[Harry Beck]

i am trying to research an item that may be sen in degehyn's plates. i believe it is called a portache[sp] and it is the leather hanger that the main charging flask and the bullet bag are suspended on. this is pre bandolier, and i cannot find any sources directly addressing it. if anybody could help me out with the correct name [?] or any other info or references i would be very grateful.

harry
harry.r.beck@verizon.net

[Gordon Frye]

[Damien Pinel]

I have no idea what was pre-bandolier.
But this topic is very interesting, as we often only know of "late mousketeers" who were living in the wake of d'Artagnan, when the king was Louis XIII and then Louis XIV. I now discover de Gheyn drawings, and mousketeers seem to have been a lot more colorful in their accoutrement, maybe less codified (you know, the long coat with open sleeves, the ornemented cross, and the feather hat).
(this site specialises more on arquebusiers).
What we can see on this famous drawings by De Gheyn (er. I think the powder effect is not quite historically accurate ), in the year 1607, is already a bandolier.
And I cannot really see the differences with the previous century... http://www.arquebusiers.be/16e-siecle.htm. How is it different ? How do you say it was called ? Porte-something looks like the beginning of a french word.

[Harry Beck]

thank you, that is exactly what i was looking for. any documentation links or leads are much appreciated. i am an sca member and i want to reproduce one for an arts and sciences project, and to enter into a competition, so i need documentation resources. i am engaged in an ever lasting battle to bring greater authenticity to what is most often a traveling costume party.
harry

[Harry Beck]

BTW the open coat was called a cassock or tabard [in english] and was worn over this type of clothing.
harry

[Gordon Frye]

Damien;

In the 16th Century, the primary means for carrying one's powder supply was in a flask such as shown in the de Gheyn engravings. They might be triangle-shaped, or curved, or even the classic American Frontier "powder horn" style. Amost any recepticle that would keep the powder both dry and immediately available was worthwhile. By the middle years of the century, if not earlier, the measured spout was invented, which allows the shooter to measure his powder charge by placing his thumb or finger over the spout, opening a lever on the top of the flask, over turning it and the closing the lever, cutting off the powder from reentering the flask as it is turned back to the proper side up. The thumb or finger is then removed, and the spout inserted in the barrel and the powder transfered into the bore. It's quite fast, and gives an accureate measure of powder too.

The downside of this method is that our ancestors, not being as safety-obsessed as we are, merrily went about their business doing this without regard to the fact that a burning ember might remain in the bore of the gun, awaiting the fresh charge of powder to ignite. This of course would in turn ignite the pound or so of powder in the flask, instantly turning it into a hand grenade, in your hand. About the best result you can hope for at that point is a badly burned hand, but probably worse will occur, which is why most shooting clubs forbid the practice. Not a good thing to have happen, needless to say. At any rate, Bandoliers remove this problem, and provide a nice, pre-measured charge which can be dumped directly into the barrel without any danger of igniting the rest of the powder supply!

Bandoliers have been known from probably the 1520's on, as there is a famous engraving of a Landsknechte arquebusier who has several chargers slung from a cross-belt from about that time (below). But they weren't popular until later in the century, when by and large Musketeers adopted them (at least among English, Dutch, German and French Musketeers. As noted in a previous post, for some reason the Spaniards didn't like them, and Italians usually followed Spanish fashions, so I would expect them to sick with the flask as well)

Paul Meekins in England sells bandoliers ( http://www.bandoliers.co.uk/bando/bando.htm ) and here is a pic of what he sells. Good example of a 17th Century set of Bandoliers.

Also check out the various web pages on Matchlocks and such. http://www.matchlock.net/ GREAT links from this site!

Still looking for good illustrations of flasks and porte-tache's though. I would assume that it's French in origin, rather like "Attache'", but with the root of "portable"/"transport" added to "attache'".

Cheers!

Gordon

[Damien Pinel]

[Harry Beck]

does anyone have a link to degehyn's images in color?
harry

[Damien Pinel]

I have this.

I do not know if that helps you much though.

[Gordon Frye]

Harry; I think that those that Damien posted are about as close as you're going to get, as the original engravings weren't usually coloured in the first place. No doubt some were sold that way, and there ARE some publications of the original drawings by Jacob de Gheyn which were in full colour, but I don't know of any on the web at present.

Cheers!

Gordon

[Harry Beck]

i believe the original book was in color, i know that there were several special editions that he did before the 1607 publicatiion that were very elaborate [shopping the book around for a patron to publish] and presented to certain dignitaries.
thanks guys. are there any other sources for this piece of gear? other books thet i could find. i have some pretty good libraries at my fingertips, pitt and cmu in particular.
harry

[Gordon Frye]

Harry;

For some good illustrations of the porte-tache, check out Robert Held, "The Age of Firearms" 1957. He has a page from J.J. von Walhausen's "Kreigkunst zu Pferde" which shows the drill of the Harquebusier, with loading and firing of his carbine from horseback. Good illustrations of the porte-tache there and how it's used.

Also Frederick Wilkinson. "Firearms" 1977. A good picture of an original porte-tache. I think it's the reason I bought the book in the first place, LOL!

And yes, the first book that de Gheyn did was in fact fully colourized... but I'm not sure that it's on the web as of yet. I have two copies of the set, one the Dover and the other one a full facsimile with a separate commentary by Dutch historian J.B. Krist published in 1971. THAT is the one to dig out of your library, as the commentary is worth reading, and has photo's of original equipment... though not a porte-tache, unfortunately.

Good luck,

Gordon

[Harry Beck]

super, thanks.
harry

[Harry Beck]

i found a copy of the first book, the wilkinson volumn is a little harder. do you have a copy of it? any chance you could scan the page? thanks either way, you have been a great help. i need to cite my sources of documentation for the item in the competition, after that it's just happy shooting.
harry

[Gordon Frye]

Harry;

Here's the pic of a porte-tache from Wilkinson. It's probably from around 1600 or so. I love the carving on the flask, it's pretty nifty! (Also note the spring-loaded cover to the spout on the flask)

Good luck on trying to convert the SCA from a traveling costume party, BTW. Long hard row to hoe, I'm afraid!

Cheers!

Gordon

[Daniel Staberg]

Very interesting pic Gordon, it shows the details clearly unlike my 1930's pic which was all that I could find.
The followign shows a porte-tasche as worn by a musketter from around 1600, the original was kept in the Berlin Zeughaus before the last war but I've not been able to locate it after 1945.

The porte-tasche was part on the 'German' musketeers equipment in the first decades of the 17th Century, only to disparea as the armies expanded rapidly in the late 1620's. The bandoliers proved a cheaper alternative perhaps?

[Gordon Frye]

Daniel;

Hmmm... those two pictured items are similar enough to either be the same pieces, or perhaps from the same batch? Interesting!

Odd how it shows both porte-tache and bandolier being used together, but hey, it's a museum so Lord Knows the reality of it all. I hadn't heard that the Germans practiced this arrangement. However, I HAVE seen reference to English Shotte using both together, though the bandolier in that case was slung over the RIGHT shoulder, down to under the LEFT arm so as not to interfere with the flask and pouch.

Interesting conjecture about the relative cheapness of bandoliers vs. porte-tache and flask. I know that Caliver men (or arquebusiers, depending upon your language) used the porte-tache and flask because the both shot more often than Musketeers and were far more mobile, so that bandoliers would get in the way and make WAY too much noise while skirmishing. But as the art/practice of skirmishing tended to fall to the wayside after 1600, one might conjecture that the demise of both the caliver and the porte-tache went hand in hand. Of course they stayed popular for Cavalry until the general adoption of cartridges and cartridge boxes in the late 17th Century.

Sad to hear that such wonderful items were destroyed or carted off after 1945, but who knows, maybe some of them will surface now that the Soviet Union is no more...

Thanks for posting that picture, BTW!

Cheers,

Gordon

[Harry Beck]

thank you very much, this is just super.
harry

[Daniel Staberg]

Heres is the full picture which may be of interest, apparently the display was made using preserved items from the Zeughaus and put together based on the regulations issued for musketeers. It migth have been lost in the war one way or another or simply relocated and put into storage in some post-war museum which would put it out of sight and reach almost as effectively as a looting Soviets or an allied firebomb raid

[Gordon Frye]

Thanks again, Daniel! Straight out of de Gheyn! Well, with minor differences of course... but still, great photo! Maybe some day the pieces will turn up in some museum basement and it will be put on display again. We can hope!

Cheers!

Gordon