Friday, November 9, 2012

Turkish horses and their tack in Melchlior Lorck's art III

Salve,
   continuing the cycle of Melchior Lorck and his Turkish horsemen prints, I want to show this next image - a splendid horseman, with a so called Balkan shield adorned with an eagle wing.
   The horse tack here is again both splendid and very practical as in the previous piece. Tail is again either tied or gathered with a metal or fabric, or leather band/thongs, going back to the Ancient Iranians' traditions. Note that our sipahi is armed with a lance adorned with a small  triangular pennon( with small tassel), and apart form a curved, wide sabre he has also a narrow tuck (estock) and a warhamer, both under his left leg.
..

..
As we see below, this sipahi is holding a fine shield, and here we have a MET collection piece from XVI century.
However, I would disagree with the last part of the description on the MET page in the aspect of the costume coping by the Turkish foes - ''Even at a time when Turkish armies were a constant threat to eastern Europe, their costumes and tactics were imitated by their Christian foes.'' We know, from the iconography and written works/sources that at the time of the Turkish conquest XIV century through XVI century already had had their own traditions, including material culture and martial costumes. Conquering Ottomans were actually an amalgam of the peoples of the Balkans and Asia Minor, some joined freely and some under the sword, and these peoples traditions - especially Greek, Slavic, Hungarian and Vallachian - were being adopted by the Ottomans, heirs-by-conquest to the Byzantine Empire. The prints by Lorck and other printmakers of XVI century are part of the period testimony that the interchange between the conquerors and conquered went both ways.

..

..

Great example of the Ottoman Sipahi's shield in this print of a sipahi armed with a lance and dismounted this time. Actually there are several more prints of sipahis or other horsemen armed with lances and protected by shields in the Lorck's collection of Ottoman prints.
..

..
an example of a shishak helmet and a Hungarian-style shield from the MET, similar to the ones displayed in the Lorck's prints

No comments: