Matchlock Petronels, Germany, ca. 1550-1600

[Matchlock]

After introducing the earliest forms of petronels from the 1550's to ca. 1570, I feel it is time to proceed to the latter types of ca. 1580-90. In some cases, petronels seem to have been built - or at least restocked - in around 1600. By the turn of the 16th to the 17th century though, they vanished, and in the armories as well as on the fields of war, the Spanish/Netherlandish buttstock with its characteristic triangularly flared, 'fishtail' form had taken over, both on the long and heavy large-bore muskets (overall length ca. 1.56 to 1.72 m!, bore ca. 18-20 mm, weight ca. 8-10 kg) as on the light, short and smallbore calivers (overall length ca. 1.30 m, bore ca. 14-16 mm, weight ca. 4-5 kg). The earliest types of that 'classic' type of widely flared musket buttstock seem to have originated in around 1560. The oldest known dated samples are a group of muskets in the Landszeughaus Graz, Styria, Austria, that were ordered from Nuremberg workshops, and two of them are dated 1567 and 1568 respectively on the barrels (top attachments). The preferred wood for stocks of military long guns from now on, and way through the 19th century, was common beech.

The first illustrative source of short arqubuses with flat and downcurved butts was Heller's painting of 1529, which marked the fist prestage of 'petronel' long guns. Scenes from it are attached at the beginning of this thread. Fully developed and notably longer, 'real' petronels were first illustrated in the late 1550's, as firearms of the Landsknechte (mercenaries). Also, an illustration by Franz Brun, in the Kriegsbuch (book on war) by Reinhard Graf von Solms, printed in 1559, depicts a very skilled Doppelsöldner-Landsknecht (a mercenary who had mastery in fighting with the sword and the gun, and therefore got double pay) carrying a decorated petronel, the stock obviously painted or inlaid profusely with arabesques and foliage (top attachment). This is, at the same time, the oldest illustration after 1529 to show a triangular powder flask.

From around 1560 and 1566, we know illustrations by Jost Amman, showing welldressed mercenaries with long matchlock petronels, a length of thick and early (!) matchcord wound around the forestock, and a staghorn powder flask attached to the belt at the back.
The form of the locks, with triangular finials, exactly corresponds to those on the Graz group of petronels from 1568 to ca. 1570 (lots of photos attached previously in this thread).

Many author's photos of petronels of the 1570's are subsequently attached in this and the following posts:

- two specimens in the Schweizerisches Jagdmuseum Schloss Landshut near Bern, Switzerland; the first ca. 1560's.
The second probably of Suhl/Thuringia make, ca. 1590-1600[/B] , one of the latest samples ever; the lock plate with raised central section, pretending to be a more valuable wheellock mechanism at a cursory glance; the rear end of the buttstock incomplete.

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