LAROCCA: This is a complete armor for man and horse made by the German armorer Kunz Lochner of Nuremberg.

NARRATOR: Donald Larocca.

LAROCCA: This is interesting for many reasons. One thing that is very important about it is there are so few armors preserved that are actually for man and horse that were made by the same maker. Kunz Lochner was active in Nuremberg in the middle of the sixteenth century. Nuremberg was a very well known center for the production of the type of armor known as munitions armor that was used by the rank and file troopers. This on the other hand is an armor very finely decorated that was made for a very highly placed patron.

And Lochner was one of the few armorists in Nuremberg who had an international reputation, who was working for patrons throughout Europe. It gives you a wonderful impression of what a fully armored man on horseback, the image of a knight in shining armor, was all about. The lance that he’s holding is a modern lance that was made to give the impression of what a fully armored cavalryman would have been carrying. It’s just a wooden lance now; it would have had a steel tip on it.

The chest piece of the horse is called a peytrel. And it does have this abbreviated expression and it’s been interpreted a few different ways. First of all, it has the date: 1548. And then these letters are there are just K I T G U and so on. And one interpretation of that is the German expression, “Krist Ich Trau Ganz und Gar, Hans Ernst Herzog zu Sachsen.” Which would translate to, “In Christ I trust wholly, Johann Ernst Duke of Saxony.”

NARRATOR: To hear from curator Stuart Pyhrr about the other sets of armor for man and horse you see here, press the green ‘PLAY’ button.