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This is from 1800s Germany? Like, not BC, but a contemporary of Victoria in England?
Yep!
During the period of the 19th century, the middle age was seen as kind of a pipe dream. As the nobility was assumed to be consisting of virtuous knights, the rule of the king was fair and knights were living in precious castles. Anything medieval was a’la mode, including medieval looking artifacts like this one. The plate at the breast says “DEVS et LUMEN MDCXIV”, god and light 1614, which strictly isn’t in the middle age by our definition.
Yep! England had a brief craze in the period of ultra-wealthy folks building ruins (not castles - ruins) on their estates because Medieval chic was so in vogue, and most of the torture implements we associate with the medieval period are likewise Victorian-era fantasies.
Not because people weren’t tortured in the Medieval period, but because a vassal with a sadistic streak and a hammer is much more cost-effective than whatever specialized torture tool of metallurgical waste the Victorians were fantasizing about, lmao.
After the revolutions that have been taking place all across western an central Europe, the nobility was seeking for confirmation and legitimation by picturing themselves as descendants from the famous medieval rulers. For that purpose monuments like Kyffhäuser Monument were built, where a bronze equerestrian statue of the German emperor Wilhelm is located above a stone statue of the legendary King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa sitting on his throne. Barbarossa is said to be resting in a deep sleep in the Kyffhäuser mountain waiting to return in times Germany needs him.
Also during that time, a lot of castles were ‘reconstructed’ by the nobility for ‘show off’ purpose, e.g. Sigmaringen castle (Hohenzollern-Schloss) which was seen as the origin of the Brandenburg-Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty or even newly built, as e.g. Neuschwanstein Castle, which should at least look somehow like a castle.
