Combination Halberd / Matchlock for comment

[fernando]

Hi Michl,
Do you mean to say that German throwing axes were carried by Portuguese on their way to India as soon as in 1533 ?
Sorry for my blindness, but ... could you specify which attachment shows the 'conventional' one you mention ?
And, by conventional you mean an axe not combined with a firing system ?

[Matchlock]

Attached to this post, find photos of the famous so-called Monk's Gun, which, according to the formal, stylistic and technical criteria set up by the author, should be correctly dated "ca. 1525-30", and was almost certainly made in Nuremberg or Augsburg.
Up to now, various arms experts have suggested a very wide time line of dating the Monk's Gun, from "ca. 1450-1550" (Claude Blair, "Further Notes on the Origins of the Wheellock", in: Robert Held (ed.), Arms and Armour Annual, December 1973, pp. 28-47, esp. 42ff.,
up to "before 1667, probably ca. 1600" (Maus. L. Rattinger,
see third attachment to this post).

Please also see my thread on that famous "riddle" of weaponry:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19033


Actually, the Monk's Gun is a combination of a tubular padlock and a firerarm activated by friction, when the rear ring-shaped bolt is pulled; with a usual padlock, that bolt would, of course, be a key with a threaded haft.
It is preserved in The Saxon Royal Collections, which is the Rüstkammer in Dresden.

Also attached are photos of a large tubular and tapering padlock formerly in the author's collection, and also made in Nuremberg, for a heavy chest, at the very same time, ca. 1525-30.
Further, there is a source of contemporary illustration, an engraving dated 1533, and depicting two padlocks of exactly the same tapering form, securing a large money chest.

The padlock is illustrated in:
Michael Trömner, Behältnisse für Kostbares 1500-1700. Verden, 2005, pp. 82f. and 86.


Best,
Michael Trömner

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by fernando

Hi Michl,
Do you mean to say that German throwing axes were carried by Portuguese on their way to India as soon as in 1533 ?
Sorry for my blindness, but ... could you specify which attachment shows the 'conventional' one you mention ?
And, by conventional you mean an axe not combined with a firing system ?

Hi Nando,


The conventional type of German throwing axes had most probably been taken to, and known in, India by at least the 1520's. They may even have been copied and produced there in the 1530's.

I'm certain you have managed meanwhile to identify that 'conventional', usual type of axe re-attached below.


Best,
Michl

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

...Hi Nando,
The conventional type of German throwing axes had most probably been taken to, and known in, India by at least the 1520's. They may even have been copied and produced there in the 1530's.
I'm certain you have managed meanwhile to identify that 'conventional', usual type of axe re-attached below...

My bad!
I took it that your bringing about the Portuguese Bom Jesus shipwreck was specificaly connected with throwing axes, and the attachments were those included in the article linked ... and not the pictures you presented below.

[M ELEY]

Wow! It is amazing to see where the tomahawk got its start! The tomahawk site I listed actually has a picture of one to show the advancement of the throwing axe (That site refers to it as a German 'hurlbat'?). In any case, thank you Michael for the enlightenment! As an occasional ax collector, it is amazing to see where the early 'hawks' evolved from-

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

Wow! It is amazing to see where the tomahawk got its start! The tomahawk site I listed actually has a picture of one to show the advancement of the throwing axe (That site refers to it as a German 'hurlbat'?). In any case, thank you Michael for the enlightenment! As an occasional ax collector, it is amazing to see where the early 'hawks' evolved from-

Hi Mark,


It is my turn to say thanks because connecting the item in discussion with the principle of a tomahawk, was your brilliant idea!

I did notice that term Hurlbat in one of the descriptions you posted, but it is by no means a German word that I have ever heard of, and my native language has been a close hobby of mine - since the days of my childhood, and my very first year in school, at the age of six.


Anyway, this is what Wikipedia says:

Hurlbat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A hurlbat (or whirlbat, whorlbat) is (the; added by the author of this post) term for a type of weapon of unclear original definition. Older reference works refer to it largely as a type of club, either held in the hand or possibly thrown. Modern usage appears to refer to a type of throwing-axe.

Dictionary references

The term was used as a by-name in England as early as 1327, and the hurlebatte was mentioned, possibly as a type of club, among the pikestaff and sword and buckler in a 1440 text.[1]

• The 16th-century Thomas Elyot dictionary uses the term to translate a Latin word, and describes a throwing action: Adides, short battes of a cubyte longe and an halfe, hauynge pikes of yron in theym, and were tyed to a lyne, that whanne they were throwen, he that did cast thẽ, mought plucke them agayn vnto him, hurlebattes.[2]
• A 1707 English dictionary defines whorlbat as "a kind of Gauntlet with Straps and leaden Plummets, uſed by the ancient Heroes in their ſolemn Games and Exerciſes.[3]
• An 1837 of the Samuel Johnson dictionary defined it as simply "a weapon",[4]
• An 1854 John Craig dictionary defined it as "an old kind of weapon".[5]
• An 1856 German-English dictionary used whirlbat as synonymous with "club for fighting".[6]
• A 1911 dictionary notes it to be a kind of club or cudgel, so called because whirled around the head. It does not appear that such a weapon was thrown.[7]

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by fernando

My bad!
I took it that your bringing about the Portuguese Bom Jesus shipwreck was specificaly connected with throwing axes, and the attachments were those included in the article linked ... and not the pictures you presented below.

No problem, Nando,
My dear friend,


You obviously posted your thoughts quite rapidly while I was desperately coping with my computer setttings, trying to get them to work out with internet publishing here on vikingsword.com.
It took me about two hours to finally get those images posted that I knew would make perfectly clear what I wished to explain.

This is also why I prefer writing my articles as WORD documents, and copy and paste them here.


Best,
Michl