Arms and Armor in the works of Albrecht Dürer

[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

[shayde78]

"Frederick the Wise", 1524
Crossed sword upper left corner.

[shayde78]

And, that's all of them - feel free to discuss, or simply reference as related to items you have in your collection.

I'm always curious to read your thoughts and comments. Overall, I hope this proves useful to some of you as it is my way of paying tuition for the education this forum has provided me over the years.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by 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

He is believe to have flourished in the 1st cent. AD, and is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke as "Simon the Zealot" for his reputed membership in that Jewish nationalist movement. There is an apocryphal book, Acts of Simon, that is not contained in the New Testament.

The implement is indeed a saw, he was martyred by being sawn in half. The place of his demise is not certain, variously placed in Greece or Persia.

As we've discussed in your previous excellent thread on the Nürnberg Chronicles, religious iconography of the era often depicted Saints with the instruments of their martyrdom -- such as Catherine and the spiked wheel, Sebastian with arrows, and Lawrence holding or standing next to the gridiron on which he was roasted.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by 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

Tools and weapons have always run close parallels, and often the rank and file in assembled forces were simply peasant farmers and the like who wielded whatever tools or implements they had at hand. Many weapons, especially many pole arms were made from or designed from bill hooks and tools of this kind.

The serrated blades of the swords used by the sappers etc in military forces were of course used as saws as well as a weapon as required.

[Jim McDougall]

As noted in post #35 re: hand holding a dagger

[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).

[shayde78]

Originally Posted by Philip

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).

St. Bart was martyred by being flayed alive. He is often depicted holding a skinning or flensing knife and also wrapped in his own skin. The texture of the 'garment' may well indicate some type of 'leather'. If I wanted to trademark a blade with an icon symbolizing a keen edge, I might choose to borrow from the iconography of St. Bartholomew.

[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.