14th-15th c.: How Powder and Ball etc. Were Kept Before Powder Flasks Appeared

[Matchlock]

A Swiss musketeers bandolier, ca. 1600-30, featuring the unusually small number of only five wooden and leather-covered powder measures, plus a priming flask with tapering nozzle, a ball pouch and a length of characteristically 'stiff' Swiss matchcord (Wittstock, Museum of the Thirty Years War, from Fischer, Lucerne).

m

[Matchlock]

When regarding representations like the ones in post #1, reading descriptions such as leatherin pulvertaschen (Old German for leather powder bags), we may resume that the arquebusier of ca. 1500 just reached with his hand into his powder bag, grabbed a portion of powder and rammed it down the barrel of his arquebus together with the ball. Most probably he basically carried a small powder measure in that bag as well.

By the early 17th century, the musketeers trousers had integral pockets, and we know of inofficial reports of early-Thirty Years War soldiers who, instead of using the flask or bandolier, just grabbed a portion of powder from their pants pockets, thus being quicker on the reload than others obeying the strict rules. How many cruel accidents may have happened that way we can all but speculate. And of course, with no wad to hold the sub-caliber rolling ball in the barrel, they could not fire downhill without losing the ball ...


Best,
m

[Matchlock]

For early 16th c. arquebusier's bandeliers with small powder measures of tinned iron etc., please see

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...940#post167940


m

[Matchlock]

Here are two characteristic so-called soldier's 'purses', although the term 'purse' is way too narrowly considered and short-sighted.
Only the few small pouches with pull cords were meant for coins, while the other compartments had to hold all the tiny everyday things - in a period before ca. 1600 when pockets in garments had not been invented! For an arquebusier, accouterments like powder, wadding, pieces of cloth, a little bottle with oil and cleaning tools like a worm and a scourer were indispensable.

So, as I pointed out in my book

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...isse+kostbares

the term 'side bag' or 'belt bag' is more apt.


Both these bags were made in Nuremberg, ca. 1525-30. The first features some tricky and really cunning hidden mechanics to correctly open the iron frame, plus 8 compartments for various utensils and 5 pouches for coins; it once was in my collection. The second I photographed in the GNM (Germanic National Museum) Nuremberg.

Best,
Michael

[Martin Moser]

Hi Michael,

a very nice purse indeed (and of course as I am especially interested in all things leather)!

Originally Posted by Matchlock

... in a period before ca. 1600 when pockets in garments had not been invented!

While you are certainly right for the most part, for the record there actually is a leather jerkin found in the wreck of the ship Mary Rose (sank 1545) that has a single pocket on the inside of the jerkin's left flap (Julie Gardiner: Before the Mast: Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose (The Archaeology of the Mary Rose). p39).

Best,
Martin

[Matchlock]

Hi Martin,

Alright, a jerkin made for a certain soldier and for a special purpose may be the proverbial exception that proves the rule.

m

[Spiridonov]

Medieval german Containers for medicines looks like powder measures from Landshut Armory Inventory (Zeughausinventar) 1485