Riefelharnisch, Riefelküriss für Feld und Turnier

According to the 1596 inventory of Ambras Castle, this armour was made for Matthäus Lang of Wellenburg, one of the most important advisors and diplomats of Emperor Maximilian I.

Lang, the scion of an impoverished patrician family from Augsburg, studied at Ingolstadt, Tübingen, and Vienna before entering the service of Maximilian I in 1494. He soon won his master’s confidence, swiftly rising through the ecclesiastical ranks in the German Empire: in 1501 he was made coadjutor, in 1505 Bishop of Gurk in Carinthia, in 1513 a cardinal, and in 1515 Archbishop of Salzburg. In 1507, he acquired Wellenburg Palace near Augsburg. In 1508, it was Lang of Wellenburg who, in the Cathedral of Trent, formally proclaimed Maximilian’s decision to assume the title ‘Elected Emperor of the Romans’.

Although the armour has no master’s mark, its style and handling suggest it was produced at Innsbruck by one or several master-craftsmen from the circle of the workshop of the court armourer Konrad Seusenhofer. A document from 1511 has survived, telling us that an armour was sent from Innsbruck to the ‘Lord of Gurk’ (gnädigen Herrn von Gurkh), though it does not name the armourer.

Practically all the pieces comprising this armour are embellished with threedimensional decorative bands. Narrower fluted bands alternate with broader plain ones. The narrower bands and the edges of each lame are etched and gilded and feature mythical creatures, putti, foliage, and flowers on a hatched ground. The decoration is probably the work of at least two artists.

The armour was designed to be worn both in the field and for jousting. The latter is suggested by the drillings and pivots for (now lost) reinforcing pieces for the melee still visible on breastplate, left elbow, and left gauntlet. The back and front lames of the armour’s skirt can be removed and presumably replaced with tassets and a rump defence for a combat on foot.