So, where is all the later 15th century horse bard?

[painterman]

As some may know, I’m building a 28mm Burgundian army of Charles the Bold (links to my blog are below). My next planned unit is mounted men at arms for Antony, the Bastard of Burgundy, a commander of the army. I want represent this elite unit on barded mounts. I’ll use the Perry plastic mounted men at arms box and have been searching for visual references of horse bard for the period 1450-1480, with intention of using ‘green stuff’ to make some amour variations for the horses.

So far I’ve found surprisingly few contemporary references, in either extant pieces or images of the time, which leads me to ask where is all the horse bard of the later 15th century?

Starting with museums, we have a few complete horse bards:
-   Wallace Collection: Gothic armour c 1480 (A21)
-   Royal Armouries: Gothic armour c 1480
-   German History Museum, Berlin: c 1470 (W1052)
-   Italian bard, Vienna, 1450
-   Some crinnets, crupper plates & shaffrons of later 15th century in the Met, NYC.

The Perrys have used two of these as references for the optional plastic bard in their box set.


It’s to be expected of course, that not much horse armour will still survive over 500 years after its use. Only a small fraction of  all medieval armour remains today. So I started to look for references in contemporary illustration images of kings, knights, saints and classical tales – all places where we get useful information on armour and dress. However to date I’ve found much fewer examples than I was expecting. I have:
-   Berne Chronicles (Swiss 1480s): showing many Burgundian men at arms and leaders at battles of Grandson and Morat on barded mounts. This is the most useful and pertinent evidence for me.
-   Pastrana Tapestry (Spain c 1460): shows highest ranking person riding horse with cloth covering, probably over armour, by its shape and composition.
-   Florentine caskets (Italian 1460s), Gallery of Ireland: shows most men at arms in battle with mounts with caparison over bard.
-   French and Flemish imagery – seems to show mail protection for horses (both under caparisons, or without) for the period circa1400-1430.

So despite the Met Museum’s publication on ‘The Armoured Horse in Europe  1480-1620’, stating that in the later fifteenth century horse armour was fully developed, and widely used, the imagery doesn’t seem to reflect this at all. Nearly all mounted knights, kings, saints and soldiers ride unprotected horses (apart from a few with only shaffrons).  

If the contemporary illustrations reflect reality on the battlefield (I’m ignoring jousting armour), then why was this? Was it that horse armour was too expensive – clearly it was a high cost, as personal harness was. Perhaps it wasn’t required? Unless the enemy had large numbers of missile weapons it reduced one of the advantages of being on a horse – namely movement and speed? We know that the French employed Italians with horse armour for the Verneuil campaign of 1424, to combat the massed English longbows, and maybe the same needs existing in Italy?

Its in the 16th century that horse barding remains in museum collections in some quantities, as well as in illustrations of the period. So was it widespread use of gunpowder, which was the tipping pint for horse bard and that its use in the fifteenth century was limited?

So a LAF request please – please search and post here the images for horse bard in 1450 to 1480. The Bastard’s contingent is ready for some horse bard conversions…
All comments  & observations are most welcome too (I may just have the wrong end of the stick on this one).
Thanks in advance.
Simon.

http://je-lay-emprins.blogspot.co.uk/

[Stuart]

Well, it's almost entirely obscure to be deemed useless but the (rather large) doors of Tewkesbury Abbey are supposedly covered / lined in re-fashioned horse armour from the battle. - Have you thought of attaching doors to the horses ?

I'll erm, get my coat.

[Arlequín]

 

Well... I suppose the question "What was horse-barding for?" might point things in the right direction, by which I mean does it protect from missile weapons, other mounted men, or men on foot?

If the former two then the absence of massed missile troops and massed men at arms might make it somewhat redundant. I seem to recall Duke Charles suggesting it was a good idea to have it in one of his ordonnances, but he didn't make it a requirement... so I'm tempted to say it was something he thought there should be more of, which implies it was not common.

I've been scouring Swiss-Burgundian and Froissart illustrations very recently and I can't recall having seen any horse armour at all... apart from the occasional chanfron... except;









The last is taken from a tapestry presented to Jean de Daillon by the ladies of Tournai in 1482 (iirc) and represents himself while commanding an ordonnance company garrisoned in Tournai. He's at the top of the heap as far as France's army went at the time.

So that's four out of hundreds of images c. 1480, that show horse armour of any kind.

 

[painterman]

Thanks Jim
Had not seen the Italian image before so very useful. I think the first image is out of my timeframe (but showing Burgundians), so it appears that my assumptions on potential scarcity of bard on the battlefield maybe true??

Would still like to find more to use for modelling reference however.
Regards
Simon

[Arlequín]

Happy to chip in Simon... 

The first one is a depiction of Montlhery (1465)... but I think it was produced later, like the one of Morat two below it... so close but possibly no cigar. I fear the search for horse armour circa Charles the Bold might be a fruitless one, but fingers crossed any way.

I'd forgotten Louis de Gruutehuse's book, with its woodcuts of Burgundian troops c.1476 by 'WA', where not one of the men at arms has barding. Louis was a Burgundian military leader, so you would imagine he might have pointed out the error if it was actually common.

Obviously none of these are photographs, but they are all we have to go on. My perception is that if it's seen, it's invariably on the mount of someone important (and wealthy) and anywhere but NW Europe.

This image is apparently from one of Antoine de Bourgogne's own books and depicts Charles VI and friends. It's believed to be c.1476, so is spot on really... but no barding, even on the King's mount.

 

If I do find anything though, I'll be in touch.

[Jericho]

Are these pictures from the Amtliche Berner Chronik, volume III (1478-1483) useful?


Burgundian army marching in Savoy, 1476


A Lotharingian city is taken, 1475


Battle of Nancy, 1477

A couple more here: photobucket album

[painterman]

Many thanks Jericho,
They are the best ones - most relevant and high quality - for my Burgundians and at present I shall be using those I think (they're the Berne Chronicle ones I cited and always great to see them, so many thanks.)
I doubt if I have any chance of sculpting anything close to those heads though!!!
Simon.

[Arlequín]

It shouldn't be too hard to sculpt a face that looks like a horse's... anyhoo good find Jericho! I was beginning to think there was nothing out there.

[painterman]

On the Berne Chronicle images, does the panel think that the artist is representing paint or fabric for the colours on the steel bard?
I guess that other references (Italian and Spanish) would suggest cloth coverings, although it appears that it could appear to be paint and gilding?

Simon.

[painterman]

I like this little gem I found....

[dragonwagon]

The Italian history museums are chock full of displayed knights on barded horses!  Florence, Milan and Pisa are some of the museums I've been to and have seen some!  Also Venice as my GF prods my memory!!   Just google Italian museums and knights or Renaissance armor and you should get lots of pics!  Hope this helps. 

[Arlequín]

I really know nothing about armour, so what follows is very much a case of an impression given than actual knowledge.

Some bards appear to be be obviously plain steel with gilted ornamentation. The coloured ones could be fabric (or coloured leather?) over armour and I do know there was a French fashion for velvet or other material on the upper chest area of the armour of the men at arms around this time too. Paint with a lacquer coat sounds hardwearing enough and could of course be polished (or possibly waxed) to produce a shine.

I do wonder if that very ornate red and gold barding was more 'parade' than battle armour though.

[Dr. Zombie]

In my oppinion. Barding is really only for parade/tournaments and even then only for the really high up people. I think the illustraions pretty much shows this as well.

I know that the barding is not just protecting the horse, but also the rider to some extend as it is not nice to be on a horse that takes a tumble. But I think that it would most likely be cheaper to buy a new warhorse that to buy armour for it. Ultimately I think its function is to show status and weath.

[Arlequín]

It would be a lucky shot that killed a horse stone dead especially if there is a chanfron fitted, which seems fairly common on illustrations. More likely is that it would become quite apparent that the horse was failing before it bit the dust, so there would probably be time to dismount swiftly but safely and whistle up the page with the spare horse(s). You'd be kicking your heels until the guys pulled back to reform, but you would be back in the fight soon enough. 

Horse prices versus barding prices is a consideration though. I'm working off the top of my head, but I recall prices of something like £300 for a proper 'warhorse' (destrier), while a decent courser was in the region of £40-50, although could be as low as £20 for one acceptable for service. An archer's rouncey could be considerably cheaper (<£10?). I recall that there were often 'minimum values' set for horses that would be acceptable in service and in some cases men were compensated for the loss of mounts too.

The cost of barding I couldn't begin to guess at, but if the rider is fully harnessed, perhaps the addition of barding was too much weight and caused excessive fatigue on the mount? Personally I would prefer my mount to get me there and back again, rather than be blown when I need to retire swiftly after the charge.

If the wealthier guys have more expensive but sturdier horses, maybe this corresponds with the utility of their being able to bear the extra weight?

[Jericho]

Glad to be of assistance, guys 

I don't know if you know where I got the pictures from but for those who don't:

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en

It is a digital library of many Swiss libraries and collections.
Most are only written books without any artwork, others prayerbooks, some are illustrated bible-esque books and then of course you have the Chroniks.
While it has an English interface, still a lot is in German but you can make out many of the words.

Just type "Chronik" in the search bar and you get the books that are most useful to us.
Each book in the list will have three blue buttons: overview, facsimile and description.
Description is the best one to push, this gives a list of links to the images along with an explanation of each illustration.

It contains the Amtliche Berner Chronik volume I, II and III (volume III contains the Burgundian Wars), and the Spiezer Chronik by Diebold Schilling.
Another one is Diebold Schilling of Lucerne (no relation) with his Illustrated Chronicle (1513), also containing the Burgundian War and much more beautiful artwork than his predecessor, although his work might be too renaissance to be an actual depiction of the 1470's.