A Bronze/Brass Haquebut Barrel, ca. 1525
 

In the Heidecksburg museum Rudolstadt, Thuringia, the former arnory of the Princes of Schwarzburg.

The barrel cast in two stages, with integral back and fore sights; the original swiveling pan cover missing; two loops (and the hook pierced) for the missing stock.

Please note that the original stock would usually not have included the long accentuated muzzle section (Mündungskopf). Attached is an illustration from the earliest of the Maximilian armory inventories, by Bartholomäus Freysleben, cod. icon. 222, 1495-1500, fol. 72r, showing all reinforced muzzle sections left unstocked. Again, the barrels of these wall guns are notably referred to as messing (brass), not bronze.

As the Heidecksburg barrel can be dated to the third decade of the 16th c., its accentuated muzzle section is notably longer than the short and swamped muzzles of ca. 1500. The muzzle plane is slightly convex forming another dating criterion of barrels of the 1520's to ca. 1540.

Author's photos, 2000.


m