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

[Raf]

A significant find and thank you for sharing it on this forum.

[Teisani]

Cool stuff! Thanks for posting.

[Merenti]

Oh wow! I‘m in love!

[AHorsa]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for this interesting post. To me it is of special value, as it might solve an old riddle for me. Since I was a child I own this piece of metal with gothic letters, without knowing what it was used for. Now, when I saw your post it seems to be pretty mich similar to the applications of the harness you show. May I be tight with that?

[Raf]

It would be interesting to know how these brass boarders were made. On lesser examples they appear to be die struck or stamped from quite thin material. Where the better examples lost wax castings as they seem very uniform and finely detailed. Attached from the Wallace collection. Perhaps LeonymusBosch could venture an opinion as to wether the boarders are stamped or cast ?

[LeonymusBosch]

Originally Posted by Raf

It would be interesting to know how these brass boarders were made. On lesser examples they appear to be die struck or stamped from quite thin material. Where the better examples lost wax castings as they seem very uniform and finely detailed. Attached from the Wallace collection. Perhaps LeonymusBosch could venture an opinion as to wether the boarders are stamped or cast ?

I think you're on the right track. I have been studying dr. Goll's Iron Documents PhD thesis and he does say that all these applications on extant pieces of armour were made by lost wax technique and usually by different craftsmen, and not the armourers themselves.

Here's a little screenshot of the pdf (pp 124-125.). It's available for free online and it's an amazing resource for plate armour.

[Reventlov]

What an interesting and rare piece! Thank you for sharing it here. From what I can see I do not think there is any reason to doubt its authenticity. However rare, I don't think we need worry that finding it in Croatia is too good to be true. Actually, brass-trimmed armour in the Italian fashion can be seen in Hrvoje's Missal from the early 15th century.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrvoje%27s_Missal

I know quite a few other examples of brass-trimmed armour from this period, but all of them have intelligible inscriptions or simply decorative designs, rather than this kind of pseudo-inscription. I did notice that on one piece from the Met the stippled background is rendered in a very similar way, by filling with small zig-zags.


https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/35846



Best,

Mark

[Raf]

Its called wriggle work. Standard engraving technique created by rocking the engraver from side to side

[AHorsa]

Does anyone know about the meaning of those letters? Are they epigrams or so?

On mine I read "IO VEM" or so. Not sure about the direction.

Kind regards
Andreas

[Reventlov]

Originally Posted by AHorsa

Does anyone know about the meaning of those letters? Are they epigrams or so?

On mine I read "IO VEM" or so. Not sure about the direction.

Maybe IO VENI? Could mean something like "Look! I am coming."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/io#Latin
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/veni#Latin

[LeonymusBosch]

Originally Posted by AHorsa

Does anyone know about the meaning of those letters? Are they epigrams or so?

On mine I read "IO VEM" or so. Not sure about the direction.

Kind regards
Andreas

Would you mind if I use this photo in a conference presentation? Perhaps the paper as well, but not sure about that yet.

You found it in Germany, right?

[LeonymusBosch]

Originally Posted by Raf

Its called wriggle work. Standard engraving technique created by rocking the engraver from side to side

You're 100% right, thank you!

[LeonymusBosch]

Originally Posted by Reventlov

What an interesting and rare piece! Thank you for sharing it here. From what I can see I do not think there is any reason to doubt its authenticity. However rare, I don't think we need worry that finding it in Croatia is too good to be true. Actually, brass-trimmed armour in the Italian fashion can be seen in Hrvoje's Missal from the early 15th century.

Attachment 226149
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrvoje%27s_Missal

I know quite a few other examples of brass-trimmed armour from this period, but all of them have intelligible inscriptions or simply decorative designs, rather than this kind of pseudo-inscription. I did notice that on one piece from the Met the stippled background is rendered in a very similar way, by filling with small zig-zags.

Attachment 226151
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/35846

Attachment 226152Attachment 226150

Best,

Mark

Yes! I didn't mean that no such armour here existed, I only meant that it's too good of an archaeological find because there's literally no actual medieval plate armour finds here. (There are some helmets in BiH).

Hrvoje's Missal is the perfect example of Italian armour usage in this area and period, and also perfectly fits because it's decorated in the same style basically.

Thank you for the picture, I was trying to remember which piece of armour I saw the pattern on and have been digging through files to find it haha!

What pains me is that the other part, supposedly the defence for the shoulder is missing. I am more akin to think it was actually a poleyn what they found, but simply didn't recognize it and determined it to be a shoulder piece.