Did winged hussars' horses wear some horse armor in the 17th century?

 Salvete Omnes,

a little bit on the winged hussars history and horse armor of their period- 

when studying the history of the Polish Crown forces during the second half of 16th trough early 7th centuries, we can observe that there exists rather very small corpus of iconographic material showing these cavalrymen, especially for the period of 1580 through 1590s. There is more iconography pertaining to the Hungarian lance cavalry or the Ottoman Turkish horsemen of the same period.

During the 16th century the heaviest Polish armored horsemen (gravioris armaturae) also armored, even if not the whole barding but partially with crinet, chamfron & peytral,  their war mounts.

eg the Orsza [Orsha] battle iconography

, the Miechowita's Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis,  

Bielskis' opus magnum The Universal Chronicle (and up to the 1590s - The Polish Chronicle)

or a drawing showing a detail from the Radziwill's Palace gallery painting depicting 1568 raid by Radziwill and Sieniawski.

when comes to the early 17th century we can see some armored horse in several works

Stanislaw Zolkiewsk's coffin relief - done some time after the death of the Crown grand hetman in 1621,

or drawing by Gembrzewski, published in his winged hussar book in 1938, based on a depiction of winged hussar captain  from the panting in of king Sigismund III Vasa ( coppied by Aleksander Lesser from the  Deutschesmuseum  Nuremberg Gallery in 1883)  .

So perhaps the elements of horse armor - crinet/crinniere and chamfron (with a rondel and a spike) were still being used, albeit sporadically, by the winged hussars and/or some Crown commanders and rotamiesters/captains. 

Valete

RIP, Sanjulian 1941-2026

Salvete Omnes,

The family of Manuel Perez Clemente aka Sanjulian made an announcement that this great Spanish artist passed away today. 

@ Heritage  Auction

Pacem Aeternam, Maestro Sanjulian

Sanjulian at Heritage Auctions 

RIP

Valete 

Columbus Day, Conquest & return of Horses to the Americas

 Salvete Omnes,

today, as every  Monday close to October 12, we celebrate the national holiday known as Columbus Day to commemorate the day when the 12th of October but in 1492 the small Spanish armada, of three ships, commanded by the royal admiral Colon (Columbus) having crossed the Atlantic landed their boats in the Bahama Islands. 

Technically or more precisely, the horses arrived in the Americas a year later, during the second voyage of Columbus, in December 1493. 

Long live the Spanish horses of the Americas  and all other American horses that came after 1493.

For the indigenous peoples of the Americas the Age of Conquista (Conquest) has begun an continues to this day.. with the African and Eurasian diseases, alcoholism, death, destruction and loss of culture, language and identity. One could say that they received horses, Christianity, Western civilisational Progress,  and the final end to their cannibalism - all in return for their Americas.

Like the cowering woman before Columbus  in the sculpture below

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Valete

Beautiful kilij sabre from Swedish Collections

 Salvete Omnes,

Perusing the Swedish Museums collections on  Wiki Commons I came across some fine photos of one of the most splendidly appointed sabres from the 17th century Ottoman & Transylvanian/Hungarian milieu.

This kilij (Ottoman) sword with its sheath was part of the large gift from Transylvanian prince Gabor Bethlen, arch-enemy of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to Gustavus Adolphus, his brother-in-law & king of Sweden. 

The museum's weapon researchers determined that the sword kilij-style blade was made by a sword-smith whom they called Hassan al-Misri. The hilt was finished much later, by some Ottoman or Hungarian jeweler/goldsmith. 

The sabre's gold covered, enameled hilt is also expansively  decorated with precious stones, the sabre's scabbard as well - in total  70 rubies and 31 turquoises.

.

Valete

Death of Tecumseh, war chief of the Shawnee and Indian Nations of the North Oct 5, 1813

 Salvete Omnes,

yesterday it was 213th anniversary of the battle of the Thames. The American forces, 3,000 strong, commanded by William Harrison and  col. Richard Mentor Johnson defeated the allied forces of Tecumseh's Indians (500 strong) and general Henry Procter's British troops (450 regualrs). 

Tecumseh,  Panther in the Sky, led the remainders of his once promising Confederacy of the Nations of the North (Harrison defeated the allied native army, when Tecumseh was in the South,  in the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811). They allied themselves with the British and hence that part of the war of 1812 was also known as the Tecumseh's war. 

The charge of one battalion of the Kentucky mounted riflemen under col. James Johnson, screening Remember River Raisin, broke the British contingent, with Procter running away and his troops taken almost all prisoners. 

The native warriors, taking advantage of the swamp and woodland, skillfully continued to resist the advancing Shemanese (Long Knives) under their chief sachem Tecumseh and lesser chiefs and principal warriors of Shawnee, leading from the front and by example.

Another  battalion of the Kentucky mounted rifles  under col. Richard M. Johnson advanced and Johnson charged his 'dragoon' cavalry, with about 20 mounted men in van, the Tecumseh's position, drawing the sagamore and his retinue (comitatus) to a hand to hand melee, with sabers, pistols, rifle buts,  tomahawks and knives etc. 

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Johnson mortally wounded or killed sachem Tecumseh, but his command's attack was checked and repulsed by the Indian warriors, with Johnson wounded. Gen. Harrison ordered his 1000 strong infantry under Shelby  to attack the thin native warrior lines, and after a rather short firefight the confederate warrior bands, facing overwhelming numbers of their Shemanese enemies,  withdrew, taking the body of Tecumseh and some of other fallen warrior with them (the abandoned  fallen warriors' bodies were scalped and    mutilated in a true frontier fashion of the times ).  The Tecumseh's dream died there with him, albeit there were more battles between the former Tecumseh's confederates and the American forces in the Old Northwest.
John Sugden wrote a fine account of Tecumseh's heroic death titled -  Tecumseh's Last Stand (1985), followed by Tecumseh: A Life (1997).

Pacem aeternam to the great American heroes of that battle

Valete