City of Nuremberg Mark for a Mail shirt
This tag bears the heraldic arms of the free imperial city of Nuremberg to signal that the article of mail armor to which it was attached was either made there or that it belonged to the city. The use of a small punch to create the contours of the shield and heraldic arms enclosed in it militate against the idea that the tag might have been used to identify mail armor made in Nuremberg, as making each tag in that fashion would have been a labor intensive, manual process that yielded no economies of scale. The copper-alloy buttons cast with Nuremberg’s heraldic arms and the name of Nuremberg, which are attached to some mail shirts (for example shirt 29.156.68 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection), are more likely candidates for being the mass-manufactured devices that would have been used to tell items made in Nuremberg apart from other mail armor. Further research is needed to confirm the prcise purpose of the tag under discussion.
Artwork Details
- Title: City of Nuremberg Mark for a Mail shirt
- Date: 15th–16th century
- Geography: Nuremberg
- Culture: German
- Medium: Brass, iron
- Dimensions: H. 1 in. (2.6 cm) W. 3/4 in. (1.9 cm); Wt. 0.1 oz. (3 g)
- Classification: Miscellaneous-Badges
- Credit Line: Gift of John Waldman, 2023
- Object Number: 2023.229
- Curatorial Department: Arms and Armor
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German, Nuremberg
15th century
probably German
ca. 1400–1430
Kunz Lochner
dated 1549
German, probably Nuremberg
ca. 1500
Kolman Helmschmid
ca. 1525
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