The Armour Archive

Donasian wrote:

InsaneIrish wrote:Do you have other evidence that this particular illustration is a flask?

I looked at it and blew it up and it certainly looks like a small bag/cloth wrapped around something and tied to the staff.

Is there some other evidence that flasks were carried on staffs?

Just mildly curious.

I believe the flask is the object below the cloth bundle. It intersects the outer edge of the halo.

-Donasian.

Oh, heh, I totally missed that.

InsaneIrish,

Flasks are sometimes carried on pilgrim's staffs. Representations of St James as a pilgrim often show a staff with a sort of hook at the grip, apparently for hanging either the flask or the scrip.

Here is St James with just such a staff, but without anything on it. http://www.wga.hu/support/viewer/z.html

I'm having trouble finding a web based pic which shows a flask on St. James' staff. I'll keep looking.

Mac

hmm I think 16oz is a bit small for what I want to do
here is one of the pictures that really made me want one of these (though the first one I picked shows the vessel nicely and I couldn't resist the subject line that could go with it)
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/theuerdank/ ... 0?i=19&s=1
its hanging by a root partly submerged in the stream. I was reminded of this image earlier this summer when I was hiking in my 16th century gear with some friends. We stopped to rest at a cold little mountain stream where I soaked my feet for a while and my friends put their modern water bottles in the stream to cool them down... and I thought "mmm... I wish I had a nice metal costrel instead of this stupid wineskin-shaped-plastic-thing covered in leather"

THese things came in all sizes, and the smaller ones are fairly typical - I think the larger ones are the sort of acting as portable ewers for wine, for huntsmen dining outdoors, and the like.

You *do* see some soldiers with costrels in late Medieval art, but you don't see most soldiers with them, just like you don't see all pilgrims with them.

I suspect the larger ones are for "sharing", and the smaller ones are personal. Keep in mind, the way most travellers would travelling, they would be travelling along routes for the most part where one village blended into another - I reckon in large chunks of Europe you would be hard pressed to go more than 5 miles, and not come across another settlement of some sort. Where there is a settlement, there is a well, or a tavern, or both. Hiking for pleasure isn't a Medieval concept, I think.

Shepherds and field workers traditionally carried costrels, because they were doing hard manual labour, or out all day in fields and pastures, away from readily available sources for beer and wine.

chef de chambre wrote:THese things came in all sizes, and the smaller ones are fairly typical - I think the larger ones are the sort of acting as portable ewers for wine, for huntsmen dining outdoors, and the like.

You *do* see some soldiers with costrels in late Medieval art, but you don't see most soldiers with them, just like you don't see all pilgrims with them.

I suspect the larger ones are for "sharing", and the smaller ones are personal. Keep in mind, the way most travellers would travelling, they would be travelling along routes for the most part where one village blended into another - I reckon in large chunks of Europe you would be hard pressed to go more than 5 miles, and not come across another settlement of some sort. Where there is a settlement, there is a well, or a tavern, or both. Hiking for pleasure isn't a Medieval concept, I think.

Shepherds and field workers traditionally carried costrels, because they were doing hard manual labour, or out all day in fields and pastures, away from readily available sources for beer and wine.

thank you Chef de Chambre, your posts frequently remind me that quite often I find myself trying to do some kind of research but giving in to ideas of what I think I need or what I think will work, but not thinking so much about how these things were used back then.

Your comment about not being able to go for five or so miles in Europe without finding a town with a well or tavern reminded me of something slightly related that I had heard about and later experienced with the geology in Maine - that the water table is generally high enough here that it's hard to walk for a few miles in the Maine woods without finding a spring or stream, or pond... so I shouldn't really need to worry too much about refilling a small costrel.

I believe you are correct about hiking not being done for pleasure back then as it is today. But I think hiking was done as part of activities like hunting. A project I want to start working on relates to this - hiking and mountaineering as part of hunting in the 16th century, based partly on images of chamois hunts in Theuerdank (an example image: http://mailmaker.tripod.com/theuerdank/ ... m/015?i=14), which often describes hunts where Maximilian climbed high into the mountains in search of chamois. There are no chamois in our mountains here, but I don't think that will stop me from going in search of them as an excuse to experiment with using a pike for climbing... but not having quite the right equipment will certainly slow me down in getting around to doing this project the way I think it should be done.

I am finally getting around to posting a picture of the first production run of flasks. They are not yet up on the web site. We are asking $150.

A medieval field flask would make a great Christmas present!




Mac

very nice, very very nice.

Here is a picture of Chef's flask, with his arms engraven there on.

Mac

bitchin'
(nobody says that anymore do they?)

Mac wrote:I'm having trouble finding a web based pic which shows a flask on St. James' staff. I'll keep looking.

It's not specifically on his staff, but how about this?
St. James baptizing Philetus by Simon von Taisten, c. 1495-1505
(detail of flask)

Fantastic job Mac!

I am looking forward to toasting Christmas, and the New Year with it, with a fine Claret.

I reckon nobody can mistake mine for theirs, once all the "Cool Kids" have them!

I was wondering about the arms. Gotchya.

This type of flask as shown in a ca. 1360 manuscript from Westfalen/ Cologne: http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI00411d01a.jpg
(look in upper right corner)

I can wish.........