Arms and Armor in the works of Albrecht Dürer

[shayde78]

"Bagpiper", 1514

Short sword on a Highlander's hip? I'm guessing bagpipes weren't limited to north of Hadrian's Wall.

[shayde78]

"Agony in the Garden", 1515
Reinterpretation of the scene, with a different sword depicted.

[shayde78]

"Landscape with Cannon", 1518
The cannon is decorated with the coat of arms of Nuremberg. It is believed to be the weapon that gave Emperor Maximillian I superior firepower over the Turks. It is not known if the Turk depicted is a prisoner or an ambassador. Durer used his own likeness as the head of the Turk.

[shayde78]

"Peasant and His Wife", 1519
We've seen this hilt before, also attributed to "peasants". Interesting that the artist's decision to use the same hilt design after so many years had passed. Habit of the artist, or does it speak to longevity of a peasant's style. If one values utility over fashion, there likely is little reason to change from a design that is working well enough.

[shayde78]

"Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg", 1523
Sword on the wall in the background

[shayde78]

"St. Bartholomew", 1523
The knife blade is interesting. Reminiscent of the blade held in a fist that serves as a maker's mark.

[shayde78]

"St. Simon", 1523
The instrument in his hand is a saw, rather than a weapon. Still, I included here because the hilt looks like something that, if we saw on a weapon, we might speculate, "could that be from a tool, rather than a sword?" Now we have an example of a saw handle for reference

[Philip]

Originally Posted by shayde78

"St. Bartholomew", 1523
The knife blade is interesting. Reminiscent of the blade held in a fist that serves as a maker's mark.

Reminds me of a mini-falchion blade. The profile is almost a spitting image of the one on p 224 of Stone's Glossary... which is identified as German, 15th cent. (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

[Victrix]

Originally Posted by shayde78

"Peasant and His Wife", 1519
We've seen this hilt before, also attributed to "peasants". Interesting that the artist's decision to use the same hilt design after so many years had passed. Habit of the artist, or does it speak to longevity of a peasant's style. If one values utility over fashion, there likely is little reason to change from a design that is working well enough.

To my mind the man is wearing a form of Messer (Germanic type of single edge knife) as Norman mentioned, which would be a smaller and shorter version of Langes/Grosses or Kriegs Messer. This was a form of Bauernwehr (farmer sidearm) which was popular across all classes at the time. The Messers did not have pommels but often had a ”beak” at the end of the hilt to prevent it from slipping out of the hand. Don’t know how old these Messers are but wouldn’t rule out origins from migration age like the scramaseax.

Now that Jim mentions it the pommel looks rather similar to the karabela. It’s commonly assumed that the karabela has Oriental/Ottoman origins but maybe the hilt form comes from the Langes Messer (Germanic).

[Victrix]

Originally Posted by shayde78

"Peasant and His Wife", 1519
We've seen this hilt before, also attributed to "peasants". Interesting that the artist's decision to use the same hilt design after so many years had passed. Habit of the artist, or does it speak to longevity of a peasant's style. If one values utility over fashion, there likely is little reason to change from a design that is working well enough.

Messers (German for knife) in different forms of Bauernwehr (farmer’s arms) are covered in this excellent post from 2012: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15053. It’s believed that the Langes/Grosses Messer grew out of the common farmer’s knife. They were presumably cheaper to produce and required less training to use than knightly swords. Apparently many Landsknechts were originally farmers. From memory there were distictions in terms of guilds in who was allowed to produce knives and who was allowed to produce and market swords.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by shayde78

"Landscape with Cannon", 1518
The cannon is decorated with the coat of arms of Nuremberg. It is believed to be the weapon that gave Emperor Maximillian I superior firepower over the Turks. It is not known if the Turk depicted is a prisoner or an ambassador. Durer used his own likeness as the head of the Turk.

There is a strong likelihood that the workshop also produced a very similar cannon for King Sigismund I of Poland, used by his joint Polish-Lithuanian forces in the battle of Orsza (Orsha) in Byelorussia, 1514, in which a Muscovite army was defeated. The battle, and the weapon, are memorialized in the gigantic oil painting "Battle of Orsha", now in the Muzeum Narodowe in Warsaw. The late arms and art historian Prof. Zdzislaw Zygulski wrote a magisterial article on this work of art, and discusses the cannon in relation to the one in Dürer's 1518 print, in "The Battle of Orsha" , in Robert Held (ed) Art, Arms, and Armour (1979), if you wish to explore the topic further.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by shayde78

"Bagpiper", 1514

Short sword on a Highlander's hip? I'm guessing bagpipes weren't limited to north of Hadrian's Wall.

Yes, you are spot on. The bagpipes, thought to be a legacy of the great Celtic migrations across Europe BCE, were a popular instrument, particularly among the common folk, across the Continent. In Germany they are known as the Düdelsack, in Italy, zampogna.

One of my most vivid memories of Spain was a trip, decades ago, to attend the Fiesta de Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, the northwest corner of the country which has been a Celtic cultural stronghold for centuries. Never conquered by the Romans nor the Moors... The gaita gallega is the traditional instrument there, mouth-blown like the Scots Highland piob-mor though somewhat smaller and with fewer drone pipes, played by bands marching through the streets with drums, around the Cathedral.

An interesting thing, archaeologically, is the discovery of numerous stone boars in that region and in northern Portugal -- worshiped by the pre-Christian Celt-Iberian inhabitants as symbols of courage, much as did the Celts who fought the Romans, blowing their war-trumpets made of bronze, fashioned with open tusked boars' mouths instead of a funnel shape.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Philip

... Yes, you are spot on. The bagpipes, thought to be a legacy of the great Celtic migrations across Europe BCE, were a popular instrument, particularly among the common folk, across the Continent...

Apparently now evidenced as being an earlier instrument, in all its variants, according to those who claim the "Celtic myth", after finding that bagpipes developed their own distinct path, as early as cited in Biblic texts (Prophet Daniel, circa 600 BC.).

Originally Posted by Philip

... In Germany they are known as the Düdelsack, in Italy, zampogna.

Not forgetting the Swedish säckpipa, for another ... also probably not so early.

Originally Posted by Philip

... of my most vivid memories of Spain was a trip, decades ago, to attend the Fiesta de Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, the northwest corner of the country which has been a Celtic cultural stronghold for centuries. Never conquered by the Romans nor the Moors... The gaita gallega is the traditional instrument there, mouth-blown like the Scots Highland piob-mor though somewhat smaller and with fewer drone pipes, played by bands marching through the streets with drums, around the Cathedral ...

As you unfortunately missed our gathering over here a few months ago, Filipe, you had no opportunity to check on "gaitas de foles" also playing in Portugal, some even in regions distant from Galician lands, these in slighly different variants .

[Jim McDougall]

In post #1, this Durer engraving depicts as titled, five landsknechts and an oriental.
The landsknechts were actually German mercenaries who used Swiss fighting methods and arms from the latter 15th century. The most discernible weapon is the 'halberd' poleaxe here.

It is curious why the 'oriental' person is included here, but it seems that Durer was profoundly influenced by Italian Renaissance art. Attached is a painting of Mehmed II by Bellini from 1480 (note the addition of the crowns in background reflecting the same conventions of these addendums in Durer's work).
Durer had traveled to Italy in 1494 just as the Italian wars were beginning and surely saw the forces involved assembled at places.

It seems that Renaissance artists had a fascination with 'oriental' figures, which Durer adopted as well. He added an oriental figure to his own coat of arms, and this affectation seems a sort of 'exotica' which he seems to have been drawn to.

The weapon most discernible here is the Swiss halberd held by the figure at far right. The hook at the back of the axe head was to pull a rider from his horse.

[Jim McDougall]

This work from post #33 here, is intriguing as the hilt style is noted.

What is remarkable here is that this hilt style appears to be of the 'karabela' form, which did not become known until around 17th century in Poland and Hungary. It is believed that the style was adopted from Ottoman sabers, but their exact origins and when they were used remains unclear.
Here it is remarkable to see this hilt style in this work of 1519, well over a century before it became known in Eastern Europe.

Again, it would seem the attraction to 'oriental' (i.e. Ottoman) imagery is apparent.

[Norman McCormick]

Hi Jim,
I'm not sure this has anything to do with Karabela forms. The farmers knife or Bauernwehr was well established in Europe and as I see it this is the type of knife the man is wearing.
My Regards,
Norman.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Norman McCormick

Hi Jim,
I'm not sure this has anything to do with Karabela forms. The farmers knife or Bauernwehr was well established in Europe and as I see it this is the type of knife the man is wearing.
My Regards,
Norman.

Thanks Norman, purely a free association, but the similarity is keen in my view. I am not too familiar with the knives you describe so did not take that into account. It seemed interesting though that this form hilt which appeared in either Iraq or these areas at undetermined period.