Congratulations! At the risk of seeming greedy, I must ask if you were able to incorporate many of the sketches themselves, and if those will be included in the public document. Okay, I AM greedy!

Paul,

There may be a fee, but I don't believe you have to be a member of anything to obtain a copy. By early June - possibly late May - all the theses from this semester will be uploaded and searchable at our library: http://library.und.edu/ You should be able to find it by entering Dolnstein's name or my name into the search bar. When it is available, perhaps I will post a link directly to the document.

This was such a thrilling project. I only wish I had waited to make it my dissertation. A person could turn analysis of Dolnstein's sketches into a book. What a treasure!

By the way, swordsmith Peter Johnsson, who is rather famous on this board, contributed to the sections on weaponry.

Danielle

Sean,

I missed your post! Thank you!

Yes, all of the images are in the document, and they are glorious. It's not greedy at all. They are things to savor.

Danielle

Hooray! What a great service to scholarship!

Thank you, Sean!

By the way, your signature is wonderful.

My thesis keeps getting search hits on Google, so I thought I should let people know what is going on. ProQuest gave me an update saying that by mid-August the document will be available on the ProQuest Dissertation and Thesis database, the UND library, Udini, GoogleScholar, and on GoogleBooks. GoogleBooks will be "at a later date." I don't know what that means in terms of time frame or how much of the text will be visible. I was surprised to hear that it would ever be on GoogleBooks.

At any rate, thank you to everyone searching for it. I am so glad to have provided something useful to the military history discussion!

Danielle

Hi Danielle,

As many others in this forum I'll be looking forwards to reading your thesis once it is published/uploaded/available in any form. Though I have obviously seen references to Dolnsteins writings as well as several of his sketches in various books, I have never read the actual thing. Being a Scandinavian as well as interested in history and Germanic culture/language it is one the must-read-list.

Out of curiosity, do you happen to have some uploadable form of his diary in its original langauge? Perhaps just a crude scan of raw pages or the text typed in its bare form as a step in your work of translation? If so I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate the effort.. :eek: :D

_________________________________________
-Rune

Hi Rune,

Unfortunately, I can not upload the sketchbook - copyright restrictions. (FYI - It is not really a diary. I refer to it as a sketchbook or illustrated notebook.) However, the whole thing (in scanned, color images) is in my thesis. In answer to your question about a little of the text, I can provide some. It is most wonderful stuff in the original language, isn't it! The following is from the famous image of the Swedish peasants attacking the German Landsknechts.

jtem in [crossed out word] norweden habn wir jn a_h_w_ ein vest
sloß gewunen daß haist elßpurgk daß hab wir vor
prant vnser warn xviij hundert tewtscher
do vber vielen vnß die schwedischen bawrn jm
lager xiv tawset starck jn solcher gestalt wie
hie ernstlich vnß an grifen gab vnß gott den sig
vnd er slugen sy des meisteil gar zu tott
wir heten all Rück vnd krebb vnd hirn
hawben vnd arm schin vnd sy
hatn armbrost vnd gut spieß
von schwertn gemacht dar
nach schlug vnß der kunig
von tennmarck zu Ritter vnd
tat vnß groß er vnd betzalt
vnß wol vnd ließ vnß vber
die see setzen jm xv c iij jar
do pin ich pawl vom dolnstain
peÿ gewest her sigmunt
list waß oberster habtman.

Danielle

And having read the translation a few days ago, I can almost read it despite the natural spelling and Early Modern dialect! You early modernists have some cool sources to play with.

Sean,

Cool indeed. They have a tendency to take my breath away.

Danielle

Sean and Danielle,

I have to agree it is good stuff in its original form!

Not just as a source material for historians or linguists, but enjoyable reading in its own right. Depite its shorthand form, Paul Dolnsteins language is flowing in a vivid form.
And quite easily read compared to many contemporary sources (in my humble wiev as a layman without any formal introduction to mediavel/early modern dialects). One has to remember there was no such thing as standardized spelling or punctuation outside the most educated circles at the time.

From the little extract given, I'd say Dolnstein seems fairly straightforward and (to the extent that he, as being just one among many in that campaign would have had knowledge) reliable. Clearly he records what he sees or experiences - which anyone ever having attended a crowded festival or similar event would know is not necessary an objective description in terms of exact numbers and chain of events, but merely a best guess. Add to that the shock-effect of the crowd being hostile peasants appearing at your camp in vast numbers intend on killing, and I'd say any of us would have been pressed to be more exact than Paul was in this situation..

I for one has always been fascinated with the glimses such sketches and textfragments offer us. This is not officiel history written to glorify kings and queens, but the work of someone who cared to record it anyway. The drawings clearly shows his personal interest in the equipment and outfit of the troops. Professionel mercenaries and conscripted peasants are clearly different and there is a bounty of information to be found (also in drawings not uploaded so far) for us entusiasts.
For those who may not know Dolnstein (Daniel who started this tread long ago never got around to that), he was hired for his expertice in bridgebuilding (e.i. the equvivalent of modern day army engineer) as part of a larger contingent of German mercenaries for the campaign of King Hans, who at this time tried to forced his rule on swedish nobility no longer interested in maintaining the Union of Kalmar. But though context is never unimportant, that's a completely different story..

So, let us all just enjoy this voice from the past and say our thanks to Danielle, whose work will open up the contents of this little gem to a larger audience once avaliable.

- Rune

P.S please give us an update once this happens!

Rune,

Daniel was a tremendous resource in the early stages of my research.

You are correct in that Dolnstein is straightforward, and he is indeed very interested in equipment and attire. It is a safe bet that he was hired for his expertise, particularly in later campaigning. In his early years of fighting (Montfort), he may not yet have been an expert. Journeyman artisans often went on campaign for a little cash, adventure, or because their princes required a certain number of men. However, by the Swedish campaign, he had been a master builder for some time. In this campaign, we know what Dolnstein did. He made camp. This certainly drew on his expertise as a builder. His prince sent 500 men to support King Hans of Denmark. Dolnstein may have volunteered, or he may have been personally tapped. It is my view that he was known at court, so the latter is possible.

You might be interested to know that Dolnstein was a contemporary of Martin Luther. Dolnstein's prince was the man who saved Luther's neck - Frederick the Wise.

Danielle

Hello All,

I receive emails and private messages from time to time seeking access to my thesis which contains Dolnstein's sketchbook / diary. There is a digital version available for free through Inter-Library Loan if you have access to an academic library. All of Dolnstein's sketches with transcription and translation are in the pdf file.

Here is the UND Library Link: http://odin-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/pr...mp;vid=und

The digital version is also available for purchase through Proquest which hosts theses and dissertations for libraries. The price is rather high. That is out of my control unfortunately. Here is the link: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1030440214

In case you are thinking of buying it, the sketches appear in good quality images throughout the thesis, so depending on your level of interest, it may actually be worth cost to buy it from Proquest.

I wish I could give this work away; Dolnstein's sketches are so beautiful! However, I have to observe the copyright of the archive that holds Dolnstein's sketchbook. Hence, requests have to go through Proquest or the library system.

Danielle

Danielle, a few months ago I was able to get a copy of your thesis through my university's interlibrary-loan program. Thank you for your scholarship. I found your analysis of the social and gender dynamics surrounding mercenary soldiers particularly enlightening. As far as weapons and warfare go, the sketches suggest the prevalence of mounted crossbowers in the broad German region during this period. You see the same thing in Hans Talhoffer's manuals and from illustrations in the late-fifteenth-century housebook reproduced in Venus and Mars, but it's nice to have more evidence as some folks still consider shooting crossbows from the saddle impractical. Now if only Dolnstein showed how they spanned those crossbows!

Benjamin,

Thank you for your kind comments. It is so gratifying to see the thesis getting some use. It will be some time before I have the chance to do what it will take to make it more readily available.

You will find a good theory for your question about mounted men spanning crossbows on page 93 of Dirk Breiding's A Deadly Art: European Crossbows, 1250-1850. "An Islamic source states that the belt-and-pulley system could be adapted for spanning crossbows on horseback, and frequent European depictions of mounted crossbowmen during the period indicate that the simple belt-hook-and-stirrup method was probably also employed in these circumstances."

Here is a GoogleBooks link to Breiding: http://books.google.com/books?id=svxfAgAAQBAJ...mp;f=false

By the way, I perused your historically inspired fantasy fiction - what fun! Thank you for posting the link in your signature. I am working on my second novel (historical fiction series about Martin Luther's world, including Dolnstein and his comrades). I am starting to dream of seeing the books in both novel and graphic novel forms to serve different audiences. Life is so short!

Danielle

It's so wonderful to have a beautiful, intelligent lady adding her knowledge to this forum. My hat is off to you, and my cloak thrown over the puddle, M'lady. :D ...........McM

The goat's-foot lever is another possible spanning method while mounted. Writing in the 1590s, Sir John Smythe wanted "crooked gaffles hanging at their strong girdles after the manner of Germanie" for his mounted crossbowers. "Gaffle" is generally though to mean "goat's-foot lever" - it's similar to the Spanish "gafa" - and "crooked" seems like an appropriate adjective to attach to goat's-foot levers. But mounted crossbowers - and crossbowers in general - in any significant numbers had long disappeared from European battlefield by the 1590s. I'd love to find some more information about mounted crossbowers in Germany and France around 1500, but I haven't seen a whole lot out there. Gunpowder weapons appear to have completely displaced the crossbow for mounted use shortly after Dolnstein's time. A royal decree as late as 1526 mandated that French archers be able to shoot their bows and crossbows both mounted and on foot, but it may have been out of date even then. In the 1540s, Fourquevaux made no mention of the crossbow for mounted soldiers even though he considered the weapon potentially superior to the gun for infantry.

Benjamin,

Mounted crossbowmen stayed on longer than is usually assumedin a lot of works, the mounted arquebusiers that supposedly turned up during the early in the Italian Wars don't stand up to closer examination of the sources, at least not serving as cavalry as opposed to mounted infantry.

The French does not seem to have had many mounted crossbowmen to begin with and soon came to favour chevaux-legers and "Albanians" (Stradiots) for the light cavalry role together with true mounted arquebusiers who begin to turn up in the later half of the 1530's IIRC. So Fourquevaux not mentioning them is not a surprise. In Central and Northern Europe the mounted crossbowman served longer, a 1520's document detailing the equipment of Danish mounted crossbowmen (in practice German mercenaries) describe equipment in the style shown by Dolnstein but also adds a light lance.

Such well equipped mounted crossbowmen seems to have been regarded as the typical cavalry in Sweden, there are several references to them in chronicles from the later half of the 15th Century (including the mounted use of the crossbow) and after the war of Liberation 1521-23 King Gustavs kept a corps of mounted crossbowmen in his service during peacetime and from the 1540's onward he increased their number by raised new units of regular cavalry recruited from native Swedes & Finns Firearms began to appear in the 1530s but were only introduced in large numbers during the war with Russia 1554-1557 when both infantry and cavalry were reequiped with firearms. But at least as late as 1564 some Swedish cavalry went to war armed with crossbows, but this was due to a shortage of firearms which forced the Crown to issue old stores of crossbow and Crown baliffs were ordered to collect or purchase crossbows from the peasantry to help arm the troops (Basicly the Swedish army had increased in size by almost 77% between 1560 and 1563 but the number of firearms in the Royal armoury had only increased by 21% hence the emergency use of crossbows until the shortage could be made good by importing firearms from Germany.)

There is information about the Central European use of mounted crossbowmen to be found in a book called "Söldner aus Böhmen" by Uwe Tresp. Available free and legal from the Bavarian State Library http://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/o...ode=simple

Daniel, thanks for the information. There are accounts of French mounted archers using their bows and crossbows in the Italian Wars, and royal decrees mentioned mounted crossbow shooting up to 1526, so the French did have a tradition of mounted crossbowers, even if not as strong as in Germany or Sweden. It's intriguing to read that mounted crossbowers saw service as late as 1564. It makes me wonder whether Smythe encountered mounted crossbowers somewhere during his various military adventures. He only references the history of mounted crossbowers in general way - unlike his specific accounts of Turkish soldiers - so I imagine not.