Guns of "For Trade and Treaty"

[rickystl]

REF Posts #58 and #59:

A good question. Personally, I have not seen any reference material that discusses this as a stand alone topic. Seems to be referenced in bits and pieces throughout a variety of different reference material. One school of thought, starting with the hand-gonne period goes something like: Positioning the gun at the waist/chest, to under the arm pit, to the cheek rest, and eventually the shoulder rest. But sometime, early on it was determined that firing from the shoulder was the most advantageous for aiming/pointing and accuracy - regardless of butt stock style.
This would have been a great question to pose Michael Tommer if he were still with us.

Rick

 

[TobJohn]

Luckily, he has provided us with some very useful information on the topic, even if it is not all in one place.

My biggest problem with a lot of the books or articles I’ve read on the subject is that they like to frame the dominant styles as a continuous evolution, when they were almost certainly competing evolutionary lines that sometimes crossed over.

The way I have often seen it is a direct evolution:
Pre 1500: Holding tiller handgonnes like a bazooka or under the arm
->
1500-1550: Cheek Stocks
->
1550-1590: Petronels, fired from the cheek or chest
->
1590-onwards: Proper stocks, moving the bent stock to the shoulder

However, it’s all nonsense because you already have evidence of all types in the first half of the 16th century, maybe even the first quarter!

Cheek stocks:
In the 1470s, there are prints of Swiss gunners using cheek stocks. By the 1530s there is already a surviving wheellock with a German style cheek stock, a style that stays very popular until 1700!
From 1500-1530, there are paintings and prints of gunners firing their arquebuses from the cheek or the hip, even when the guns are the same style.

Petronels:
My obsession, as some of you know. Michael had his arquebus from the 1520s with a stock that he argues was a proto patronal stock and cheek stock. A painting of Pavia (I believe it was painted in the 1530s) shows his style of stock as the main type. Some of the earliest surviving large petronels are from the 1560s. A lot of art from the 1560s-1590s show them as the primary infantry arm.

Shoulder stocks:
This is where everything falls apart. The inventory of Maximilian and an engineering book from the first 15 years of the 16th century both show lone guns that could possibly be shouldered.

For solid proof, the 1540s Italian arquebuses associated with the Mary Rose were shouldered and were clearly a direct evolution of Michael’s Tuscan snaplock of 1525. The Graz armory has a collection of muskets from the 1560s that all have shoulder stocks. This is the same couple of years that there early petronels are from! The 1580s and 1590s have more surviving examples of shouldered muskets.

Some additional anecdotes:
I have read petronel stocks and fishtails both called Spanish style, even though they were overlapping.
Spain had a very anemic domestic gun industry, so anything as their style is questionable.
Suhl was making all three types of stock at the same time.

 

[Nor'Easter]

TobJohn.
Do you consider the firearms in the last photo to be shoulder or cheek fired?

I agree with your analysis BTW!!

 

[TobJohn]

Do you consider the firearms in the last photo to be shoulder or cheek fired?

They are most likely cheek fired, but the second down from the top right looks more like a shoulder stock.

 

[Nor'Easter]

My personal current interest is the subtle transition from the stock style of the early French wheel lock to what in period references were referred to as the "French style" - which I assumed was the 1660's/1670's Fusil de Chase / French Marine musket.

 

[TobJohn]

My personal current interest is the subtle transition from the stock style of the early French wheel lock to what in period references were referred to as the "French style" - which I assumed was the 1660's/1670's Fusil de Chase / French Marine musket.

Would it make more sense for those to have evolved from musket stocks? The French wheellocks I’ve seen in person were very narrow and delicate looking (while beautiful), so it seem unlikely they evolved into muskets. Domestic French wheellocks were also fairly rare as military arms, even in France.

 

[Nor'Easter]

That's actually an interesting point. Throwing this out there.

I wonder:
1. If the various Fowlers and Fusil de Chases are evolutions of the French wheel lock stock form.
2. If the various musket stock profiles are decended from the German and Spanish muskets.

However, proportions aside, the shift in stocks forms (in profile) from 1600 to the standardized French form by 1700 is remarkable. There are a few exceptions like the North African and Moroccan left by 1700, but fast forward 200 years and it is the accepted stock form.

 

[TobJohn]

That's actually an interesting point. Throwing this out there.

I wonder:
1. If the various Fowlers and Fusil de Chases are evolutions of the French wheel lock stock form.
2. If the various musket stock profiles are decended from the German and Spanish muskets.

However, proportions aside, the shift in stocks forms (in profile) from 1600 to the standardized French form by 1700 is remarkable. There are a few exceptions like the North African and Moroccan left by 1700, but fast forward 200 years and it is the accepted stock form.

The 1640s-1650s is when there seems to be a proliferation of matchlocks (particularly dutch and german) stocks that look "modern", so could be a good place to look.

This period is also where the Hudson Bay style of American fowler evolved from

Edit: I think I meant club butt fowlers.

 

[Rob M.]

Wow ! What a great post !

 

[rickystl]

That's actually an interesting point. Throwing this out there.

I wonder:
1. If the various Fowlers and Fusil de Chases are evolutions of the French wheel lock stock form.
2. If the various musket stock profiles are decended from the German and Spanish muskets.

However, proportions aside, the shift in stocks forms (in profile) from 1600 to the standardized French form by 1700 is remarkable. There are a few exceptions like the North African and Moroccan left by 1700, but fast forward 200 years and it is the accepted stock form.

Hi Nor"Easter

A good question with French stocks. Curious there seem to be very few French, flint shoulder guns from the Mid-17th Century to do a comparison.

Rick

 

[Nor'Easter]

*It does seem that, as you say, there are far fewer French guns to analyze. I find that a little odd, because the French kept good records of production and import / distribution numbers. If you add in the military muskets imported during the AWI, then it is not an insignificant number of French arms brought to North America.

*Dating of French arms (both European and N. American) seems to be a somewhat 'squishier' science than the dating of English guns - in my experience.

*I have spent the past couple of years pouring over the archeological reports from as many N. American digs as I can find online. One of my admittedly untrained observations / conclusions is that Dutch gun parts greatly outnumber(ed) both English and French gun parts.

*A final question - Are Liege guns Dutch guns?

 

[rickystl]

Try this again. These are interesting.
View attachment 252548View attachment 252549View attachment 252550View attachment 252551View attachment 252552View attachment 252553View attachment 252554

IMHO the last photo you posted in this group (M.6-1949) has that possible "Mid-19th Century French" look. That stock style with the rounded butt stock and flats has that mid-century look. That would be a good stock style along with the French lock I posted.

Rick