Some newer sketches in MyPaint

Salve,
 allow me to show you some newer sketches done with MyPaint software and tablet.

Ps
interesting video on using the rear cinch on western saddle - by the master saddle maker David Genadek.

Adama Niesiołowskiego usarskich koni ciąg dalszy

Salve,
again, this post will be mostly in Polish:
finał opisów konskich uczynionych przez imci pana Adama Niesiolowskiego w Przeglądzie Kawaleryjskim

o szarżach ''kolano w kolano'':

o skrzydlach usarskich:

o szkoleniu husarskich koni i jeźdźców:
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Polish publishing house Napoleon V is about to publish a book on the Crown hussaria during the Polish war with Turkey 1672-76, when hetman and then king Jan Sobieski worked to revive hussaria after the years of Deluge and wars with Muscovy, achieving great victories against gallant Ottoman Turkish armies and their pillaging yet tremendously dangerous Tatar allies: this is the book

Adama Niesiołowskiego koni usarskich opisanie

Salve,
 today's post will be in Polish :)

w Roku Pańskim 1929  pan Adam Niesiołowski napisał artykuł do czasopisma kawalerii II Rzeczypospolitej zatytułowanego ,,Przegląd Kawaleryjski'' i  ukazującego się w latach 1924-1939 czyli do końca II Rzeczypospolitej.

  Artykuł traktuje o husarii, jej historii, uzbrojeniu, taktyce oraz koniach; mosci pan autor używając źródeł patrzy (analizuje) na husarię na tyle na ile pozwalał stan nauki o historii tejże formacji polskiej jazdy w tym słynnym 1929 roku (rok Wielkiego Kryzysu).

  Pełny przypis: Adam Niesiołowski, Ussarze, Przegl. Kawaleryjski, nr 5-6 (43-44), 1929, ss. 357-384.

Zajmę się tylko fragmentami opisującymi konie, i oto one:
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  Bardzo ciekawa jest uwaga pana Niesiołowskiego o szarżowaniu 'kolano w kolano' ale o niej i trenowaniu koni husarskiej jutro.
  Przy okazji mamy tez uwagi pana Adama o skrzydłach husarskich, które zamieszczę także jutro.
Numery ''Przegladu'' są dostępne na stronie Wielkopolskiej Biblioteki Cyfrowej
Ps
Dyskusja o siodłach polskich i nie tylko na historykach.org

Polish horses covered with animal skins - della Bella's prints

Salve,
today we will travel to Rome AD 1633 and see some horses as seen and drawn by XVII century Italian artist Stefano della Bella.
Our king Wladysław IV sent his friend Jerzy Ossoliński as his ambassador to the court of His Holy See Urban VIII in Rome.
Our royal ambassador made an entry into Rome that became famed for the fine horses (some with actual gold horseshoes), splendidly mounted and attired riders and general wealth and opulence displayed by Ossoliñski's retinue.
But the subject of my entry today is the use of wild animal skins for saddle cloths/shabraques used on some horses of the Ossoliński's court.

   The usage of large animal pelts is nothing new in the Eurasian horsemanship (eg discussion of Greek and Macedonian usage of lion, panther etc skins is discussed in the book by J.K. Anderson titled Ancient Greek Horsemanship) - the most famous is Alexander the Great's shabraque in the Mosaic. The image above shows a Hellenistic Period stallion covered with a panther skin, smartly secured on the horse.
Russian scholar A.V. Simonenko in his book "Sarmatskie vsadniki Severnogo Prichernomorya" ( Sarmatian horsemen of the Northern Black Sea)  reconstructed some of his riders with panther skin as a saddle cloth.

 Thracians who fought the Greeks, Macedonians, Skithians, Romans and whoever moved onto their lands also used the leopard skins for their saddle clothes as evidenced by their tomb art:

The Thracians disappeared within the sea of their Slav, Iranian and Turkic invaders after these peoples had settled in the Balkans however some of their customs perhaps did not, perhaps adopted and practised due to their martial character and extravagance.

   The riders of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and their neighbours to the south, the ones from the former Kingdom of Hungary and their conquerors from Ottoman Turkey liked tu use these lion, leopard or even bear skins as coverings for their horses, underneath the saddles or as a horse cape, covering already saddled horse (as in the example on top of this post).

The Balkan riders and their horses covered in lion skin are epitomised in this image:

And one with a bear skin here:

So let us see the della Bella's prints - commentary written on each images:
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there will be more about this entry into Rome in the future, or so I hope

Poland's Independence Day

Salve friends,
 today is Poland's Independence Day - established by the Polish Sejm (parliament) to commemorate Poland's return to the map of the world in 1918. My great-grandfather and his brother and many of our cousins and uncles took part as soldiers in the 3 years long struggle (with Germans in Wielkopolska and Silesia, Czechs, Ukrainians,  and the Soviets) to establish Polish Republic after 123 since the Partitions.

...Vivat Polonia ...

Polish Eagle on Wikipedia 

Some Polish historic songs:
Bogurodzica - the oldest known Polish military song 
Legiony
Zadwórze 
Pieśń konfederatów Barskich
Duma Rycerska 
Ballada kresowa
Mazurek
Warszawskie Dzieci
Marsz Dzieci Lwowskich
Warszawianka
Powstanie Styczniowe 
Chłopcy silni jak stal
Serce w plecaku
Czerwone Jabłuszko
Czerwone Maki na Monte Cassino
Maszeruja Strzelcy
Dziś do ciebie przyjść nie mogę
Rozkwitały Pęki Białych Róż
O mój rozmarynie
Wojenko Wojenko
Przybyli ułani pod okienko
Hej, Hej Ułani Malowane Dzieci
Ostatnia kula
Paweł Kukiz mix
and one metal song by a Swedish group Sabaton about battle of Wizna titled 40 to 1

On the webpage of Polish bard, author, art historian, poet and Old French literature translator one can listen to the historic songs - Jacek Kowalski


Ps
today is also Veterans Day in the great United States of America - honour your Veterans.

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.
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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.

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

Dziady or Slavic Halloween

Salve,
my Slavic ancestors, when still pagan (Poland was officially converted in 966AD), celebrated their dead by holding a special feast twice a year (spring and autumn) known as ''Dziady'' or Grandfathers. The fall feast was held at the end of October and beginning of November.

Bonfires were lit to show the sprits of the dead the way to their living relatives' dwellings.

Prayers were held and foodstuffs were prepared especially kasha, honey and eggs to celebrate the strips of ancestors and relatives, both to secured their favours and to ease their existence in the Underworld.

Wooden masks known as karaboszki (singular - karaboszka) were carved to symbolize the spirits of the dead.

Wandering beggars were thought to have been the special nexus between the world of the living and the dead, and during the ritual of ''Dziady'' these beggars were fed and in return they would recollect and tell of past experiences of the deceased relatives.

I should mention that the spirits of the dead who passed naturally were celebrated in the way I described above, but all those who died violent death were buried approximately where they fell and their burials were feared and anyone passing those had to leave a green branch on the burial, eventually the gathered wood was burned during Dziady, as these poor souls were suspected of mischief and those special fires on their burials were thought to stop these wretches from coming to the world of living and causing harm.


With the coming of Christianity these rituals survived in the folk customs and rituals, and they are celebrated in Poland as Zaduszki ( day after All Saints Day), by bringing flowers, often some food and by burning znicze.

Our great Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz described Dziady in his epic poem "Dziady."

Above, the Headless Horseman Polish-style, in my old sketch :)


ps
 I took the photos shown here from the Wikipedia article, slightly converted via GIMP

Abraham de Bruyn's western European lancers

Salve,
 I would like to begin by wishing good luck to my friends and family on the East Coast of the US, as the hurricane Sandy  landed there last night.

Going back to Abraham de Bruyn and his prints, today a set showing armoured lancers of the Western Europe:
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 Tournament harness

.. another fully armoured lancer

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 Italian lancer

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.. French lancer

.. Netherlands' (Low Countries) lancer

..German standard bearer

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Interestingly de Bruyn shows no Spanish heavy lancer but only two bullfighting horsemen  riding à 'la gineta' style and a herreruelo or a pistol-and-arquebus (wheel-lock) armed cavalryman. Also he shows a Belgian armoured commander of cavalry that fought for the Spanish in the war in Flanders.
 a la gineta

Spanish herreruelo

eques Belga

and finally a drummer, as no cavalry could have been without music

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Abraham de Bruyn's Grand Duchy of Muscovy horses & riders

Salve,

snow in large parts of Europe, huge hurricane in the eastern United States - crazy ending of the warm season, so let us concentrate on horses and their riders.

Abraham de Bruyn also created beautiful images of riders and horses with their tack, leaders and warriors of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy or simply Muscovy (Lev Gumilev teaches us, in his books, that Russia only starts with the great warrior and first rate statesman tzar Peter I although Western and Soviet/Russian historians tend to give 1547 as beginning of Russia, while in our neck of the woods our Polish-Lithuanina Commonwealth stopped using the name Grand Duchy of Muscovy only in 1764 or so).

Ad rem...
the Great Duke

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woivode, with the characteristic Tatar drum at his pommel

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noble (perhaps a boyar or oprichnik ) armed as with a lance like Polish and Hungarian hussars (perhaps the cost-cutting engraver just added these details to spice up the image for and edition aimed at some wealthy patron etc). We know that the Muscovites tried to form a winged hussar unit in XVII century.

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lesser noblity

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common horseman fighting as horse archer, as seen in the battle of Orsha painting 

Note the sabre hanging down on the lanyard in two woodcuts (loop of rope or leather thong fixed to the sword hilt, used to hang down the sword from the wrist), facilitating its use when axe was moved to the left hand or earlier when bow was used.

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Muscovy fighting the Tatars of the Pontic-Caspian steppes always encouraged their settlement, participation in the armed forces and administration aided by the eventual conversion to Christianity.

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a Tatar and a Muscovite

ps
 let us again quote from von Herberstein's work where he described Muscovite horses and soldiers:

They have small gelded horses, unshod, and with very light bridles, and their saddles are so adapted that they may turn round in any direction without impediment, and draw the bow. They sit on horseback with the feet so drawn up, that they cannot sustain any more than commonly severe shock from a spear or javelin. Very few use spurs, but most use the whip, which always hangs from the little finger of the right hand, so that they may lay hold of it and use it as often as they need; and if they have occasion to use their arms, they let it fall again so as to hang from the hand. Their ordinary arms are a bow, a javelin, a hatchet, and a stick, like a caestus, which is called in Russian, kesteni; in Polish, bassalich*. The more noble and wealthy men use a lance. They have also suspended from their arm oblong poignards** like knives, which are so buried in the scabbard, that they can scarcely touch the tip of the hilt, or lay hold of them in the moment of necessity. They have also a long bridle perforated at the end, which they attach to a finger of the left hand, so that they may hold it at the same time as they use the bow. Moreover, although they hold the bridle, the bow, the short sword, the javelin, and the whip, in their hands all at the same time, yet they know how to use them skilfully without feeling any incumbrance.' Some of the higher classes use a coat of mail beautifully worked on the breast with a sort of scales and with rings; some few use a helmet of a peaked form like a pyramid. Some use a dress made of silk stuffed with wool, to enable them to sustain any blows. They also use pikes.