myArmoury.com - Albanian Sword (15th Century) and Turkish Shield questions..

Posts: 11 Location: Virginia

Tue 20 Feb, 2007 9:14 pm

Albanian Sword (15th Century) and Turkish Shield questions..

Hello,

As this is my first post i ask for your patience as i ramble a bit. I have recently been looking back through some old books of mine and came across a picture of an Albanian Mercenary in Osprey's excellent Byzantine Armies 1118-1461. The Angus Mcbride Plate on PG . 31 shows one of these men. In the explanation it talks about the Albanian using a "Straight Broad Sword" (era of Skanderbeg). This is interesting to me as i would expect the Balkans to have had a Heavy Turkish influence in the 15th Century. The rendition only shows the Pommel of the sword which has a guard similar to the later style cavalry sabers. Does anyone know anything about these weapons?

Additionally, could someone point me to a resource/pictures concerning the Turkish shields. The one displayed reminds me a a curved Roman Scutum with a half circle cut out in one corner. Perhaps they are basing the plate on the Stradiot light cavalry? I appreciate your help on this matter.

Sincerely,

Norlyn

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Hisham Gaballa

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Posts: 508

Wed 21 Feb, 2007 12:43 am

Re: Albanian Sword (15th Century) and Turkish Shield questio

Norlyn C wrote:

Hello,

As this is my first post i ask for your patience as i ramble a bit. I have recently been looking back through some old books of mine and came across a picture of an Albanian Mercenary in Osprey's excellent Byzantine Armies 1118-1461. The Angus Mcbride Plate on PG . 31 shows one of these men. In the explanation it talks about the Albanian using a "Straight Broad Sword" (era of Skanderbeg). This is interesting to me as i would expect the Balkans to have had a Heavy Turkish influence in the 15th Century. The rendition only shows the Pommel of the sword which has a guard similar to the later style cavalry sabers. Does anyone know anything about these weapons?

Additionally, could someone point me to a resource/pictures concerning the Turkish shields. The one displayed reminds me a a curved Roman Scutum with a half circle cut out in one corner. Perhaps they are basing the plate on the Stradiot light cavalry? I appreciate your help on this matter.

Sincerely,

Norlyn

You are going to have problems finding pictures of 15th century Turkish shields, however 16th-19th century shields are a lot easier to find.

This website has pictures of late 17th century shields captured at the Siege of Vienna:
http://www.tuerkenbeute.de/sam/
http://www.tuerkenbeute.de/sam/sam_rus/

You'll find 18th-19th century shields here, you'll need to search though:
http://www.oriental-arms.com/item.php?id=1298

And there are more pics of shields here:
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/turkey/istanbul/pala...nd_armour/

And there is a picture of a Timurid shield in the albums:
http://www.myArmoury.com/albums/displayimage.php?pos=-12398

With regards to the trapezoidal shield, I have seen pictures of those too, I'll see what i can find.

Edit
Here you are, click on the thumbnail please:

I found the picture in a German exhibition catalogue called "Schätze aus 1001 Nacht", it dates to the mid-16th century and is now in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna.

Here's a link to the exhibition:
http://www.voelklinger-huette.org/1001nacht/de/index.html

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Lafayette C Curtis

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Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia

Wed 21 Feb, 2007 7:19 pm

Actually it wouldn't be surprising to find a straight, broad-bladed sword in the hand of an Albanian warrior of that time. The Balkans was under heavy Turkish influence, but it was certainly under the influence of Christian Europe as well--just like the other border principalities like Hungary, Wallachia, or Transylvania.

What do you mean by "a guard similar to later style cavalry sabers," BTW? Is it because they had knuckle-guards or because they used the two-slab hilt with the tang sandwiched in the middle and fixed with rivets?

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Norlyn C

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Posts: 11 Location: Virginia

Wed 21 Feb, 2007 8:20 pm

Albanian Sword....

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:

Actually it wouldn't be surprising to find a straight, broad-bladed sword in the hand of an Albanian warrior of that time. The Balkans was under heavy Turkish influence, but it was certainly under the influence of Christian Europe as well--just like the other border principalities like Hungary, Wallachia, or Transylvania.

What do you mean by "a guard similar to later style cavalry sabers," BTW? Is it because they had knuckle-guards or because they used the two-slab hilt with the tang sandwiched in the middle and fixed with rivets?

Excellent question, I wanted to be sure before i responded using bad sword terminology. In fact i was speaking of the Knuckleguard. I think the best example in picture for is the St. Michael's Falchion [url]http://www.myArmoury.com/review_mrl_stmfalc.html [/url] ,however, the Guard on the Albanian art shows the knuckleguard going all the way to the pommel. Additionally, i dont believe the text for the art mentions a falchion and the sword blade itself is shielded by the Character in the artwork. Was the Knuckleguard commonplace on swords common to the Balkans in the early to kid 15th century???

Norlyn

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Lafayette C Curtis

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Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia

Thu 22 Feb, 2007 11:03 pm

I wouldn't go so far as to say commonplace--I don't have enough material to pronounce a judgement either way--but it was probably not unknown at that time and in that region. After all, there would have been plenty of inspiration from the Oakeshott Type XIX swords.

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Danny Grigg

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Posts: 337

Fri 23 Feb, 2007 1:08 am

The shield you describe is known as a Hungarian Targe (Hungarian Shield).

See the links below

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/eue/hod_49.57.1.htm
http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_hussars.html
http://www.hessink.nl/online-catalogus-index.html

Danny

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