Saturday, May 16, 2009

the XVI (16th) century German Cavaliers




Back in the saddle again...
I researched and painted these images for a book on the battle of Lubieszow AD 1577 (Radoslaw Sikora, Lubieszow 1577, Infort Editions 2005), between Polish Royal army and the army of the rebelious city of Gdansk (Danzig). In Polish historiography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography the name of this engagement is 'bitwa (battle) pod (of )Lubieszow'
you can check it on Wikipedia , although some idiot changed the name of the battle to the modern spelling Lubiszewo(albeit the full name of this town is Lubiszewo Tczewskie and not just Lubiszewo) of this Polish town's name
German account of this tragic battle, on google books :) http://books.google.com/books?id=a5cCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA54&dq=winkelbruch+1577&lr=
this one is the best in German - http://books.google.com/books?id=kZYOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA240&dq=winkelbruch+1577&lr=&as_brr=1
They represent the new type of cavalry in the Western European armies, the cavalry armed with swords, daggers, pistols and arquebus, protected by a 3/4 armor or half-armor, and ridding much, much cheaper horses then lancers.
next time I will publish some images of the Royal army cavalry units of that battle.

3 comments:

girasol said...

Dario - email me at globalhorseculture at m a c dot com - I want to get your opinion on some old Turkish and Persian horse gear!

Hindus said...

Is the first guy having both longsword/rapier AND katzbalger? Were they even used by cavalry? If there is some source on this, it is like my dream fullfiled.

Dario T. W. said...

Good question - I used as reference for arms, the woodcuts by Jost Amman 'studio' from 1570s-80s. In these prints some cavalrymen have interesting short swords/daggers on the left side, along with a long sword. I think the whole book of prints is available for viewing, printing and downloading on the net. By the way Carpaccio painted a very interesting sword http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vittore_carpaccio,_ritratto_di_cavaliere,_1510.jpg