Late Medieval Wrought Iron Firearms from the Museum in Biecz1
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FASCICULI ARCHAEOLOGIAE HISTORICAE FASC. XXVI, PL ISSN 0860-0007 LESZEK KLIMEK, JANUSZ STĘPIŃSKI, PIOTR STRZYŻ, GRZEGORZ ŻABIŃSKI LATE MEDIEVAL WROUGHT IRON FIREARMS FROM THE MUSEUM IN BIECZ1 From1the very beginning of existence of firearms, there mould and with processing this clay. This stage lasted until were two competitive manufacturing techniques – casting 11 May but already during the casting the mould broke and and forging. These resulted from the use of two raw materi- the metal spilt into the ground. On the next day (12 May), als – copper and its alloys as well as iron. A good exam- the works were resumed and the process was completed ple of co-occurrence of weapons manufactured from these within a month. On 9 June the cannon was ready and it two raw materials are the earliest mentions of the use of underwent finishing works. Unfortunately, the barrel burst firearms in the territory of Poland. The first record comes in the course of firing tests on 7 July. Master gunners were from the Chronicle of Janko of Czarnków and concerns the not discouraged with this failure and they commenced their siege of Pyzdry in 1383. While describing this siege, there works again in Autumn, on 12 September. On 1 October is a mention of a stone projectile fired from a red brass gun a new mould was filled with alloy. Some complications (lapidem aero de pixide)2. Some years thereafter, in 1391 occurred again, but those were less significant than previ- it was recorded in municipal accounts of Kraków that the ously. In all probability, the mould suffered no major dam- town bought 6 cannons upon the request of King Władysław age, as after some days (on 6 October), the process was Jagiełło. Among these cannons there were 3 iron (pixides successfully repeated. There were no obstacles in the fur- ferreas) and 2 copper ones (pixides cupreas). At that time ther course of works and on 12 October the cannon was 5 iron guns were kept altogether in the municipal armoury3. ready. On 9 December it successfully underwent firing Many works have already been written on casting of tests. Obviously, this case is rather extreme, as the same firearms. These works discussed technical aspects of this master gunners needed only a month (from 17 October to issue, as well as technological details, based on metallo- 24 November) to cast two smaller stone projectile cannons5. graphic analyses4. In this place it must be said that the pro- A similar case occurred in the process of casting of the Teu- cess of casting of a cannon barrel, with special reference to tonic Grose Bochse in 1408, when the gunpowder chamber those of large calibre, was quite complicated and not always had to be cast again6. successful. An excellent example is offered by a descrip- Another way was to manufacture barrels in a less com- tion of such works which were carried out at the foundry plicated but equally labour-consuming process of iron pro- in Bratislava in 1440. Manufacturing works of a large can- cessing using smithing methods. Already in the late Mid- non started on 8 April with securing clay for preparing the dle Ages, perhaps as early as the late 14th c., first attempts at casting iron guns were undertaken in Western Europe. These, however, where rather isolated cases. The main 1 This work has been financially supported by the Pol- advantage of cast iron guns was no question their price ish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, project No. NN (one-sixth of the price of a bronze gun). On the other hand, 109260239, project manager P. Strzyż. such cannons could be very brittle and thus extremely dan- 2 Joannis de Czarnkow Chronicon Polonorum, ed. 7 J. Szlachtowski, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, Vol. 2, Lwów gerous for their users . In the case of the heaviest cannons, 1872, p. 751. 3 Najstarsze księgi i rachunki miasta Krakowa od r. 1300 do 1400, eds. F. Piekosiński, J. Szujski, Kraków 1878, Part 2, 5 J. Durdík, Pracovní postupy v bratislavské puskarske p. 96: „Lubardus recognovit, quod domini consules apud eum qu- huti v 1. polovinie 15. století, „Historie a Vojenství”, 1957, fasc. 3, inqe ferreas pixides desposuerunt”; J. Szymczak, Początki broni p. 305. palnej w Polsce (1383-1533), Łódź 2004, p. 80. 6 G. Żabiński, The Grose Bochse – A Teutonic Supergun 4 E.g., J. Piaskowski, Technologia odlewania luf armat- from 1408, „Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae”, Vol. 25, 2012, nich w XVI-XVIII wieku, „Przegląd Odlewnictwa”, Vol. 32, 1982, p. 32. pp. 32-36; Z. Nemcová, Počiatky puškárskeho remesla v Brati- 7 O. Johannsen, Die Anwendung des Gusseisens im Ge- slave, „Vojenská história”, fasc. 2, 1998, p. 88; J. Szymczak, Po- schützwesen des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, „Zeitschrift czątki…, pp. 88-91; M. Dąbrowska, Proces odlewania dział w lej- für Historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde” (henceforth as: ni malborskiej w XV wieku, „Archaeologia Historica Polona”, ZfHWK), Vol. 8, fasc. 1-2, 1918/1920, pp. 12-14, figs. 7-9; this is- Vol. 18, 2009, pp. 21-45. sue has recently been discussed by A. R. Williams, The Sword and 83 http://rcin.org.pl LESZEK KLIMEK, JANUSZ STĘPIŃSKI, PIOTR STRZYŻ, GRZEGORZ ŻABIŃSKI Fig. 1. Veuglaire, Regional Museum in Biecz (inv. No. 295), by P. Strzyż. their barrels were assembled from bars and rims. There are Griet from Gent, with the total length of 5.025 m, the muz- numerous examples of such cannons in European collec- zle diameter of 64 cm and the weight of as much as 16.4 t.8 tions, including guns of considerable weight and size. Not much smaller are other bombards: Mons Meg from the One of the most significant and the largest items is Dulle 8 R. D. Smith, R. R. Brown, Mons Meg and her sisters, Lon- don 1989, pp. 23, 25, figs. 16, 17, 19, 24; R. D. Smith, K. De Vries, the Crucible. A History of the Metallurgy of European Swords up The Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy 1363-1477, Suffolk 2005, to the 16th Century, Leiden-Boston 2012, pp. 192-195. pp. 266-267, cat. No. 3. 84 http://rcin.org.pl LATE MEDIEVAL WROUGHT IRON FIREARMS FROM THE MUSEUM IN BIECZ Castle of Edinburgh in Scotland9, from Basel, Boxted, Paris numerous bars, over which 10 transverse rings are drawn. and Berlin, two so-called Michelettes from Mont St. Michel This cannon can be dated to the 15th c.13 and Faule Magd from Dresden10. The barrels of these can- While assembling the barrel from numerous parts, nons consisted of numerous long and narrow bars, placed it was possible to either use a higher number of narrow concentrically along the line of the barrel. For instance, bars with rectangular cross-sections, or to apply a lower in the case of Dulle Griet there were 32 bars 55 mm wide number of bars. In the second case, their cross-sections and 30 mm thick, as well as 41 reinforcing rings. The can- had to be formed into an arched shape. When the barrel or non from Basel, being smaller than Dulle Griet, was made chamber was formed in such a manner, reinforcing rings of 20 bars which were 50 mm wide and 20 mm thick11, and of different width and external diameter were drawn over the barrel of Faule Magd is composed of 20 iron bars which it. A gunpowder chamber could be made in a similar way. are 3.5 cm thick and 3-8 cm wide. The entire construc- However, in this case the reinforcing rings had to be much tion was reinforced with 46 transverse rings12. Due to the thicker, due to a much higher pressure to which this part use of such technique of manufacture, the cross-section of of the gun was exposed14. In the case of guns with smaller the barrel was often not perfectly circular, but had a shape calibres, gunpowder chambers could be constructed as of a polygon with some dozen short sides. homogeneous elements, as with the afore-mentioned Concerning territories which are closer to Poland, one Hungarian bombards. can mention two bombards from the Museum of Military Concerning lighter artillery, such as houfnice field can- History in Budapest. The first one, which used to be kept at nons, terrace-guns or veuglaires, such a complex technique the Savaria Museum in Szombathely, consists of a narrow was not necessary and the barrel could be forged from one gunpowder chamber and a barrel. The chamber is forged as or a few pieces of iron. In Central European museum col- a single part, while the barrel is made of 11 bars, joined at lections there are not many original examples of small cali- their circumference with 8 iron bands of different width. bre cannon barrels which are forged from iron. We know The interior of the barrel is strongly corroded. However, only one specimen of a medieval houfnice field cannon15, one can see a thick (3-4 mm) sheet of metal, which was while there are as many as fourteen terrace-guns16 and intended to provide the barrel with a more circular cross- a few veuglaire chambers17. section and thus to smoothen any unevenness which origi- For this reason, two specimens from the Regional nated in the course of assembling of longitudinal bars. Museum in Biecz deserve special attention. The first one At the touch point of both parts of the bombard the bars (inv. No. 295, Fig. 1: 1-3) is an iron tube of cylindrical converge in an oblique manner, and the joint is reinforced with an additional thick ring.