Monday 12 February 2018

Hakenbüchsen or Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery Pt2

I knew I´d seen them before!!! ...as I wrote on the Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery post

I´ve seen examples of them in print but I can´t remember where. They look  late medieval  or Renaissance.

The pics  come from "das Zeugbuch des Kaisers Maximilian I. 1475"
Digital Version HERE
Look under the titel (left Hand side )  Messinghakenbüchsen
The book shows a whole range of arquebus´s, big,  small, on Trestles, two legged stands, wheels, breech and muzzle loaded. 
Looking at the pics...the "Flaming Brands" depicted on the RedBox Bods now makes sense.

Arquebus from The German Hakenbuchse..a Hand gun with a hook so it can be braced when being fired. 

And...at PSR they are sceptical about the kneeling bod using a pick axe to chip  shot down to size but..what is pictured in the bottom left Hand Corner of the pic below? 
Number 4 is labelled as an Archer..but he´s Holding a crossbow and has a quiver Holding bolts..not arrows

It could be RedBox were being too literal (or not)  by portraying a hammer with two spiked heads but the pic below ..the one on the right has, when viewed from the side,  what Looks like two Points. Even though they aren´t as common these days, so called  "Stone Dressing Hammers" used to be common and they do (did) look a wee bit like small pick axes.
 

Oh...and the bod Holding the guage board..the one with the axe in his Hand. What is it for? The axe not the board.
It´s a Stone cleaving axe, something like...HERE.
IMHO, definately not a tool for shaping shot of the size that would pass through any of the holes in his board but maybe for  cutting bigger chunks of Stone into a rough size.

And just to confirm...here´s a site listing, among other Stone mason Tools,  axes (plain edged)  and Hand picks (Sculptors pick)
The Art of Making in Antiquity 

7 comments:

  1. GREAT post. Most enjoyable. thank you.

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  2. Fantastic old prints at the top Paul - I love the way they're called "hand" guns! Those ones are massive.

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  3. Great post! Thank You Paul.
    best regards

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  4. Highlights interesting, thank you!

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  5. An interesting read indeed. Thanks for posting!

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