is the only known sample of this series to retrain its original Spanish oaken haft. It has a total length of 178,5 cm of which 104 cm is within the haft. The barrel itself measures 56,5cm and has a bore of approximately 20mm with the muzzle swamped to 27mm. It is an impressive gun to hold, but also very heavy and long. In contemporary illustrations we can see that the gun was held with one hand (the left) and the ignition iron within the other hand, the haft was resting between the right armpit or on top of the right shoulder (see illustrations to follow in next posts). Even with my length of 1,93cm I struggled to get this gun under control. The Spanish people of that time were smaller than me so I wonder how they did fire this gun. Most probably the haft was sticking out behind the soldier for quit a large amount. There are even instances kknown where the gun was held by one person with two hands and a second person would handle the ignition iron. Also an interesting thing to note on this gun is the socket with what appears to be fabric stuck between the seams. This was probably done to ensure a tight fit for the haft with the iron socket. The haft is around 45mm thick at the socket making this one sturdy gun. Related threads: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=montjuic http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=montjuic http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15381 http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ght=touch+hole Special thanks to Michael Trömner for his help by correctly identifying this rare tiller gun. Last edited by Marcus den toom; 10th October 2014 at 03:38 PM.