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Archiver > HERBARZ > 2001-03 > 0984192943
From:
Subject: Re: Gear at Grunwald
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 02:55:43 GMT
References: <saa8b3eb.073@mail.walterhav.com>
In-Reply-To: <saa8b3eb.073@mail.walterhav.com>
Frankly the idea that Polish armies were wearing armour
indistinguishable from Scythians or even Assyrians surprises me.
It is an extraordinary claim and would require extraordinary proof.
Experts discern distinct periods within Scythian and still more so in
the particularly well illustrated Assyrian military equipment.
In an attempt to inject some empirical element to this discussion, I
have taken an ordinary work of respectable popular medieval military
history (Rycerstwo polskie X-XV w., by Robert Zukowski) and without
fear or favour tried to describe every artefact photographically
represented therein. I will post the full list in my next posting so
as not to overlengthen this message or unnecessarilly bore the casual
reader.
Particularly relevant to our debate is page 52 of Zukowskis work.
It holds two very interesting items for our debate: First a bascinet
from Sandomierz, "most probably of the time of Casimir the Great",
according to the author. This actually surviving item bears the
vervelles (points where the camail was fixed) and a hole where the
German style, klappvisier, was fitted. This sort of visor, where the
thing lifted up on a single fitting at the top, "was rarely seen
outside Germany", according tp Christopher Gravett in, German Medieval
Armies (Osprey, London 1985). Secondly, a Masovian coin of 1341
shows a mounted warrior with a rectangular shield in what looks like
lamelar lamellar armour and a conical helmet with mail coif or
aventail. Lamelar was not unknown in contemporary Germany the overall
effect is by no means typically Western.
These and the the other items listed in my next posting show a
cultural horizon did exist in Central Europe then Masovia and Kujavia
seem to have been to the East of it while Silesia, Great Poland and
Little Poland lay to the West.
This is hardly surprising. The Polish state began as the tribal
hegemony of the Poles proper of Great Poland before Mieszko I made it
into a Christian Kingdom. In this early period there were Cuman or
other Eastern influences upon the state if the Wielkapolska helmet is
anything to go by.
The Kingdom expanded to roughly the same area as modern Poland, the
territory was split into appanages and the title of Kingdom lost.
The area reunited in the Kingdom of Casimir the Great excluded
Silesia and Masovia. Under the subsequent Angevin dynasty that realm
was united with Hungary and a Bohemia enjoying a great cultural
flowering at the time. The evidence of this period would seem to
indicate that the Polish Kingdom and Silesia were under Western
influence while Masovia was more akin to Lithuanian and Russian
styles.
When the throne passed to the Jagiellons, a similar personal union
obtained between the Polish Kingdom and lithuania until the more
concrete Union of 1569. With this Union a distinct cultural community
could evolve throughout the Commonwealth. The Sarmatian style was
perhaps the most concrete form of that culture. The Commonwealth had
not had exclusively Polish parents and was not to have purely Polish
heirs.
On Fri, 09 Mar 2001 10:43:27 -0500, you wrote:
>No. We are not in agreement that Poland was in large part under Silesian influence. Silesian influence trails off quickly beyond perhaps Cracow. This is well-documented by Polish heraldic practice in which coats of arms are cease to be pictographic and become simple and formulaic northward and eastward.. Beyond Silesia and the Warta watershed, heraldic charges become barely disguised or outright Asian tamgi (abstract geometric property markings). During the medieval period, even some western Polish seals contain no heraldic elements whatsoever, only a property mark and the Latinized name of its owner.
>
>>>> <> 03/09/01 12:23AM >>>
>P.S.
>when I refer to Polish arms , of course, I do not mean those of the
>Lithuanian domains which in 1410 were only very loosely joined to
>Poland in a dynastic union. If Great and Little Poland are taken as
>influenced from Silesia, only Halicz remains to the Polish King and
>Masovia to a Piast remnant. As I noted, what seems a long time ago,
>Masovia was noted for the number and poverty of its gentry and Halicz
>had been a part of the Russian cultural sphere. The Commonwealth of
>Lublin had yet to be established. We seem to be in agreement that
>medieval Poland was in large part under Silesian influence - if that
>influence is to be guaged by the uniformly "Germanic" appearance of
>contemporary Silesian representations.
> Lithuanian influences there certainly were as even the knights of
>the Ordenstaat would take to their use the Lithuanian shield and
>sometimes the spisa (lance). The art and texts of the time confirm as
>much.
> Regards,
> John
> (Rohde).
>
>
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