[Martin Kulha]

I was wondering if anyone here has pictures of weapons and armor used in northwestern Hungary (present day western Slovakia) at the very beginning of 14th century, especially archaeological finds. I'm trying to put together what arms and armor Matus/Maté/Matthew Csak/Čák (c. 1260 - 1321) and his familiars would use.

I already have Chronica Picta/Vienna Chronicle, what I'm mainly trying to find out is if Csaks' own helmet would be western style greathelm (e.g. Codex Manesse type), or open-faced version shown mainly in Chronica Picta (it does show very, very few great helms - no more than five - and one bascinet). Some actual weapon finds would be nice, too, there aren't many of them around the internet - or my google-fu is really weak.

I'd also be interested in your opinion on how much Hungary was westernized weapons and tactics -wise in this period, I'm discussing this with a few people elsewhere, and we can't reach an agreement.

Thanks for any help, if we get the reconstruction off the ground, and if anyone is interested, I'll try to post pictures.

[Shahril Dzulkifli]

People like me don't have photos of real Hungarian arms and armour from the said period.
Lack of evidence makes them quite difficult to find.

[Henrik Zoltan Toth]

Basically hungarians did have heavy cavalry, but in limited numbers. They were like an everage western heavy knight, the only possyble difference were probably the bit shorter lances they used, mentioned by west european travelers. One of the familiars of King IV. Béla (-1272) had to pawn all of his lands and villages for lifetime to get a normal western chainmail and a warhorse.

Most of the middle nobel fought through the middle ages as mounted archers.

For your aim time and region, as Csák Máté attacked Moravia and King John in 1315, according to chech sources, his army was made of long bearded/heared mounted archers, wearing leather kaftans, using just bow and arrow, and long sword for defend.

Other discriptions (f.e. the Villani Chronicles) will give you a wider picture of those riders.

As a Csák familiar, you should probably think of getting a Yuan type bow (Atarn.org) and a large, closed, sandhour-shaped quiver. Other wise there is the belt buckle of Kígyóspuszta:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/hu/e/e7...C3%B3l.jpg