Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2124618
Fabian Brenker
{"title":"Ralph Moffat, Medieval Arms and Armour: A Sourcebook. Volume I: The Fourteenth Century","authors":"Fabian Brenker","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2124618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2124618","url":null,"abstract":"Within publications on historical arms and armour, Ralph Moffat, Curator of European Arms and Armour at Glasgow Museums, has repeatedly distinguished himself through transcriptions and discussions of written sources. This genre of source, popular in the 19th century, has fallen somewhat behind with the reproduction possibilities of woodcuts and photographs in the late 19th and 20th century. The introduction alone (pp. xxv-xxxiii) is unmistakable evidence of the author’s passion for the subject. In addition to scholars, he also clearly addresses the representatives of living history. With a spotlight on some useful examples, he shows what opportunities the collection of sources presented in the main section can have for both groups. With aptly selected quotations from the 15th and 16th centuries, he sets out his concern for the reader and introduces him, for example, to the pronunciation of technical terms often borrowed from French, and on p. xxix offers several useful examples. Anyone who studies arms and armour intensively in historical sources will notice that modern terminology often differs from the meaning at the time. It is therefore all the more exemplary when Ralph Moffat immediately presents a list of such terms and explains why he omits which term (such as ‘coat of plates’) or prefers a different spelling (such as ‘basinet’ instead of ‘bascinet’). It would be desirable if as many authors and re-enactors as possible followed this example in the future. The title of Part I ‘Introduction to the Source-Types’ (pp. 1-31) sounds like an introduction to working with historical sources. However, after a brief introduction to the procedure of transcribing and translating the textual sources, a material-rich evaluation of them follows. With references to the respective source texts, background information on the sources is given here. It is about the origin of the weapons, old family treasures, care instructions and much more. These pages are recommended to every reader, being the investigative focus of his book. The subsequent pages on preserved weapons and depictions on pictorial sources, on the other hand, actually introduce the methodical handling of these sources. Although preserved objects and pictorial sources are not part of the central source corpus in this book, they are represented in large numbers in its index. In Part II this book brings together 151 documents from the period 1296 to 1400 (pp. 33–215). The reviewer must admit that due to time constraints it was not possible for him to study in detail all the individual texts and their translations. However, since the work immediately makes one want to study the individual sources, some passages were examined more closely. These documents include statutes, laws, instructions, inventories, household payments, accounts, losses, wills and purchases, which are given in chronological order. If one would like to get an overview, a list of documents on pages xiii to xx is recommend. Each do","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"220 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42546043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2126104
Elsabeth Alicia Dikkes
{"title":"Between war and patronage: the life of Caspar Kohl, etcher of arms and armour","authors":"Elsabeth Alicia Dikkes","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2126104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2126104","url":null,"abstract":"This study focuses on the life of Caspar Kohl (1594-1652), father of the more widely known David Casparsson Kohl (1628-1685), who contributed significantly to the transformation of Scandinavian arms and armour production from the early to late seventeenth century. Both Caspar and David Casparsson specialised in steel etching and took the lead in several Swedish and Danish arms and armour workshops. Although the Kohl family’s importance, and particularly that of David Casparsson Although the Kohl family’s importance, and particularly that of David Casparsson Kohl, in the history of Scandinavian weapon making has long been recognised in German, Swedish and Danish literature, little is known about the family’s actual origins. This article intends to shed new light on their ancestry, early connections and diverse occupations as noble immigrants in Sweden and Denmark.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"146 - 169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42910668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2119720
R. Gordon
{"title":"Fabricated Cannon Revived and Then Abandoned in the Antebellum United States","authors":"R. Gordon","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2119720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2119720","url":null,"abstract":"Fabricated wrought-iron cannons made in 1844 demonstrated the superiority of welding with a hydraulic press instead of forge hammers. Daniel Treadwell in an early example of additive manufacturing welded multiple discs together to make cannon that then required only finishing on a lathe and attaching trunnions. His cannon sustained proof testing what would have quickly destroyed equivalent cast-iron guns. When that same year a large wrought-iron cannon built up from staves and rings by hammer welding exploded during a public demonstration the subsequent investigation by ordnance officers and a committee of the Franklin Institute chose to overlook incomplete welds and blame the failure on deficient iron used to make the gun. Their conclusion shifted blame from those involved to a distant ironmaker. Development of fabricated cannon and continuous pressure welding then passed to England.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"170 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45180916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2134288
J. Bennett, J. M. Ballard
{"title":"British Pattern 1907 Bayonets Marked to the Royal Air Force: An Archaeo-Historical Investigation","authors":"J. Bennett, J. M. Ballard","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2134288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2134288","url":null,"abstract":"A known total of 83 World War One period Pattern 1907 bayonets for the ‘Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mark III’ have pommel markings indicating issue to the Royal Air Force, formed on 1st April 1918. They bear alpha-numeric serial markings best interpreted as stock-taking marks, suggesting a maximum total of 70,000 were allocated for use by that air force. The written sources indicate that from at least 1922 to 1937, bayonets and the rifles to go with them were a regular part of an aircraftman’s equipment. Neither these nor a search of unpublished documents in the National Archives and the British Library provide a possible explanation why these weapons would be issued to the Royal Air Force, suggesting an archaeo-historical approach was more appropriate. This article sets out our results and conclusions on the subject.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"198 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44696609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2063625
Mark Murray Flutter
{"title":"The Welrod .32 silent pistol","authors":"Mark Murray Flutter","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2063625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2063625","url":null,"abstract":"The history of the development and use of the Welrod .32 silenced pistol by Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War is little understood. This paper is designed to present a detailed narrative, using, where possible, references to original documents detailing that development and then its subsequent use. It covers the Welrod’s development by Station XI, its testing, evolution, and production. Using references to surviving examples and accounts, the use of the Welrod during World War II is then explored in the various theatres around the world. This will be the first detailed study of the Welrod pistol using previously unavailable sources.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"92 - 115"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47799884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2055315
D. Nicolle
{"title":"A Khanjar of Ibrāhīm Ibn Ilyās Ibn Asad Ibn Sāmān dated 246 AH (28th March 860 to 17th March 861 AD)","authors":"D. Nicolle","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2055315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2055315","url":null,"abstract":"The blade of this weapon might be a few decades older than its hilt. However, the gilded elements on both probably date from when the blade acquired a new hilt, likely in the year Hijri 246 (28th March 860 to 17th March 861 AD) as mentioned in the blade inscription, when Ibrāhīm Ibn Ilyās was governor of Harāt. The gilding process used on the blade seems to be an exceptionally rare example of what was known in medieval Islamic literary sources as ‘gold water’, which has similarities with that found on objects from the 18th and 19th centuries China, where it was called Wu Tong. The weapon itself is a khanjar or large ‘fighting knife’ of a type characteristic amongst Sughdian peoples of Central Asia and amongst Turkic nomadic cultures of the Eurasian steppes. However, the design of the hilt is more distinctive and may have originated in eastern Iran, Islamic Central Asia or Afghanistan during the early medieval Islamic period. Though not necessarily a Sāmānid design, this form of hilt came to be closely associated with regions which would form the core of the Sāmānid state. Weapons comparable to this khanjar are very limited in the archaeological records of all regions except Central Asia and the steppes. Furthermore, nothing strictly comparable is known from the immediately pre-Islamic period within the territory that would become the early medieval Islamic world. The few large fighting knives which do exist differ significantly from this weapon but nevertheless reinforce the thesis that the khanjar’s stylistic origins, including both its blade and hilt, are to be found within the Islamized regions of early medieval Central Asia and Afghanistan rather than the Sassanian Iranian or Romano-Byzantine heartlands of what became the Islamic Caliphate. Meanwhile, the pommel of the khanjar of Ibrāhīm Ibn Ilyās is of what might be called a large button shape which, though larger than most other examples from this period, is probably rooted in the same design concept. Unfortunately, one has to wait for several centuries before finding acutely downturned quillons like those on this particular weapon.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"1 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41401654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2063602
Ralph Moffat
{"title":"A word ‘I was delighted to meet’: why we must now bid Auf Wiedersehen to Hounskull as the name for the ‘pig-faced’ basinet","authors":"Ralph Moffat","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2063602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2063602","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the introduction and use of the word hounskull and its variants in arms and armour scholarship. Assessing the definition through previous studies and original sources, it demonstrates that the word has been misinterpreted and misused as a name for a specific type of medieval helmet from the late-nineteenth century to the present day. Some (very tentative) speculation is offered as to what the hounskull might, in fact, be.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"20 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46250048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2045050
D. Lee
{"title":"The American Naval Boarding Axe","authors":"D. Lee","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2045050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2045050","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents the current state of knowledge of American naval boarding axes from the colonial period to the Civil War. It spans the time when most naval axes were either manufactured in Britain or were locally made copies, through the brief life of the Continental Navy and to the formation of the United States Navy which issued the first government pattern axes. It examines the three types of ‘toothed’ boarding axe which are uniquely identifiable as American by the inclusion of a serration on the rear side of the blade. It ends with the Civil War and the evolution of the boarding axe to a tool more in keeping with the transition from sail to steam and the introduction of more powerful naval artillery.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"64 - 91"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46364567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2022.2068918
D. Weaver, Brian Godwin
{"title":"John Cookson, gunmaker","authors":"D. Weaver, Brian Godwin","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2022.2068918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2022.2068918","url":null,"abstract":"The name John Cookson is associated with Lorenzoni-type magazine repeating flintlocks of high quality, assumed to have been made in London during the last decade or so of the 17th century. Nothing is known of this gunmaker. A John Cookson is known to have been a gunsmith in Boston during the first half of the 18th century and, while he is given credit in the US for inventing the magazine repeater, there is no evidence that he ever made such a gun in America. Over the years, there has been much speculation about a connection between these John Cooksons but none has ever been established. A recently discovered flintlock fowler signed Cookson appears to be late 17th century and shares a number of features which suggest manufacture by the same John Cookson who made the magazine repeaters. The paper examines the details of this fowler, comparing them to those of the known magazine repeaters and argues that they were all made by the same maker. An extensive archival search was also made of the John Cooksons of the UK and of Boston, the results of which are summarized here. While no direct connection could be established, the evidence strongly suggests that they were the same person.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"19 1","pages":"43 - 63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45057203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arms & ArmourPub Date : 2021-11-19DOI: 10.1080/17416124.2021.1991139
Robert C. Woosnam-Savage
{"title":"Of knights, cranes, hoists and winches…; the myth of how knights mounted horses","authors":"Robert C. Woosnam-Savage","doi":"10.1080/17416124.2021.1991139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17416124.2021.1991139","url":null,"abstract":"It is sometimes erroneously claimed that medieval knights, weighed down in their plate armour, could only mount horses with the aid of some mechanical device. This myth is found not only in some popular accounts of the Middle Ages but is also in the works of modern academics. It has been repeatedly claimed that it originated in the work of Mark Twain. However, even this is nothing but another myth in itself. A further re-examination of written and other sources demonstrates the idea can be traced back to earlier satirical reports of the mid-19th century. Although these are the earliest known references to an armoured figure being ‘hoisted’ so far discovered it would appear that later publications, as well as plays and films, using the idea, allowed it to blossom into an, apparently, accepted ‘historical fact’. This article attempts to trace the history and development of this myth.","PeriodicalId":40914,"journal":{"name":"Arms & Armour","volume":"18 1","pages":"224 - 255"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41322264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}