Rene de Menou seigneur de Charnizay

Salvete Omnes,
spring is near and I am thinking about training horses, and the French National Library on the web aka Gallica (but also world digital library or Archive)  offers a read and historian a peak into the Monsieur du Pluvinel-influenced circle of French horse trainers, riders and their horses.

This time we have a nobleman and soldier Rene de Menou seigneur de Charnizay, 1578-1651, who was a disciple and friend to the royal ecuyer Antoine de Pluvinel, inherited his master's work, and in AD 1628 published a new version of Maneige Royal as L'Instruction du Roy et al, that was supposedly closer to the writing of du Pluvinel than the first edition (after Hilda Nelson's discussion in her preface to the Le Maneige Royal Or, L'instruction Du Roy: En L'exercice De Monter a Cheval, AD 2015 edition).
 De Menou wrote and published a work  titled La pratique du caualier, ou, L'exercice de monter a cheual  and we have from Gallica hies work published in AD 1650 (but earlier versions exist - 1612 and 1620). However, de Menou mentions du Pluvinel in his book and apparently he was writing within the circle of du Pluvinel's ideas and teachings.
Parts of that work will be the subject of today's post and perhaps one more post.

This equestrian work is most curious because it lists several types of horses native to the French Kingdom and its parts - Gascongne (Gascony), Lymousin (Limusin), Poictou (Poitou), Normandie, Bretagne, Comte de Bourgongne (County of Burgundy).

also author includes a short description of horses from 'Germanies' (Holy Roman Empire) and Flanders (most popular and easy to obtain), Italy, Spain (difficult to obtain), and the Ottoman Empire - Turkish and Arabian horses (but very few and far between), as well as the North African horse know then and now as Barb.

Unfortunately there are no Polish horses that entered the realm of signeur de Charnizay, but then in the Polish Lithuanian Comonwealth the French horses were not know for their qualities then as well, so I guess some type of quid pro quo.
So there are some pages from the book, corralled by me, describing  horse types or even breeds, according to their origin, for riding, mange and lists.

enjoy

Antoine de Pluvinel - images from the treatise part 4

Salve,
 again our good ecuyer Antoine de Pluvinel  and Crisspin de Passe's images from Pluvinel's treatise on horsemanship.
This time it is all about training horse for the tournament and eventually for war; in the final duel the rider must show chivalry, sensible deliberation and firmness in saddle (Piero Monte),  lightness of movement, cool head and loyal and courageous horse with strength and easy gait (Jean de Bueil), grace, courage, and strength, while playing with  lancework at the tilt  .

Enjoy
 By th way this is the end of Pluvinel/de Passe plates

By the way I found today this great site - Anthropark  - reconstructing prehistoric Europeans by Czech artist  Libor Balák.

Antoine de Pluvinel - images from the treatise part 3

Salve,
again I ma going to continue in the thread of ecuyer Antoine de Pluvinel  and Crisspin de Passe's images from Pluvinel's treatise on horsemanship.

Today's batch consists of curb-bits, including the so called 'morisco' bit (two versions)

Enjoy :)

Antoine de Pluvinel - images from the treatise part 2

Salve amigas y amigos,
continuing from yesterday Antoine de Pluvinel's treatise - prints by Crisspin de Passe

                                                              ***

                  and the perfect cavalier on a perfect baroque horse

all images under Creative Commons Licence, so enjoy

Antoine de Pluvinel - images from the treatise part 1

Salve,
so as you can see I just 'corralled' a good number of  better quality images from the Antoine de Pluvinel's treatise on horsemanship, in png format - I wrote about the copy available at gallica.fr on my blog   in May - images by the Dutch artist Crispin de Passe. 
The selected images  are showing work at the pillars, horse attached with a 'rope cavesson'(from gallica copy of the book)

A beautiful Baroque horse from the same book - Spanish blood evident

Nota bene these prints are very valuable source of information on the period, including the costumes, side arms, and appearance of the noble riders and their servants, as well as of buildings in and around XVII century  Paris, including the Louvre castle.

 - :) enjoy!