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
2 comments:
That's interesting. I have only considered the winged hussars in later times (Polish-Cossack War/Deluge onwards) so have not see them with any armour on the horses. The last drawing by Gembrzewski is intriguing. There certainly appears to be a crinet and chamfron but what do you make of the 'saddle cloth'? Is it meant to be the decorative/protective cloth below the saddle or some kind of croupiere? The 'texture' of the drawing looks like cloth. The shape metal!
Best wishes, James
Hi James, I am not sure about this 'saddle cloth,' it is hard for me to conjure it as some sort of armor. Polish winged hussar cavalry of this period used large shabraques of various woven and leather materials, sort of in the Ottoman fashion. There are no written materials describing armor for this period. But they also stopped, in the mid 1560s, taking accounts aka muster roll of the individual companion & retainers equipment. So only accounts of losses & inventories of deceased soldier's movables shed some light here.
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