A late 14th c. (1380-1400) cuisse from Croatia with gothic lettering

[LeonymusBosch]

Hello, I'm a curator of the Croatian History Museum's Arms and Armour Collection and this is my first post on this forum. Hope it's not too much of a mess to understand as there's a lot to write about this and I tried to be concise.

The museum has (I believe) had an interesting item in their depot without them knowing what it was for more than a century.



Between 1909 and 1913 there was a large archaeological excavation and dredging project in and around the ancient Roman city of Siscia (today Sisak in Croatia). The aim was to discover Roman artefacts, and many were.

However, during the river dredgings, plenty of items were found belonging to other eras, but they weren't of much interest and weren't documented well.

One of these finds was this piece of armour. It was found in the Sava river near Gušća, with another piece (supposedly a defense for the shoulder) in 1911, which is now lost.

I think I have correctly determined this cuisse to 1380-1400 as there are plenty of examples of northern Italian armours with almost identical decorations as can be seen on this copper alloy application.

i.e. this gauntlet in theBarghello museum in Florence:



, the famous Churburg armour:



as well as this bascinet from France:


There's more examples, but it would be too many photos I think. Why am I posting this? Well I'm looking for a different set of eyes. While I believe the item is genuine, I want to dispelly my few suspicions as it's too good and rare of a find for Croatia.

However, the fact this item was found in a river supports the idea that it is a genuine medieval item. While it is possible fake items could have been planted for archaeologists to “discover”, there was no “pomp” made after finding them. After going through the “Siscia” files in the Archaeological museum, where one can follow the correspondence between people on the field and the museum, it is evident that the focus on the dredgings and excavations was on ancient Roman artifacts, being the only type of artifact that was properly documented and reported on.

Other items ranging from the 13th-19th c. were found. As this item was found in 1911, I have trouble believing a very well made Victorian copy of an armour found itself in a river like this.

The layering of iron, the hammering marks, the shape and measurements, as well as the location of rivets and holes support the idea that it's an authentic item.



The condition of the item is unfortunate as it was overcleaned at some point in time during its 100 years in the museum which is why it looks so polished, and the "conservation work" is undocumented. This overcleaning probably resulted in a loss of information (perhaps a maker's mark). This was unfortunately common practice as the museum has plenty of bronze medieval maces which were overcleaned and polished in the same way.

The pattern and shape of the copper alloy application is very similar to some extant examples dated to the same decades:



cuisse:




The upper part of the application forms a rope or spiral-like edge for the entire length of the strip and slightly envelops the upper edges of the cuisse. this was all common practice. The suspicious part is that the middle part of the strip is decorated with two sets of gothic ”lettering”, which are most likely gothic minims, the building blocks of gothic letters. It is possible that the inscription is a combination of letters ‘I’, ‘M’, ‘N’ or ‘U’ but it is more likely that the illiterate craftsman wrongly copied an inscription or wrote (or rather drew) what he thought he saw. Minims used as decoration were a common thing to be found in manuscripts. This was popular because it only took one simple stroke to write, although such a reason doesn’t translate into chiselling on a metal surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minim_(palaeography)

Measurements:
length: 32-38 cm from the lowest lower point to the lowest and highest point of the upper part

width: 28 cm upper part / 9,5 cm lower part

1-2 mm thickness