There is also an old copy of one of the books in the royal library at Veste Coburg. Professor Haenel, the Curator of the Johanneum Collection of Arms and Armour at Dresden, has reproduced a selection of the plates in the three volumes of the joustings of the Saxon Kurfürsts, two of them coloured as in the originals, the others plain (published under the auspices of Die Verein für historische Waffenkunde, Dresden, 1910). The book supplies a long-felt want, for the original volumes are not easy of access.
In the Gewehrgalerie at the Johanneum, Dresden,[176] are twenty-nine paintings in oils by the same artist as those in the tourney-books, and they depict courses run in Scharfrennen by the Kurfürsts. These pictures are of even greater value than the drawings in the tourney-books in being painted on a larger scale, and giving more details both of the courses themselves and the general surroundings of the lists. One of them, like the last picture in the tournament-book, Vol. III, depicts the last joust of the Kurfürst August, run against his ennobled master-armourer Hans Dehn, in the year 1566; and it bears the title, “Ein Rennen mit Hannss Dehnen gethan, der ist alleine gefallen. Ao 66 im Februar zu Dressten an der Festnacht.” This oil-painting is hung in a bad light, and is darkened by age, but a close examination reveals the fact that the riders and horses are only models, stuffed with straw, their hoofs attached to low four-wheeled bogies. The figures are impelled to charge by a mechanical apparatus; ropes, running along the bogies and beyond, are visible, but the machinery itself for setting the models in motion is hidden from view. These models, as stated on the picture, formed part of a Carnival mummery, held at court. The painting exhibits the moment when Hans Dehn is in the act of being hurled from his horse by the Kurfürst, his lance falling to the ground; while the prince is holding up his left hand in the manner customary after impact. The Kurfürst wears a jousting-salade, with a crest of plumes; the usual shield; bases and jousting-cuisses. The legs and feet are unarmoured. The lance is stout, rounded, adorned with puffs, and headed with a small conically formed sharp tip; the vamplate is very large. The horse bears an enriched collar and a spiked chamfron, while plumes adorn the head and tail. The saddle is without cantle, the object of the course being unhorsing; the trapper, reaching down to the horse’s houges, is painted with stars, foliations and the arms (viz. a lion rampant).
PLATE III
MAXIMILIAN I ENGAGED IN HOHENZEUGGESTECH
About the end of the seventeenth century the models of horses used for the display of armour in the Tower of London were mounted on casters, and guide books of the period and later state that they had been employed in practising tilting and running at the ring. This could hardly have been the case as regards these particular models, their purpose having been doubtless merely for convenience in moving and cleaning. These statements were, however, founded on the fact that there had been horses fitted with mechanical contrivances for impelling them forward towards one another for the purpose of practising the joust and its kindred military sports. In the years 1672 and 1673 patents were taken out in England for models of horses fitted with mechanical appliances for the purpose in question,[177] and the joust at Dresden on Twelfth-night, 1566, shows that they were not confined to this country.
The subjects of the paintings and embroideries on trappers in the sixteenth century were often humorous, religious, and sometimes even political in character. An example shows a barrel of gunpowder in the act of explosion and a pair of sweethearts standing before it kissing. Another exhibits a man standing in the street, clad only in his shirt, being well soused with water thrown from an open window. A religious example deals with the struggle in progress between the propaganda of reform as against the Church of Rome, wherein a monk and a Lutheran divine are seen fighting for the globe amid lightning and hail; the waves of the sea, peopled by monsters of the deep, advancing menacingly towards them.
The mottoes are often curious and suggestive, for instance:—
“Was achte ich des Monden Schein, wenn mir die Sonne gnedig sein.”[178]
Another:—