[Pieter B.]

Bruegel certainly doesn't portray them as beautiful people living the pastoral lifestyle. They look awful and their past time activities are crude and vulgar compared to what the upper echelons of society would be familiar with.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Romanticising peasants doesn't always have to mean making them look beautiful. The elder Brueghel's depictions of peasants tend to make them look hysterically happy, while at the same time somewhat over-emphasising the barbaric and uncouth aspects of their merry-making. And let's not miss the part where he tends to depict peasants from an era about thirty, forty, or even fifty years earlier than the time he made the paintings. If those of us who have been alive for that long look back upon the past, relying largely upon our recollections in the absence of the modern age's wealth of hard documentary evidence, its going to involve a lesser or greater degree of distortion. There's also going to be some mix-ups involved -- things we remember as being popular early in the decade might in fact have been the fashion late in the decade, and in worse cases it's not unlikely that we might mistakenly insert recollections from more recent times (right down to the present) to those earlier eras. There's some evidence of the latter happening in the elder Brueghel's work once they've been checked against surviving material evidence (both preserved and excavated) as well as earlier artists who were more contemporary with the period he depicted. The younger Pieter is even worse.

This subject has been discussed more extensively in art history (though unfortunately art historians may tend to be rather too skeptical about Brueghel) and costume history circles. Many experienced 16th-century costumers I know think that the elder Brueghel is best treated as a secondary source that needs further corroboration from sources and/or artifacts closer to the actual era being depicted when it comes to using his works as documentation for close or exact reproductions of historical clothes. The younger, even more so.

(And let's not even talk about how many paintings and engravings have been misattributed to the elder Brueghel.)

Maybe a great deal of the issue is about the level of detail; nobody disputes that both Brueghels (leaving out the third one, Jan, who largely treated different subject matter) are useful sources for a very broad general picture of life in the 16th century. Things get more dodgy when we're trying to use the Pieters to justify specific interpretations of the era's material culture.


Taking it back to the realm of arms and armour, I think Jean's comparison of Brueghel with Durer proves my point instead of refuting it. That's exactly what we're supposed to do -- comparing Brueghel with other artists closer to his subject era to see whether they corroborate his depictions, rather than just taking him at face value. There are so many other artists whose works have become widely available (Bosch, Aertsen, Beuckelaer, and the like) that this kind of cross-checking and cross-comparison would only cost us a small amount of time and effort relative to the much larger boost in accuracy that we're going to get in return.

[Pieter B.]

Pieter Aertsen's Egg Dance (and a lot of other of his paintings) show the majority of males armed with among other things, ballock daggers.

It's a shame earlier painters such as Van Eyck didn't leave us with peasant scenes but the Burgundian and Parisian miniatures do have some daily life depictions. A city depiction "De zeven werken van barmhartigheid" - 1504 on the other hand doesn't show many citizens armed. In fact only two who appear to be well off are armed with a dagger and sword respectively and in the first panel a cripple is shown with a dagger.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I don't think art historians know anything about weapon ownership or weapons period to be honest. They know way more than I do about art needless to say.

I also don't think there is any doubt that peasants were heavily armed - is that really in question? I guess if you need me to I can dig up and post some records. Art is just one form of evidence, the lions share is literary evidence especially records. I think it's useful to post period artwork in threads like this to illustrate a point (and to be entertaining to readers) but it's not really necessary. It all depends how hard core you want to go into a subject, academic articles and period records can be pretty dry.

As for art depicting people in cities, carrying arms ... here's a couple.

Crowd scene, Augsburg 1550



Krakow 1505 (from a book on craft guild regulations)


Merchant (guy on the left... guy on the right is a noble)


Goldsmiths shop


Cutlers shop


Citizenss target practice (shooting popinjay)

here are some period excerpts related to carrying and owning arms in the cities. First, from Pope Pius III:

“…not only every noble, but even every burgher in the Guilds has
an armoury in his house so as to appear equipped at every alarm.
The skill of the citizens in the use of weapons is extraordinary.”
-Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the future Pope Pious II, commenting on the state of military preparedness in Germany in 1444 AD.

Excerpts from the craft guild regulations for the shearers of the Flemish town of Arras in 1236 AD Source: Recueil de documents relatifs à l'histoire de l'industrie drapière en Flandre’, publiés par Georges Espinas et Henri Pirenne. Brussls, 1920.

7. And whichever brother of this fraternity of shearers
does not come to the militia when it is called, shall not
remain in the city, unless it is through the aldermen of
the city, 20 sous should go to the confraternity.

25. And each master should have his arms when
someone summons them. And if he does not have them,
he owes 20 sous.

26. Whichever of the brothers does not go around with
the burgomeister, the first night that the militia
overnights, owes 10 sous.

27. Whichever of the brothers leaves the district by land
and by day, and will not embark, owes 10 sous to the
confraternity.

28. And whichever of the brothers takes the weapons of
the fraternity, if he does not return them on the day that
he took them, he owes 20 sous to the fraternity, unless he
is keeping them with the consent of the burgomeister and
the aldermen.

29. And if any brother begins to mix it up after the
militia has been quieted, he owes 40 sous to the
confraternity, saving that which is owed to the lord.

30. And at the hour when the mayor and the aldermen order
the brothers to arm, he who does not arm owes 10 sous.


Here are some statistics, guild obligation for armored soldiers for the militia, from Rostock 1450 (Source: The Hansa, history and culture, 1988 Dorset Press, ISBN o-88029-182- 6 page 162. They list their source as: Kroppmann, K. : Die Wehrkraft der Rostocker Amter, in Hansiche Geschichtblatter, 1886, p. 166)

De dregher (porters) 150
De shoemakere (shoemakers) 40
De smede (smiths) 40
De beckere (bakers) 30
De haken (retailers) 30
De kremer (haberdashers) 20
De peltzer (furriers) 20
De knockenhouwere (butchers) 20
De boddekere (coopers) 20
De remensnydere (bridelmakers) 20
De scroder (taylors) 20
De gerwer (tanners) 20
De wullenwever (wool weavers) 20
De vischere (fishermen) 20
De kannegetere (pewterers) 16
De lynnenwever (linen weavers) 16
De repere (hoopers) 10
De murlude (masons) 10
De tymmerlude (carpenters) 10
De oltscrodere (old taylors) 10
De bertscherer (barbers) 6

There are 40 more guilds with a quota of 2 or 3 armed men, for a total of 622 militia

And as it relates to 'shooting the popinjay', a commentary by Jan Dlugosz on the year 1455 (from a MS completed in 1480)

"Two disasters now strike the city of Cracow. On the day the
new bishop, Thomas Strzepinski is elected, a fine bell with a
very pleasant ring, a gift of the late Cardinal-bishop Olesnicki, is
dislodged and falls and breaks the upper part of one ear, thus
making it useless, until it can be recast. Then, on the following
day, fire breaks out in the house of Thomas the Armourer,
which is close to the church. The attempts to put it out are only
half-hearted, for almost all the apprentices are outside the city
shooting at a popinjay or watching others do it; then the wind
goes round to the north and the flames break out again, and
the fire spreads rapidly. Some of the houses affected have
gunpowder stored in them and this only increases the blaze.
People are more concerned to rescue the contents of their
houses than to put out the fire, which, in the end, consumes over
a hundred houses and four churches, as well as the college of the
students of canon law, only two of the canon's houses being
saved, one that of the cantor and the other that of Canon Jan
Dlugosz [i.e. the author]. The fire spreads as far as the castle,
killing many, especially those who take refuge in their cellars."
-Jan Dlugosz, part of the entry for 1455, The Annals of Jan Dlugosz, page 523

Jean

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Of course. I wasn't arguing against the notion that peasants in medieval and Renaissance Europe were often surprisingly well-armed -- just against the use of Brueghel as strong primary evidence to prove that point. Because, let's just face it, Brueghel isn't. Using him as principal evidence may even weaken the argument when there's an art historian or costume historian in the audience.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I understand the point you are making, and it's a fair one, but here is my take for what it's worth.

The Brueghels, and Beham and Durer and others, do of course exaggerate or distort various aspects of their depiction of various social groups (or more properly for the period, 'Estates'). Beham for example draws peasants more heavily-featured and crude looking as people than he does burghers or nobles, and often shows them drunk or violent. An art historian or costume historian has a right to their opinion on whether inherent bias or tropes might have to do with the portrayal fighting kit, but they would have to make a case like anyone else that there is some reason to assume that the artist is making some specific distortions that have to do with weapons.

As a general rule, artists in this period (say 14th-16th Century) tended to depict people and buildings and so on as they saw around them regardless of the subject. That's why biblical and Classical Roman and Greek stories (etc.) are typically portrayed with the arms and armor of the artists own time and place - thus we get Alexander the Great in plate harness:



Some specific artists (like Durer, or Memling, Urs Graf etc.) have a reputation for being particularly accurate in their depiction of weapons and armor, others less so. But it's really the experts on weapons and armor who can make this distinction. Art historians don't do a great job of this, that's why before Oakeshott the hilts and pommels were the only way swords were being distinguished in museums and in academia.

I also think more broadly, that there is too much emphasis put sometimes on the supposed influence of tropes on artistic depictions of any and everything. Sometimes that is the main factor, it's very rarely the only factor.

Jean

[Pieter B.]

Lafayette,

I see your point and will keep it in mind. What would you say is specifically incorrect in Bruegel's work?


Jean,

That list of armed militia from Rostock appears to be in middle Dutch. Is that really similar to medieval German or is there another reason it looks like Dutch?

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I believe that is middle-Low German which was the lingua franca of most of the Hanseatic League and almost all the towns in the Baltic Sea all the way up to Estonia, Finland and Sweden through the medieval period. It was also the official language of the (very large) territories of the Teutonic Order and Livonian Order, though many other languages were also spoken by their subjects and vassals.

It's obviously similar to Dutch and Flemish, and more specifically it's closely related to Frisian dialects I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Low_German

My understanding is that they still speak similar dialects (Plattdüütsch etc.) in many of these regions in lower Saxony, Mecklenburg and Pomerania and so on.


J

[Pieter B.]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I'll defer to your knowledge as a native Germanic language speaker as to which language it sounds like more...

but I can indeed say that this was the language of all the towns of the Hanse, not just in Germany but further out in the Baltic: Riga, Tallinn, Stockholm etc. down to Hamburg and Lubeck. Each may have their own local dialects but Middle Low German was literally the trade language which they shared, just like high German seems to have evolved as a South German trade dialect and there was also a Rhennish one (even though individual towns like Cologne also had their own local dialect).

If you are having such an easy time reading it, there are a wealth of fascinating primary documents from the high-to-late medieval period '. I would love to be able to read the works of this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Martin_Lappenberg

Lots of interesting stuff in here about wars, raids, robber knights, pirates, Frisian rebels, duels, jousts, riots, rebellions etc. etc.

https://archive.org/details/hamburgischechr00chrogoog

Urkundliche Geschichte des Ursprunges der deutschen Hanse is probably pretty interesting too

J

[Pieter B.]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Pieter B.]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I agree the fonts are difficult but that is often the case with old books. Transcribing can be almost as much of a challenge as translating sometimes.

I honestly don't know if he translated it into a more modern dialect or not, I'm not an expert on languages and dialects, and my German isn't that good. Some of the chronicle would be in Middle Low German some of it would be in more modern versions of Low German, and the earliest manuscripts were probably hand written (if not all of them). The chronicle goes from the 14th Century through the 18th IIRC.


All I know is what I said before: I know it's a gold mine of data on raids, fights, duels, naval battles and so on and so forth because I read an abridged modern translation which was amazing. It's one of the most complete sources on the medieval world in this region that is still available (and already transcribed - if you think modern or Early Modern printed fonts are hard to read try medieval scripts).

So I wish I had the skills that you have to read the original!

J

[Pieter B.]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]