Berthold Schwarz: Chemie und Waffentechnik im 15. Jahrhundert by Gerhard W. Kramer

Abstract

342 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Berthold Schwarz: Chemie und Waffentechnik irn 15. Jahrhundert. By Ger­ hard W. Kramer. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1995. Pp. 284; illustra­ tions, bibliography, index. DM 40.00 (paper). To borrow a shopworn line from the stand-up comedians, I have good news and bad news about this book. The good news is that Gerhard W. Kramer, a physical chemist, has identified an important aspect of gunpowder’s early history, the prevalence of “lime saltpe­ ter.” Most early saltpeter was produced by composting organic mat­ ter, and the crude salt that appeared in the saltpeterer’s pits was mainly calcium nitrate, not the more common modern form of salt­ peter, potassium nitrate. This is important because calcium nitrate is an extremely hygroscopic salt with a voracious appetite for atmo­ spheric moisture. Any gunpowder made with lime saltpeter will spoil very quickly under all but the most favorable storage conditions. Kramer’s insight is crucial for understanding the history of early firearms and one of its more important texts, the Feuerwerkbuch (Book of fire works). This text, which circulated in manuscripts dur­ ing the 15th century and reached print in the early 16th, is mainly a recipe text. It contains procedures for compounding gunpowder, preserving it, restoring it when it has gone bad, loading it into guns, and shooting them. The text is extremely elliptical and therefore difficult to understand; it simply presumes that the reader/user knows the basics of the gunner’s art, including the problems with gunpowder. The text has been poorly served by scholars until recently. Kramer prints here both a transcription of the text and a complete set of photographic plates showing the original paleography. His only manuscript (from more than forty extant copies) is the University of Freiburg copy (Hs. 362, fols. 73r-89r), an early version dating from 1432. This alone would make Kramer’s work valuable, since the copy is difficult to obtain except in microfilm. He corrects some earlier errors about this manuscript (including my own misdating of 1445). One complaint: his manuscript list merely repeats Wilhelm Hassenstein’s outdated pre-World War II inventory, and it fails to take note ofFeuerwerkbuch manuscripts now in the Tower of London, the New York Public Library, and the Hagley Museum. Kramer’s insight into the chemistry of early saltpeter is the key to understanding many puzzling aspects of Feuerwerkbuch. Early gun­ powder spoiled so readily that much work went into reconstituting bad batches, and ultimately processes were invented to deal with this problem. No one without Kramer’s background in chemistry could have made this contribution, and the profession owes him a debt of gratitude. Now for the bad news, and there is a great deal of it. Kramer’s ability to establish a historical context for his contribution is as poor as his chemistry is good, and he nearly sinks the book under the TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 343 weight of his errors. Consider the title: “Berthold Schwarz” is the legendary inventor ofguns and gunpowder who appears in the pages of numerous Renaissance antiquarians. Unable to add any substance to earlier accounts, historians have for the most part dismissed “Ni­ ger Bertholdus” as a myth. Kramer believes in the historicity of Berthold Schwarz, and he is willing to slant the whole history of Re­ naissance weapons technology (yVaffentechnik) to prove his case. Normally, one verifies the historical existence of a debated figure by means ofneutral, contemporary documents (court or tax records, wills, petitions, letters, etc.). Kramer offers nothing of the sort. In­ stead, as with any idée fixe, we get page after page of tortured evi­ dence that finally adds up to a seriously distorted picture. Despite Kramer’s insistence to the contrary, no record of Berthold Schwarz exists that does not depend in some way on Feuerwerkbuch. This means Kramer must implicate his main text in the web of distortions in order to make a place for Berthold Schwarz. It would take far more space than this review to present a full rebuttal of Kramer’s argument. Two critical points need to be on record, however. First, Kramer seeks to tie Feuerwerkbuch to Berthold Schwarz and the...