mountaineering, medieval and rennaisance

[woodwose]

I'm looking for information on how mountaineering was done 'back in the day'.

Somewhere I saw an image (in some book I had from a library I think) which I think was from the Triumphs of Maximilian woodcuts and the note next to the image identified the figures as mountain men, or mountaineers. that image is one thing I'm looking for.

I have a bunch of images from Maximilian's "Theuerdank" (1517) which show Chamois hunting in the mountains, using a pike for both spearing the animals, and as a climbing pole for scaling ledges.

I'm wondering if anyone has any leads on more information about mountain climbing in period. it's something I'd like to do some hands on research with, but would like a bit more background info before I just head off into the hills with my pike.

Matthew

[Calder]

Remember that more often than not, Mountaineering in the traditional sense was just a form of travel "through the mountains" which was not done as much as a sport like it is today I think as a necessity of travel.
Some good stuff here, but as with a lot of resources, it deals mostly with the "sport" of Mountaineering, rather than the historical applications in period.

Most recorded data of Mountaineering starts in about the late 19th century, but being as how the first commercially available axes specific to use for travel in the Mountains came from "Germania" (Austria, Switzerland, etc...You could get one for $3.50 in the late 30's from Austria and had a solid wood shaft and an iron spike at the base with a simple iron shovel edge and pike tip) it might be safe to assume they used a shortened pike for ascending? The pole was crucial for a long time, and is even mentioned as a main tool as late as 1889 (see below).

http://www.abc-of-mountaineering.com/in ... istory.asp.

History of the Ice Axe...
http://www.grivel.com/Storia/Storia_Det.asp?Cat=P

One of mountaineering's sacred texts "Fiorio e Ratti - The dangers of mountaineering and rules to avoid them - by the Italian Alpine Club (central office) Turin 1889" talks about sticks and ice-axes: these two tools are the inseparable companions of the mountaineer, whom in every expedition always has one or the other with him depending on the difficulty and on the type of climb that he undertakes. It is also useful that a group of mountaineers has an axe for ice when they attempt steep climbs with snow or ice".(fig.4)

[woodwose]

Remember that more often than not, Mountaineering in the traditional sense was just a form of travel "through the mountains" which was not done as much as a sport like it is today I think as a necessity of travel.
Some good stuff here, but as with a lot of resources, it deals mostly with the "sport" of Mountaineering, rather than the historical applications in period.

Most recorded data of Mountaineering starts in about the late 19th century, but being as how the first commercially available axes specific to use for travel in the Mountains came from "Germania" (Austria, Switzerland, etc...You could get one for $3.50 in the late 30's from Austria and had a solid wood shaft and an iron spike at the base with a simple iron shovel edge and pike tip) it might be safe to assume they used a shortened pike for ascending? The pole was crucial for a long time, and is even mentioned as a main tool as late as 1889 (see below).

http://www.abc-of-mountaineering.com/in ... istory.asp.

History of the Ice Axe...
http://www.grivel.com/Storia/Storia_Det.asp?Cat=P

One of mountaineering's sacred texts "Fiorio e Ratti - The dangers of mountaineering and rules to avoid them - by the Italian Alpine Club (central office) Turin 1889" talks about sticks and ice-axes: these two tools are the inseparable companions of the mountaineer, whom in every expedition always has one or the other with him depending on the difficulty and on the type of climb that he undertakes. It is also useful that a group of mountaineers has an axe for ice when they attempt steep climbs with snow or ice".(fig.4)

indeed, it certainly was not a sport in it's self like it is today and I have very little interest in modern climbing... I've climbed a little, but nothing that would require a lot of safety gear. My interest in period climbing comes partly from the images of chamois hunts in Theuerdank - I've started scanning and uploading the books woodcuts here (linking to one where they are climbing with a pike):

http://mailmaker.tripod.com/theuerdank/ ... 5?i=14&s=1

they are not climbing just for the sake of climbing, they are not climbing for sport, but climbing a mountain is part of their sport of hunting chamois... and it is hunting for sport, not just hunting because they need food. it is after all a character based on Emperor Maximilian I who is hunting in these images.

but anyways, I've been building a pike that I plan on experimenting with for climbing as is seen in the Theuerdank images. I should have it done this weekend and plan on taking it out to play around on some nearby ledges next week. this spring or summer I want to take it out with a few other people in period gear for some hiking and climbing in some of the more remote off-trail areas of Baxter State Park up in northern Maine.

[Calder]

Photos when you head up Dweezle please!
there is a group that does 16-19th century mountaineering here in Utah i am familiar with, they would love to see images.

[woodwose]

this last august a friend of mine was on his last day of his three month hike on the Appalacian Trail which ends at Mount Katahdin here in Maine. some friends and I went up to hike the mountain with him on his last day of hiking and we were all in varying degrees of period gear. Aside from the Theuerdank images, climbing Katahdin was the other thing that got me interested in this. one of the guys is supposedly sending me a DVD of pictures and videos from our climb on that day. if there are any that are interesting I'll certainly share them, but they are really just people in garb climbing a mountain trail... what I want to do next summer will be people in better garb and gear, and not so much on a trail.

[Calder]

Still, from what I understand about climbing in Maine (which is not much!) it is TOUGH weather there, so kudos and good luck to you guys doing it in period garb! always looked bloody difficult to me!

[brunoG]

Petrarch is credited with the first sport climbing (Mont Ventoux, 1336)

He climbed the mountain "multa videndi ardor ac studium"

http://www.vittoriopacati.it/saggi/pacati_01.html

However, sport climbing is a modern phenomenon.

from the usual culprit, Wikipedia

Petrarch claimed that on April 26, 1336, with his brother and two servants, he climbed to the top of Mont Ventoux (1,909 m; 6,263 ft). He wrote an account of the trip, composed considerably later as a letter to his friend Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro. The accuracy of Petrarch's account is open to question; particularly the assertion that he was the first to climb a mountain for pleasure since Philip V of Macedon, and that an aged peasant had warned him off the unclimbable mountain. Jean Buridan had climbed the same mountain a few years before, and other ascents are recorded from the Middle Ages, including Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne. Jakob Burckhardt's rhapsody on the subject has been often repeated since. [10]

[edit] Mont Ventoux

J.H. Plumb writes in his book The Italian Renaissance of Morris Bishop's version of Petrarch's Ascent of Mont Ventoux showing Petrarch's climb in 1336 was epoch making. [11] This was because Petrarch did this climb on his own volition and not because anything was forced upon him.[dubious – discuss] Petrarch's letter of the ascent to his confessor,[12] the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, rings of aesthetic gratification to grandeur and majesty, [13] a modern attitude that is quoted to this day in many books and journals pertaining to mountaineering.[14]

"For pleasure alone he climbed Mount Ventoux, which rises to more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course; but he was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb a mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. (Or almost the first; for in a high pasture he met an old shepherd, who said that fifty years before he had attained the summit, and had got nothing from it save toil and repentance and torn clothing.) Petrarch was dazed and stirred by the view of the Alps, the mountains around Lyons, the Rhone, the Bay of Marseilles. He took St Augustine's Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb was merely an allegory of aspiration towards a better life." [6]

In the Confessions, Petrarch's eyes are immediately drawn to the following words:

"And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not." [12]

Petrarch's response is to turn from the outer world of nature to the inner world of 'soul':

I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. .... [W]e look about us for what is to be found only within. .... How many times, think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human contemplation ...[12]

James Hillman, in Re-Visioning Psychology[15]argues that this rediscovery of the inner world is the real significance of the Ventoux event. The Renaissance begins not with the ascent of Mont Ventoux but with the subsequent descent -- the "return ... to the valley of soul", as Hillman puts it. See also Ascent of Mont Ventoux.

Whether Petrarch's focus on 'soul' is 'modern' depends on what is meant by 'modern', since much of 'modernity' would deny the very existence of subjectivity.

[Calder]

nice research Bruno... pretty amazing considering it was that early. Been up Mont Ventoux on a bike and it was a bugger...

[woodwose]

I'm still working on these pages (as always with my web stuff), but wanted to post them since I might be offline for a while and it took way too long for me to get some of these out of the people that had some of them... the pages need some refining, but they are a start, and I figured some people might like the pictures anyways.

This link (below) is to a page for my first bits of playing around with some of the period climbing stuff I have wanted to do, which also has a link my page about climbing Maine's Mount Katahdin in my period clothes...

http://mailmaker.tripod.com/climbing/index.html

and some little versions of what I think were some of the more interesting photos so far:




I'm currently trying to work out a design for period appropriate crampons

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Dweezle,

Here is my period mountaineering kit. A little later than what you may be interested in

[img]http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p309/Doktor_Zaius/WW2%20Stuff/P1000040.jpg[/img]

[Stefhan]

here is the only shot of mountaineering items I have. Erly 16th century in the city mus of Innsbruck. The hooks on the right are for climbing rock clifs wile hunting mountain goats.
I will look around for any other shots I might have.
Stefhan

[d-farrell2]

Dweezle, that is so many levels of awesome.

Nice pics too!

[woodwose]

here is the only shot of mountaineering items I have. Erly 16th century in the city mus of Innsbruck. The hooks on the right are for climbing rock clifs wile hunting mountain goats.

the object between the three hooks and the crossbow, anyone know what it is? is it a carrying case for the crossbow? How to carry my bow while not actually hunting is something I've been wondering about, and that thing looks like it has the right shape to cover the stock and the flaps could close around the center of the prod... or does anyone know if it is something else entirely?

I can see how those hooks could be very useful for climbing. it looks like the hook part could really wedge into small crevices and they look sturdy enough to withstand a bit of torque when weight is put on it. I'm looking forward to making one and trying it out.

[Andreas Korff]

I cannot make out the item clearly, but my first impression was of a single-legged stool. It looks like a curved board (thus the curvature to the left and right), with a stave attached perpendicular to the board.

If it's meant for carrying a crossbow, it does not belong to the crossbow on display. The two don't seem to match.

It's propably something else entirely.

BTW: Seconded on the awesomeness of your impression. That's really cool!

[Destichado]

Yes, that's a field stool -of a somewhat uncommon but certainly not unknown design that pops up every few years, even now. They're primarily meant to be used when the ground is so broken that a traditional four-point folding chair would be unusable. I don't think I'd bother with one, personally, but perhaps if I was of the second estate and had someone to carry it *for* me... Later on they become much more practical. I've seen quite a few examples from the 17th century and on where the seat is much more narrow and folds together to make a reasonable hiking cane.

[woodwose]

thanks, my wallet is glad to hear that I don't need to buy leather for making what I thought that thing was.

a field stool sounded a little pointless at first to be lugging out into the woods, but sitting on random jagged rocks and fallen trees with branches sticking out in all directions does get a little old after a couple days. I'll probably end up making one of these, a simple one also wouldn't be very hard to build in camp with tools I'd be carrying anyways.

[woodwose]

I was out today climbing around on some ledges that were mildly icy and slick from rain... nothing too dangerous because I'm not that into climbing, but didn't go out with any of my climbing gear I was working on earlier (8 or 9 years ago) in this thread... anyways, I had a lot of fun, but between the patchy bits of ice and wet leaves and moss I found myself wishing I had oiled up my period boots and got out the steel claws I had made for them...

My initial inspiration/source for the claws/climbing irons were the chamois hunters in The Triumph of Maximilian woodcuts:
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/climbing/chamois.jpg
they are the angular and somewhat X or * shaped things hanging from some of the guy's belts.

...and here is my interpretation:
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/climbing/gnew03.jpg
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/climbing/gnew04.jpg
they do bite into little crevices rather well... try doing this in leather soled shoes without these things:
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/climbing/gnew13.jpg

Earlier this evening I was doing a google image search for something completely unrelated and came across this picture which seems to be from "Bartholomäus Freisleben Inventarium Büchsen und Zeug, cod.icon.222, ca. 1495-1500, fol. 70v and 71r" (which was apparently Emperor Maximilian I's armory inventory) and the top row of objects look very much like what I made, which I just thought was very cool.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/56 ... 57a31e.jpg

[woodwose]

also, ditched the idea of using my pike for this... 16' is a bit long to lug around in the woods all day. When I'm ready to continue with this project I'm thinking about getting this 10 foot pick pole from Peavey Manufacturing (who also custom made the shaft for my pike):
http://store.peaveymfg.com/cart/product ... ocket-pick

[Harry Marinakis]

Well.... If you don't limit yourself to Europe, then as a mountaineer for the past 40 years I can tell you a little about the ancient climbing of the Bedouin of Jordan.

The Bedouin have been rock climbing in the desert for "sport" for hundreds if not a thousand years. Some of the ancient Bedouin routes even have footsteps worn into the soft sandstone. These old routes ascend to the summits of the desert peaks, for no other reason that simply for climbing's sake. The Bedouin today call it "scrambling," but I can tell you from experience that it's full-on free-soloing to YDS 5.6 or harder, often with serious exposure. The Bedouin did not use any equipment other than the clothes they were wearing.

There is a rock-climbing guidebook to the Wadi Rum that provides some history of the ancient Bedouin climbing.

A few years ago I went rock-climbing in the Wadi Rum with a Bedouin guide, and we did some old Bedouin routes. But we used a rope for the harder spots. At night, I stayed in the desert with the Bedouin in their wool tents. 105 degrees F during the day at 35 degrees at night.

1st pic - Descending off the summit of Jebel Khazali in the Rum. There are dozens and dozens of old Bedouin routes throughout these mountains. The old movie Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O'Toole was filmed down there in the valley below.

2nd pic - Free-solo down-climbing YDS 5.6 with about 400 feet of exposure, on soft sandstone with sloping holds!

3rd pic - The ancient Bedouin steps are visible here

[Ckanite]

That is some incredible terrain! I'm a bit jealous of you there!