[Rudolf M.]

Hi
Can you help me with reconstruction Hungarian 15. century noble man - armour,clothing etc.
Please 15.CENTURY! Thanx for anything:D

[Romulus Stoica]

It depends...
He may be royalty, high nobility or small nobility.
Also he may be from Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Slovakia or Bohemia.
Again he may by part of a Banderium (heavy cavalry) or he may serve as light cavalry (usually the nobles were cavalry).
The Hungarian knights were western like in appearance but with some eastern influences.
The equipment was highly decorated.
The emphasis was on mobility so even the heavy cavalry was a little less armored than a german knight for example.
The most common helmets in XV century were chapel de fer, sallet and early forms of zisagge (more turkish-like in appearance).
Armor was maille with a lot of decorated small plates (gilded/silvered but also decorated with semiprecious stones) attached in patterns,maille and plates yushman / bechter like armor but also gothic full plate (of italian design usually).
Sometimes the maille shirts had openings in front, with metal clasps.
Hungary and especially Transylvania was a "melting pot" for western and estern influences in military equipment so you could have a very large collection to chose from.

[Matthew Fedele]

Didn't they have a version of the Winged Hussar or was that only Poland?

[Norbert Keller]

Hi!

If I know well, we had, but bit later.
In these times our country was in war with turks. Our king, Mathias I. (1458-1490.) opened his foreign politics to the west (Germany and Italy,etc). And we had rule, that we receive /take in anybody who would like to live in our country, if he accept our rules, and respect the natives >>>this country was a big forge of people and culture from everywhere, and it can be seen in the military too. (Still today, the terminology/conception of being Hungarian is depending if he feels himself Hungarian in heart or not, his/her ancestry/foreign growth does not affect it. Of course I don't speak about official nationalization, thats about paperwork nowadays )
Clothing fashions mostly came from the west but here also was some eastern and national wears. Armours were more mixed, and weapons too. You can see sabres, swords, and all other you want

[Henrik Zoltan Toth]

14??

Baron (they used generally north italian or south german armours), middle or a lawer nobleman?


Zoltán

(The polish winged hussars were a version of the hungarian hussars :-) The first ones came into Poland (in peace) with Stephen Báthory)

[Samuel Bena]

[Samuel Bena]

[Rudolf M.]

Thank you guys for help.
I got XV.century sabre, this is copy from some sabre in hungarian museum,can´t remember which one.
sabretache is made from wood and manta(devilfish?) leather.
How to get the picture here????
sorry,will try again..

[Samuel Bena]

[Rudolf M.]

Finaly I did it.Enjoy the pictures:D Sorry if the quality is low I used some JPG converter to sorted the pictures to max 220Kb.

[Vaclav Homan]

Interesting debate. About hungarian nobility is no more publication. What book is in slovak about this theme.
There is hungarian sabre from end of 15 centrury.

[Rudolf M.]

Can you help me please with clothes? I know the armour was "western style" but what they wear, boots, delia, hats etc?
There is more information and pictures from 16.ct but I thing there must be something before. Good picture is Vlad Tepes - border nobleman,warrior etc.
In slovakia is not what could be definitely "XV.ct",just some pictures or sculptures in churches or few books.
Good book is - Rytier a jeho kráľ, Dvořáková (dunno if is available in english)
- Žigmund Luxemburský - životopis
and few more.
But still NOTHING about XV!!! ct. in Slovakia.There is lots of literature about Czech, hussits,books, pictures etc
But what about the Serbs, Slovak, Romanian and Hungarian culture, clothes, weapons?
I know they "usually" used western swords, armour, but I´m not sure about the clothes.
In some chronicle is sentence that man from western europe cannot see the difference between Polish, Hungarian, Serbs etc but everyone from this countries know the difference.
And some pictures I found.Not everything is XV.ct.

[Samuel Bena]

Splendid pictures Rudolf and Vaclav, thank you very much !

I have to ask nevertheless, are the sabres from those pictures genuine antiques or are they reproductions? Regarding the books in Slovak about the nobility of Kingdom of Hungary.. well I am afraid I don't know anything in particular , mind you most of them are semi-biographical and deal more with political stuff (not much in terms of arms and armour afaik), though if Id encounter something interesting I'm gonna spread the word

Now about those sabres... the one Rudolf posted seems very similar to the one found on the portrait of Ippolito dei Medici (painted by Tizian, Medici was a papal legate in Hungary and iirc served against the Turks) from 1532-1534



as well as an earlier picture of Janissary by Gentile Bellini (painted circa 1479–81)



While the second one posted by Vaclav reminds me very much of the sword of Mehmed the conqueror, especially its hilt (who died 1481)


However if I where you Rudolf I might have gone for a more "Sciavonesca" style of sabre like this from a Hungarian museum (not sure which one exactly it is from, they also held an exhibit of the kit of king Matthias, but probably in Budapest) :



This 15th century depiction of a Hungarian official (udvarmester?) in Vienna seems confirm it :
retrieved from http://www.kepido.oszk.hu/index.phtml?ow_page...mp;step=10

Note the great similarity with the hilt on longsword (yep its the Balkan/north-Italian style which was tremendously popular in the Corvinus era) , the sabre you posted seems more Turkish in design and imo would be more characteristic of the Jagellonian era (post 1490s as some pictures of the early 16th century hussars show) when the Ottoman fashions really kicked in. However no doubt such pieces would be worn by the nobility in the border areas (like the Serbian border-lord Vuk Grgurević for example who had to watch the frontier for Ottoman raiders; Serbs possessed sabres in relatively Turkish design as the late 14/early15th century Kosovar frescoes show) It was no doubt a transitional era for the Hungarian nobility , however if you chose one way or another you cannot wrong imho.

Good luck !

[Samuel Bena]

[Boris R.]

[Samuel Bena]

Hi Boris ,
interesting point on the Dellis.
From what I've read the original word however seems to be derived from Turkish word deli (nowadays meaning crazy , whereas back in the day it also meant "overtly brave" or some such). I'm well aware (and fascinated) of the Kosovo mythos and indeed the Serbian warriors were quite a valuable asset to the Ottoman war-machime (as well as for the Hungarian and Polish army of that era). As far as the origin of the word hussar is concerned, people are divided on this (several Hungarian theories claiming that there were Huszár families already before the 15th century). Its all etymology and well frankly hard to say (lets face it, in our fragmented central-eastern part of Europe almost every state has its own "national" history which is often contradictory to that of others and breeds frustration as you cannot make your own unbiased opinion ), I haven't found a satisfying answer for it yet... Perhaps we could discuss it over PM as it touches the 15th century Hungary only partially (though no doubt a very interesting topic by itself )

[Romulus Stoica]

Here are some photos that I think would help about the clothing. This are characters from a fresco from the Mathias Loggia at the Corvin Castle in Hunedoara, Transylvania, depicting the legend of John Huniady's coat of arms. The fresco it's late XV century and it was painted during the reign, as king of Hungary, of Mathias Corvin, son of John Huniady. Sadly the fresco it's baddly deteriorated and the photos were digitally enhanced by me so it would be more clear. But you can see that the costumes in XV century Transylvania were quite western-like.

[Vaclav Homan]

My information about hungaria are from: Vojenské dějiny Československa. Naše Vojsko 1985.
Is this reconstruction relevant.
Picture of hungarian sabre is from my friend from fencing groupe also it is acceptable.

Romulus where is in Transilvania good museum with wearspons from 15 and 16 century. I was in Oradea and Sigishoara.

[Romulus Stoica]

You should check the National Museum of Transylvanian History in Cluj (their page is under re - construction)
http://www.museum.utcluj.ro/
and
Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu (arms and armors section).
http://www.brukenthalmuseum.ro/
Also You should check National Military Museum in Bucharest.
http://www.defense.ro/muzeumilitar/index.html

[Samuel Bena]