KevinD
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 Posté le: Ven Oct 06, 2023 8:58 pm Sujet du message: 14th c Infantry Spear-shafts |
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So I’m painting up some of Khurasan’s late 14th century figures as French ca. 1370 AD and have run across two different interpretations of what colors the spear shafts (and by extension polearm shafts too) should be. Chrtopher Rothero (Osprey, Armies of Poitiers and Crecy # 111, plate H) shows them as plain wood. Ian Heath (Armies if the Middle Ages, fig. 40) describes Pavasiers from 1358 as using spears painted red or white.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the most likely color for spear and polearm shafts for French infantry if this era? We’re they painted or left in a natural wood tone? |
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Mark G Fry
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Localisation: Bristol, UK
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| Posté le: Sam Oct 07, 2023 2:35 pm Sujet du message: |
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| KevinD a écrit: | So I’m painting up some of Khurasan’s late 14th century figures as French ca. 1370 AD and have run across two different interpretations of what colors the spear shafts (and by extension polearm shafts too) should be. Chrtopher Rothero (Osprey, Armies of Poitiers and Crecy # 111, plate H) shows them as plain wood. Ian Heath (Armies if the Middle Ages, fig. 40) describes Pavasiers from 1358 as using spears painted red or white.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the most likely color for spear and polearm shafts for French infantry if this era? We’re they painted or left in a natural wood tone? |
Your challenge with this Kevin, is that there is genuinely no consistency, either in written or actual physical or pictorial sources.
Whilst we see quite a few examples of painted spear/polearm/pike shafts from the Schilling Chronicles (for example) - red, black & white being common - there is an academic art historians view that this might just be 'artistic license' (same as his tent colours) as its not particularly exciting to have to paint up a mass of brown pike shafts or all white canvas tents.
However, other paintings such as The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. 1562 shows all the pole weapons in the army of the dead painted in bright red - so maybe there is some truth in them all being painted. We also know from the illustrated Froissart Chronicles that striped (bi-coloured) polearm shafts are illustrated, especially for higher status combatants, but again, brown, white or black shafts are predominant amongst the bulk of combatants. Jean Fouquet another contemporary illustrator/chronicler is not much help to us either, as most of his weapon shafts are depicted a golden brown, same as all armour and other metalwork.
Loyset Liédet, another C15th contemporary chronicler, has yellow and red striped lances in the illustration accompanying a description of the battle of Poitiers, but the majority of the weapon shafts are all red or black.
I'm sure that there are some contemporary illustrations of C14th Parisian Militia - but I've not managed to find the source (yet).
Most of the polearms in historical/museum collections, that I have seen, have plain wooden shafts. But I suspect that many (if not the majority) have been re-shafted over the centuries. Also weapons in collections tend to be either a darker brown ( polished/waxed) or a bright light wooden colour as if the wood had been newly cut (as that is how their curators wanted them displayed). It's also worth noting that it would have been expensive to use coloured pigment and that it was equally not particularly 'fast'. So unless it was protected by layers of clear wax or varnish, the colour would come off a wooded shaft relatively quickly.
A formation, such as the Parisian Militia, which would have been relatively well supplied might well have had spear/polearm shafts painted to match their bi-coloured shields (for example) but whether you could prove that definitively I don't know.
Happy painting (& those particular Khurasan figures are very nice)
Mark |
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KevinD
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Localisation: Texas
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| Posté le: Sam Oct 07, 2023 3:54 pm Sujet du message: |
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| Thanks Mark, your reply was great. |
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