Nuremberg Chronicle; depictions of edged weapons from the late 15th Century

[Mel H]

Originally Posted by Philip

The text clarifies things, and it was quite clever of the artist to paint the Red Sea the appropriate color -- after all this work probably had a didactic purpose, to teach Bible stories in a simple and straightforward way in an era in which the level of literacy was not high. In the same way that stained glass windows in churches often presented some of the same narratives in a medium and on a scale more appropriate to large public spaces.

It's fortunate for the arms and armor researchers of later times that the medieval and Renaissance artists were in the habit of depicting Biblical characters in the style of their own eras, rather than going for an archaistic approach. Appropriate, since with the exception of ancient statues, the body of available archaeological material was much more limited than that discovered from the 18th cent. until today. Considering the contemporaneous nature of the depictions, representations in art are an invaluable help to us today in determining a chronological and ofttimes geographical context to surviving objects.

I learned a little German many years since and can sometimes pick my way through text, I was a little surprised at the clarity / readability of the 15th, C. 'gothic' script used in this document, when compared with the later gothic found in German books of the late 19th, C. which seems to have become deliberately over complicated with the passage of time.