A highly important four barrel Landsknecht mace, ca. 1540

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by Pukka Bundook

When I first saw this, I remembered I'd seen it in HL Peteron and R. Elman's book, 'The Great Guns"

Holy water sprinkler....(!) what a grand and droll name !
I had been under the impression that it belonged to the Tower collection but on looking again, saw it was in Meyerick collection at the time.

Unique, and well looked after.
Thank you for showing it here Michael.

All best wishes,

R.

Hi Richard,

Thank you for mentioning the cute nickname for this kind of weapons: holy water sprinkler.

May I add that, in the Landsknechts' jargon, "to sprinkle holy water" was the cant phrase for fetching blood.

This piece was in the Ratner collection at the time when it was illustrated in Peterson/Elman's book.

The long stocked holy water sprinklers of Henry VIII's army now preserved at the Tower and the Royal Armouries Leeds respectively have three barrels each which are hidden by swiveling small iron plates. Thus, their central spike was no doubt more robust than on my Meyrick piece. I attach a detail of one of Henry VIII's three barrel maces which was referred to as "holy water sprinkles with thre gonnes" in the 1547 Tower inventory.

m