Piercing and racing gear
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Under piercing stuff and racing stuff means the specialized equipment ( tournament armor ) of a knight for the so-called (Welsche) Gestech or for the race , two forms of late medieval knightly joust - tournament . Stinging tools were made by the armorer .
Lancing equipment
It was not until the 15th century that the piercing tools developed into a real special form of plate armor . One of the most obvious changes compared to war armor is the use of the stech helmet , a very heavy helmet attached to the armor , whose tapered shape should ensure that the opponent's blunt lance slipped off the helmet. The piercing equipment also includes arming and locking hooks that carry the weight of the lance, as well as various modifications of traditional armor parts, such as the reinforcement and tapering of the breastplate to the piercing chest, the connection of the left arm with a glove or the fixation of the wooden piercing archer on the left side of the breast . The tournament lance itself was provided with a tournament crown to prevent penetration into the viewing slit of the helmet, and was sometimes extremely massive. The so-called breaking disk protected the hand and forearm of the rider, which is why the late armored man no longer had a right glove.
Overall, the stinging kit was very massive compared to the field armor and completely unsuitable for actual combat. The cliché of the iron-clad knight who can no longer get on his horse on his own was incorrectly transferred from the stinging gear - which was not only heavy, but also completely restricted its wearer in his movement - to ordinary armor.
The "Realgestech" or "Plankengestech" and the associated armor for the Realgestech developed from the piercing .
Racing stuff
The racing kit was created around 1490 at the suggestion of the “last knight”, the German king and later emperor Maximilian I. Although the race had been a well-known tournament variant for more than a century, which was particularly popular with young nobles, it was a standardization of equipment came about under Maximilian's direction. In its late, sporty form, the race was either about throwing the opponent out of the saddle or tearing off or splintering his shield, the racing paddle . Since, in contrast to the Gestech, the race was never about tearing off the helmet decorations , it was not carried out with a hard hat, but with the so-called racing hat , a half helmet similar to the Schaller . The racing gear was also highly specialized and included a special racing saddle, dilgen (leg armor integrated in the saddle) and a racing beard (to protect the throat and chin). In contrast to the punch, the lance was sharp, which contributed to the fact that the race was still considered a sporting test of courage in later times. Depending on the type of race, the racing kit included a target race kit or a large iron shield that covered almost the entire torso, which enabled the rider to do without special armor.
Race gear after Wendelin Boeheim
Stinging tool Maximilian I. to Boeheim
Parts of a piercing tool in the Vienna Court Armory
Racing gear in the Vienna Court Armory
literature
- Ortwin Gamber: jousting and tournament armor in the late Middle Ages. In: Josef Fleckenstein (Ed.): The knightly tournament in the Middle Ages. Contributions to a comparative history of form and behavior in chivalry (= publications by the Max Planck Institute for History. Vol. 80). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-525-35396-0 , pp. 513-531.
- Ortwin Gamber: The tournament armor at the time of King Maximilian I and the Thun sketchbook. In: Yearbook of the Art History Collections in Vienna. Vol. 53, 1957, ISSN 0258-5596 , pp. 33-70.
