The cavalry rushes, the sword flashes, and the spears glisten; There are many killed and heaps of corpses: there is no end to the corpses, they stumble over their corpses.
Nahum 3: 3
Military museums in Europe. In Europe, and in the United States too, there are many museums, the theme of which allows them to be attributed to the military. However, today we are only interested in those of them in which knightly armor is exhibited. And not just armor, but dummies of riders and horses, which they could well ride during their lifetime. Because the task of the museum is not only to store various valuable "old things", but also to educate people of our time with its help. The armor itself is interesting, but you need to strain your mind to imagine how they sat on the human body. Put them on a mannequin - great! But the knight was a rider, he had a saddle, stirrups … How did he use all this, how far, sitting astride a horse, towered above the crowd? That is, if we put a knight in full armor on the figure of a horse, the educational effect of this will be incomparably higher.
Of course, there are many "buts" here. Firstly, just like that, knightly armor worn on a dummy cannot be put on a horse dummy. You need a headset, that is, a saddle and stirrups, as well as horse armor, suitable specifically for the armor of the rider sitting on it. But there are fewer such headsets than the actual armor. Why? Yes, simply because, when chivalry has outlived its age, horse armor lost all meaning before knightly armor. Those could be put in their castle for the sake of beauty, and for the exhibition of horse armor … a stuffed horse was required. It cost a lot of money to make a good stuffed animal, and then it was necessary to take care of it, protect it from moths, clean it from dust, and all this was an extra headache, which did not add value to the owner of the armor. For example, in the Czech castle of Hluboka nad Vltavou, large quantities of cuirassier armor hang on its walls inside a huge hall solely for the sake of beauty, but a fake horse, on which a knight in "Maximilian armor" sits, is only one. Yes, and such horses take up a lot of space, but little sense from them. Moreover, they can smell, and how could this or that noble lady put up with this? Yes, she did not put up in any way! The armor, if it really warms her hubby's soul so much, will be in the arsenal, and we will hand over the horse armor to the old dealer while the husband is away. In this or approximately this way, a lot of horse armor of the late period was lost, and even about the earlier ones - those that were made of cloth, leather and chain mail, you can even forget - none of them survived! Although chain mail horse armor is mentioned already in French documents of 1302.
A stuffed horse of Napoleon is exhibited in the Army Museum in Paris and, I must admit, it has a very "pale appearance." It can be seen that both time and insects worked a lot on it. That is why, in fact, the riders in this museum are riding hairless horses, but beautifully crafted and perfectly painted. And the same horse dummies are used today in museums in Europe and the United States, everywhere. Here you can name the world-famous Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in which hall 371 displays a whole cavalcade of four horsemen in the armor of French gendarmes of the era of King Charles VII. And they look very realistic and, which is also very important, are not behind glass. Therefore, they can be photographed from any point and in detail.
Riders on horseback at the Royal Arsenal in Leeds, UK are very impressively housed. It reproduces the attack of mounted men at arms on foot shooters, and there are free-standing figures of a samurai, a Mongol horseman, a knight in Gothic German armor. It is interesting that the shield for the Mongolian horseman was made by our Russian historian V. Gorelik. As expected, he wove it from twigs, wrapped them with colored threads, choosing a pattern, in general, he did a colossal job. Well, on the other hand, the shield looks like a real one.
But again, if it is expensive to make a fake horse, but still possible, where to get horse armor for it? To make it again, as the same Gorelik made a shield? But there is a big difference - one thing is a product made of rods, leather, tassels and threads, and quite another - a mass of hammered iron, in which all the details must be thought out. Today, thanks to laser scanning and 3D printing, it is quite possible to make a copy of any armor, including horse armor. And to arrange a completely modern museum of armor and knights astride beautiful horses. But the price of such work will go off scale. For example, an American Colt 1911A1 pistol manufactured in the usual way costs $ 200. And this same pistol, printed on a 3D printer - more than 2000! So, although the roads were real knightly armor in the Middle Ages, their copies made in metal using the most modern technologies, no matter how paradoxical it sounds, will be even more expensive! In any case, so far. How it will be there in the future is rather difficult to predict.
If there is a mannequin horse, then there must be a horse mannequin. Putting empty armor on a horse is stupid, since it is difficult to ensure a natural appearance. That is, it is necessary that there is also a man-mannequin and it is necessary to dress him up in armor. Wear pants because they are visible, a shirt - which can often also be seen at the folds of the elbows. But the hardest part is still not this, but the horse harness. Yes, there is a saddle (they were often preserved), there is a chaffron, a mouthpiece with all the personal belongings, there is actually a bard - horse armor. But the girth, the bridle, and sometimes the bridle are all leather and from time to time deteriorates. The gnawing of the mouthpiece, again, must be correctly given to the "horse" in the teeth, leather ammunition must be fixed on it, then metal armor … And you still need to remember about historicism all the time. For example, Louis XII rode into Genoa in 1507 on a horse that had its ears cut off and its mane completely shaved to give it a wild and intimidating look. Such "decoration" of the horse came into vogue even under Charles VIII, so that on some dummy all these features of the era could well be reproduced. But to do this, you need to know about it, that is, you need a well-coordinated work of historians, horse breeders and horse equipment specialists, tanners and restorers. Already one thing - this listing shows that their services will be very expensive! Of course, you can entrust this business and … "anyhow someone." But then you need to be prepared in advance for the fact that in the age of the Internet your museum will not receive "likes", but a lot of critical remarks that … will reduce its attractiveness both in the eyes of visitors and investors, and all this may end very badly.
Nevertheless, an increasing number of museums are acquiring equestrian figures in armor, and where they are made "right" they always attract the attention of visitors and play an important educational role.
Well, now let's get acquainted with the actual horse armor, and then with the armor, which are exhibited in various museums.
To begin with, there are no horse blankets on the famous "Bayesian embroidery" of 1066. But it is known that horse blankets made of metal plates were used in Ancient Rome during the decline of the empire, among the Parthians, then in Iran, since they are on the bas-reliefs of the Iranian shahs of the 7th century, as well as in Byzantium. Byzantine horsemen-cataphracts had on their horses shells of bone and metal plates laced with leather lining. Already in the era of the Crusades, blankets made of fabric, so far only for protection from the scorching sun, appear in the European knightly cavalry.
In Europe, the knights got acquainted with horse armor, having met on the battlefields with the Mongols of the Khona Batu. A detailed description of them was left by Plano Carpini, but the Western European knights did not borrow their structure. At the beginning of the 15th century, knights protected their horses with chain mail and quilted blankets. Sometimes they were reinforced with foreheads made of metal or thick boiled leather. Then horses appeared on the battlefields in iron bibs, and in the blankets of the brigandine type. That is, metal plates were riveted to such blankets from the inside, so only the outlines of the plates and the heads of the rivets were visible from the outside. But already in the XIV century, these types of protection were replaced by large one-piece forged metal plates, which covered primarily the chest, neck and croup of the horse. It was these parts of the animal's business that were most vulnerable … to the arrows of archers and crossbowmen, loudly proclaiming their power on the battlefields of the Hundred Years War. Such armor entered the mass use of knighthood already in the middle of the 15th century. It was at this time that heavy knightly cavalry began to massively use plate armor to protect their horses and this practice continued for about … 150 years. An interesting feature of such horse armor was paired umbons on a metal chest plate. By the 16th century, such armor had reached its maximum perfection, and at the beginning of the century even grooved "Maximilian" armor appeared, and also with embossing front.
A typical European horse armor made of forged metal plates - the bard consisted of the following main parts:
- shaffron (muzzle), - crinet (collar), - neutral (bib), - krupper (on the group), - and two flanges (side plates).
It is believed that this mouthpiece was made for a luxurious ceremonial set for a man and a horse, made in 1550s in Italy for Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529-1595), (kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna). It is known that Ferdinand ordered several sets of horse equipment. It is possible that this mouthpiece belonged to this headset, unless the workshop that made it put it on stream. In any case, this is a complex device, indicating a good knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the horse and the ability to apply to them for more flexible control. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Many VO readers are interested in the thickness of the metal that went into the manufacture of armor, including horse armor. So, it was on horse armor that the thickness of the armor was of particular importance. The fact is that the iron armor with a thickness of only 1.5 mm, covering the horse's face, neck, chest and croup, in total weighed no less than 30 kilograms! To them should be added a metal-bound saddle, other ammunition, and then the weight of the rider himself, and the weight of his armor, which could also weigh from 27 to 36 kilograms. That is, to make such armor even thicker meant to overload the horse, which was undesirable in all respects. But on the other hand, the thin metal was convenient for chasing, and besides, the large surfaces of horse armor made it possible to make large chased images on them.
