Question on earliest use of powder horn

[Matchlock]

Hi Eric,


I don't know (but am curious to know!) what illustrations of a powder horn of the late 1400's you're referring to exactly.

The earliest sources of period artwork known to me are two colored drawings by the Swiss historian Diebold Schilling, from his Berner Chronik of 1483 (top attachments).
On an internet site for private photo sharing, I found the attached images of a stone sculpture representing an arquebusier with his arquebus and octagonally shaped powder horn, dated early 16th century and labeled to be part of a cathedral in Chartreuse, France.
The web, however, does not identify such a city, just a French mountain range of that name.

The latest documents of the use of long cow horns, by then fitted with a dosing mechanism comprising both an iron nozzle and sprung cut-off, are of ca. 1530:

- representations of Landsknechte (mercenaries) on a series of Brussels tapestries depicting scenes from the Battle of Pavia, 1525
- a painting by Melchior Feselen, Ingolstadt/Bavaria, called The Batttle of Alesia, dated 1533 (two attachments at the bottom).

Cow horns pressed flat after softened by hot water stayed in use from ca. 1590 to 1620, and then again around 1700 to 1750, with many of them easily identifiable as originally belonging to wheellock guns: often their bodies are combined with a spanner.

Please read my thread
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=alesia


For more information on this topic, also see my thread
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...=powder+flasks - thanks a lot to Marcus for linking it!


Best,
Michael
(on returning home from hospital)