Wallachian Swords of the 15th Century: What Types?

[Emanuel]

Here we go, some pics from 15th and turn of 16th century...from the top:

- 15th century flail and crossbow from Sibiu
- Cavalry of Mihai the Brave
- Mid-16th century war hammer and early 16th century mace
- Fresco from the walls of Sucevita monastery church, end-15th century - this one's interesting...cavalry in maille armed with lances, pikemen with polearms, swords seem to be straight, can't tell too well. The armor looks Turkish though, doesn't it?
The inscription at the top is romanian in church slavonic, if cyrillic readers can transliterate, i can read what it says.
- The sword of Stefan the Great, now in the Topkapi.
- Courtier and archer from the time of Alexander the Good (1400-1432). Moldovan prince, but relevant nonetheless.

[TVV]

Gonzalo, no problems. There was nothing wrong about your note, and Vasary is one of the best accepted authors on the subject of Eastern Nomads and their influence on the Balkans in the 12th to 15th centuries.

But we should get back on topic. Manuel, I am afraid the inscription is not in Romanian, but in a Slavic language which is quite similar to Russian. I can only read the last part, which says "and with charriots". I also think I can see the name "Israel" there as well, and I suspect the crowned figure says Pharaoh. Of course, Romanian was influenced by Slavic languages, so the inscription might be in Romanian, though I doubt it. I suspect the fresco represents a scene from the Exodus.

It is interesting that the charriots look similar to wagenburgs, which as we know were used by the Bohemians in the army of Vladislav III of Poland at Varna in 1444. It illustrates how artists painted what they were familiar with themselves, and so this fresco is probably a good presentation of armament and costume from the times.

After staring at the fresco, I can see a lot of maces and hammers, but the only sword I see is found on a foot soldiers behind the Pharaoh, and it looks curved.

Thank you for sharing these pictures, Emanuel.

Regards,
Teodor

[Emanuel]

Thanks Teodor,

Sucevita is in Romanian Moldova, where Russian influence was strong. I assumed it was still Romanian because at the time the liturgy used the Cyrillic alphabet and Slavonic. I've also seen Romanian written in cyrillic.

I have a number of other devotional paintings with scenes from the lives of saints which also depict characters in what seems like period clothes. Perhaps I'll scan those as well.

I've looked closer at the fresco and you're right about the lack of swords. To me it looked like the soldiers on the bottom left carried swords, but I can see axe-heads and maces now.

All the best,
Emanuel

[Samik]

Hi gents ,
wow a pretty interesting discussion we have here
Im gonna add some points to your contributions.
Just like Teodor and Gonzalo (great posts by the way guys I am learing a lot from you here, as always) I have to mention Vasary’s book, that is a "must-have" when one is interested in the history of those medieval nomadic people that inhabited parts of europe.

Emanuel thanks for your exhaustive reply. The splendid picture labelled " Ein Reuter aufs der Walachi" looks very , very (almost exactly) like the "Rac"serb-hussars from the Orsa painting http://www.myarmoury.com/images/feat...c_hussar01.jpg , note the "winged" shield , which Turks called "Rumelian" and westerners "Hungarian" (IIRC, the shields are also represented in Ottoman/German art. Fechtbucher "gladiatora" shows two fencers armed with it , but in a smaller "target-like" scale. The turkish miniature painting of Mohacs Battle also shows Hungarian troops/cavalry armed with such shields as well).

As for the other painting (the fresco) , could you determine the author of the piece? I suspect that because of the "cyrilics" it might have been inspired by similar pieces from Muscovy (or the other southern Russian principalities, not sure which one bordered with Romanian Moldova) and Russians were quite fond of wearing Conical helmets , which were by no means only reserved to Turks (AFAIK , central asian "steepe" nomads, such as the various tatar khaganates ; Mamluks and Byzantine troops wore them as well)... anyway just speculating. If you have more scans of some such frescoes please do post them , I would be very interested in seeing them.

Going back to the overall picture, until recently I was somewhat unaware of the military structure of the medieval Balkans. I have always assumed that the military technology/tactics were very similar and somewhat mirrored the armamament and tactics of the "Latins". As it turned out I was (very) wrong. What suprised me was Heath’s osprey book on the Byzantine later period (that covers 13-14 and 15. century). Not only were the "native" Balkan people (of non-nomadic stock) armed in a similar fashion to nomads (composite bow, both sabres and straight swords , lances, shields of various designs etc.) but served for the emperor in units in which they were grouped together with nomads themselves. Whats even more interesting is that the further "subjugation" of Balkans by Ottomans seemed to be so "smooth" because of the fact that the Byzantine military style of troop commanding was very similar to that of Ottoman (parralles can be seen for example in etymology: "ottoman voynuks" - "balkan slavic vojniks" , or "byzantine greek Allagator" - "Turkish Lagator" etc.) AFAIK, The partial "latinization" and western men-at-arms seemed to have been more present in the western parts of balkans (like serbia , that according to Heath responded to Ottoman threat by fielding italian style arms and equipment.) The "Saxons" in Wallachia are an exception indeed. I dont remember however reading much about Saxon cavalry, or men-at-arms.
A query at the end: was the sword of Stephen the Great produced by local (moldovian) blacksmiths or was it a saxon/hungarian import?

Cheers,
Samuel


Edit: A note on the topic of similarity betwen Serbs and Vlachs that I have (somewhat) touched upon earlier. A splendid article (sadly) written in Czech http://www.livinghistory.cz/node/28 , that muses about the wagenburg tactics also mentions a piece of writing from late 15th century Order of Vlčkov : „A což byste Rácuov jměli a Vlachuov, té zběři, ješto by se k šikování nehodili, ty pusťte všecky na harc a jednomu poručte rozumnému, aby jimi potiskal nepřátel…“

It is written in old Bohemian and says something in the lines of avoiding in giving a free hand in command of the hired Vlach and Rác (Serbian) horsemen (presumably to counter the turks) because of their behaviour (they are literally named "zběř" , similar to modern Czech "sběř" which means rabble/riffraff; which is hardly suprising as light cavalry was always accussed for lack of morals) and instead to hire someone "reasonable" to command them instead (presumably a countryman I guess). As you can see the passage pretty much treats them as a similar/same style of unit (which mayhap points to the common Balkan/Byzantine military heritage).

[Emanuel]

Hi Samuel,

The shield did bring images of hussars to mind. They certainly look graceful. There is no info on Stefan's sword, AFAIK. Being a princely sword, we can assume a high quality smith and craftsman. Whether from a local or foreign production centre, who knows A stylistic study of the pommel and its incription might however identify whether it was produced in Moldova or elsewhere. I've ordered a book on the crafts and manufactures of Valahia and Moldova in the middle ages. It's in Romanian, but I will translate and post any relevant bits.

It's also impossible to determine the painters of the frescos, but the style is associated with "Ioan the Painter" and his brother "Sofronie from Suceava". The monastery was built in 1581 by Gheorghe Movila. The fresco need not have basis on Russian exampla...rather both Russian and Vlach/Moldovan styles are heavily influenced by Byzantine ones.

Slavonic was adopted as the liturgical language upon the conversion of Vlachs to Orthodox Christianity. It was used in most church writings, often along concurrently with Latin. Due to proximity, I imagine it was used more frequently in Moldova.

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium's entry on Vlachs mentions their presence on Byzantine territory. They subsist on goat and sheep herding, and as mercenaries. The herding aspect, at least, is still part of Romanian mythos and identity. The shepherd in the mountains, armed with axe and staff.
Apparently there is uncertainty on whether the reference "Blachoi" (the v and b are interchangeable) refers specifically to Vlachs, or Bulgarians, who shared characteristics and lived in the same area. This attests to the further ethnic mixing that happened in that time. One point of particualr interest to me is the latinization of Dacians/Vlachs. There is no answer to the debate on whether Dacians were latinized by the (very limited) Roman occupation, or during their temporary migration south of the Dabune into Byzantine territory, or even whether they already spoke a form of vulgate latin before Roman conquest. Somehow the latin persisted to the present day despite massive bastardization with slavic, turkish, greek, hungarian, german and french

To get back to the topic at hand though - 15th century Vlach swords - I will scan more paintings tonight.

All the best,
Emanuel

[Matchlock]

- 15th century flail and crossbow from Sibiu


Hi Emanuel,

Could you please give the full bibliographic data of the book that you got that picture from?

Thank you in advance,
Michael

[Emanuel]

Hi Michael,

My apologies for the late response, I havn't been very active on the forum and I didn't see your post.
The source of the images is a small picture book called "Mileniul Romanesc, 1000 de Ani de Istorie in Imagini, Editura Litera, 2004". This is not a historical book and I'm weary of its accuracy. It doesn't contain much information.

Regards,
Emanuel

[Lucian]

Hi to all of you,
it looks like now we are two Romanians on this.
I have seen that you had a lot of comments and also shared a lot of information.
History it is one of my hobbies for the last 25 years.
I just want to make a few points here.
The Cumans (especially the Black Cumans) were having some impact in Wallachia. Negru Voda (Negru means Black and voda is a shorter form of the voievod), one of the first known rullers in Wallachia is coming from the area of the Fagaras which it is a known area where many Black Cuman settled and as you can see in the map, some villages still keep some interesting names like Comanestii and Voievodenii.

The Cuman contribution to the establishment of the Wallachian state it is a topic extremely debated between the historians even today (during the communism era it was a taboo subject). In the battle of Posada between Basarab's Wallachian army and Charles's Hungarian army appear a ... recurved bow or Tartars bow as it is known in Wallachia. Also the Byzantine chronicler Laonic Chalcocondyl is mentioning that the shields of the Valachians were similar to the shields of Tartars.

Also, regarding the armors used in Wallachia. I think we can say it was a mix, but Wallachia and Moldavia were excellent customers for the ringmails sold by Venice (Italy). Mircea the Old it is known that he inherited an army of 10000 knights in ringmails made in Venice. Those knights were also mentioned during a jousting in Buda 1412. Two things to be highlighted here:
1) The size of the professional army is huge compared with the size of the country.
2) We are talking about knights here, which means a specific and very expensive warrior of the Middle Age. Something it is not right here with image of the peasants army!
As you probably have seen already, in Romania the best place to see something like armors is only on the gravestones or churches frescoes.
For Mircea the Old era (XIV century) weaponry, we must check the church made in his day, the church of the Cozia Monastery, where we can see the ringmails and a lot of spades.





Regarding the passivity and the peace loving Wallachians/Moldavians that would be correct if we refer to it starting only with 1711 in Moldavia and 1716 in Wallachia when are imposed leaders of foreign nationality (Greeks) named Fanariot. Their first action was to make a law forbidding the weapons for all people. Till than the situation was totally different because both voievodes in Moldavia and Wallachia were known for asking that all people (at least the free ones, so forget about Gypsy warriors because they were slaves) to have weapons.
Stephen the Great provided a list of equipment what the people should have when are called under arms (Polish chronicler: saber, bow and arrows) and Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) had impaled (what would you expect?) one of his soldiers because of the poor status of his shield and sword.
A good idea of the sword type used by Wallachians it is given by the old names for some administrative functions and by ... Polish chroniclers.
Mare Spatar (Grand Spade Bearer) : majority of Romanians do not know today but "spata" is the archaic form of "spada" = spade (in german would be spatha). So the nobility was using spades (remember the frescoes from Cozia).
Unfortunately not too many people can speak Romanian because this study could be interesting regarding the evolution of the weapons name during the centuries.
Later, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29788274/P...cu-Elena-Roman LINK
And finally, in the following link you may see some of the Moldavian weapons used during the Stephen the Great. Also a sabre from the XVth century in Fig3 unearthed near Suceava.
LINK

[Jim McDougall]

Excellent post Lucian!!! and welcome to the forum!!!
Its great to have another here from Romania, as this history is both complex and incredibly fascinating, and your insight is most valuable. Beautiful illustrations also, thank you for posting them.

All the very best,
Jim

[Samik]

Great post Lucian and thank you very much for the splendid info!

Those beautiful frescoes are very similar (I dare to say almost identical) to those found in Kosovo and other places of former Yugoslavia. It appears Serbs similarly (as well as other adjacent ethnicities) to Wallachians used a mix of western and eastern military equipment. For example you'll find a military saint depicted with classic heater shield , lance and a sword on one hand but also a composite bow with a Kipcak/Cuman style quiver as well (in which the arrows are pointed arrowheads up):



Monastery Decani, Kosovo 1330-1350



Church of Saint Kliment , Macedonia cca. 1295

Sabres of both the classic steppe style (riveted hilts and small pommel caps) as well as "paramerions" (essentially weapons with sword hilts and curved blades) are present as well (furthermore Maces are common secondary weapon depicted, instead of the more western European war-hammers).
There are two great websites that host a big number of photographs of the aforementioned "Yugoslav" frescoes
http://www.srpskoblago.org/Archives/ and
http://sankire.narod.ru/Balkani.html

I have looked through most of the wall-paintings on the Srpsko Blago website so if anyone's interested I can point-out the relevant ones (with respect to arms and armour).

Lucian in case you have some more info on the arms and armour from Wallachia/Moldavia etc. feel free to post it , id be very interested myself. It seems there were many similarities between the various south-eastern principalities and kingdoms.

Kind Regards,
Samuel

[TVV]

It is debatable whether the warriors on the frescoes are Serb or Greek or Bulgarian. In fact, at 1295, Macedonia was not part of the Serbian Kingdom.

Given the common state entity and close ties between Walalchians, Bulgarians and Cumans in the 12-13th centuries, it is not surprising that the arms and armor were shared as well.

When looking at frescoes, we also have to remember that the equipment depicted is also based on church cannons and on the artist's own images of how a warrior should look like. Some of the equipment may have been copied down from earlier frescoes, so pictorial evidence alone cannot be completely relied upon, and has to be examiend combined with archaeological finds, written sources, etc.

Regards,
Teodor

[Lucian]

Actually a lot of very old churches, but especially the Cozia's church frescoes, are in the Serbian style. Mircea the Old had many relations and alliances with the Serbians. The style we can name it Serbian but I think it would be more correct to name it Byzantine.
Talking about Kossovo, Mircea the Old provided some troops (around 3000 soldiers it is mentioned in several recent articles an even in some history books but I found nothing from that era and I have no idea if were infantry, archers or light cavalry) for the Battle from Kossovo Polje in 1389. I suppose were light cavalry because were supposed to move really fast for a long trip.
In that battle were so many nations that I am almost not surprised about the outcome whom everybody said that is their victory. I am even amazed that they made a cohesion between so many groups.
Coming back to the Wallachian and especially the Moldavian swords, I found an interesting work related to the representation of Saint George on stove tiles from the fourteenth century and also an interesting conclusion:
"One can also note the character of weapons depicted. Sabers appear on
the tiles with St. George mostly in Wallachia (9), while there are only 2 from
Moldavia and 1 in Transylvania. Unlike the sword, the sabre was hardly known
in the medieval west. It was a more oriental type of weapon, re-introduced in
South-Eastern Europe during the fifteenth century due to the conflicts with the Turks. This indicates that in Wallachia such oriental weapons were much more familiar in those times than in Moldavia or Transylvania." The study is at this LINK .

[Reventlov]

New thread continues here.

[Teisani]

Two more swords from the "Muzeul Militar Naţional - Regele Ferdinand I" Bucharest.

[Teisani]

Ștefan (born 1584 - died 1602), Petru Șchiopul/Peter the Lame's son, mother Irina Botezata. He became Voivode/Prince of Moldova in february 1590 at the age of 5! Since he was so young, he ruled together with his father. He and his father stepped down from the throne in 1591. He then followed his parents into exile (Bozen, Tyrol), and after their deaths (Irina in 1592 and Peter the Lame in 1594) the Archduke of Tyrol appointed Ferdinand von Kuhbach as their guardian. Although his relatives tried to bring him back to Moldova, Emperor Rudolf II did not agree. Stefan was enrolled at the Jesuit College in Innsbruck, adopting the Catholic religion. Proclaimed of age in September 1600, he died two years later, most likely of tuberculosis. The portret resided at Ambras castle, Tyrol, Austria. It was lost however. http://galeriaportretelor.ro/item/st...etru-schiopul/

Note: Kid's got a nice sabre, typical Ottoman hilt.

[Teisani]

Two more portraits of Vasile Lupu of Moldova. One, posted previously, but managed to find a better one.

[Teisani]

Depictions of Wallachian Voivodes in church frescos often lack weapons. These of Mircea I "the Elder" and his son Mihail are exceptions to the rule. We see them wearing daggers, not to their sides, but more like a bollock dagger.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mircea_cel_Bătrân

[Teisani]

Zotu Tzigara / Ζώτος Τζιγαράς (died in 1599, Venice)
A greek from Ioannina, became spatar of Moldova, and son-in-law to Moldovan prince, Peter the Lame. Picture is an engraving from 1637 by. And a 1630 engraving by Antonio Bosio in a universal history written by Dorotei de Monembasia (manuscript kept by Zotu) and published by Apostol Tzigara (his brother).

Secolul al XVI-lea.
Cele mai vechi date despre strămoşii pe linie paternă, Tz.-S. le-a găsit în „sipetul cel îmblănit în piele de căprioară şi frumos ferecat”, păstrat cu sfinţenie de tatăl său, alături de portretul şi sigiliul lui Zotu şi Cronica editată de Apostol.
Spătarul Zotu (Zota),de origine albaneză, avea porecla
Tzigara. La 37 de ani era mare spătar în Moldova, căsătorit
cu fiica voievodului Petru Schiopul. Avea doi fraţi: Apostol
şi Panoson. Spre sfârşitul vieţii este silit să emigreze şi
moare la Veneţia, la 12 aprilie 1599.
„Din mândrul portret al Spătarului Zotu - scrie Tz.-S. -
ţinând în dreapta spada rangului său, iar în stânga
pumnalul prins în cingătoare, am împrumutat stema lui, o
mână ţinând o spadă, - pe care am adaos-o în inima
armoariilor Samurcăşeşti, cu sprânceana şi samurul, de la
care se trage numele. Această stemă combinată alcătuieşte
ex-libris-ul meu şi e gravată pe placa de marmură de pe
locul veşnicei noastre odihne”. (Memorii, 1, p.21)
Apostol Tzigara tipăreşte pe la 1630 o istorie universală în
limba greacă, scrisă de mitropolitul Dorotei de Monembasia
şi al cărei manuscris fusese păstrat de Zotu. Apostol publică
în lucrare şi portretul lui Zotu, în jurul căruia apare scris în
limba greacă: „Icoana luminatului domn Zota Tzigara, din
Ianina, marele spătar şi ginerele serenisimului principe a
toată Moldovlachia, domnului Petru-Voievod”. Gravura îi
aparţine lui Antonio Bosio.

Typical looking boot-hilt sabre at his side. A better version can be found in the last link.
https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ζώτο...s_Tzigaras.JPG
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...svEq9XQPccq17S
https://sites.google.com/a/bcub.ro/b...iobibliografie