Apologies for this thread starting in a rather odd way, but Nathan and I were having a mail conversation that was getting rather interesting and we though it would be good to pass it out to the floor to see what others thought. Because of this we are starting little way into a conversation.

Roughly the point which this conversation brought up was this: As a maker or a user of ancient objects do the makers/users desires/mistakes/obsessions/skills/experiences etc ever distinctly show in the objects. Can we have an insight into our past by our own insights into an object.

Have a read and see if we have sparked any thoughts........

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Nathan Robinson wrote: I'm really thrilled to see the types of things you make. You're making items that others aren't. For me, that's work a giant congratulations. I'm not sure if others aren't willing to tackle them or if they're simply not able to find the customers to pay for them. Either way, it's great to see the variety of your work.

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Leo Todeschini wrote: As for variety, I think I get bored easily and I like to make new things, but I also have a reputation for it here in the UK so people look me up to see what I am up to which is nice, but they also give me the 'who do I go to for this?' pieces which I like. Yes I make a variety of items, and believe me there will never be a run on 18thC nutmeg graters, but I might sell 2 of these, 3 crossbows, 2 inkwells, 2 straight razors, 15 rondels etc during a year and together it makes almost enough.

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Nathan Robinson wrote: To me, that's fascinating from a lot of angles. I bet it's interesting for you as well because you get to explore new parts of history and almost tinker with things to see "how they were executed.". Not to get too strange about it (if it's not already too late for that?), but I suspect it might almost make you explore the mindsets of the craftspeople of the past.

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Leo Todeschini wrote: As regards getting in the mindset, that is often the case. A moment I had last week was a real revelation and that was when I making the black handled bollock dagger, which has a kind of angled ridge between the balls. I had looked at the original and thought this was a pretty detail and rather fetching and had tried a couple of times to replicate it, which I found quite hard to do. When I made that particular dagger I changed my carving/filing technique slightly, once again trying to replicate the ridge and hit on how it was done, but much more interestingly why it was done. Basically if that ridge appears it makes the carving/filing much easier and so quicker, but also it allows you to blend in any deeper gouges into the handle form without it showing i.e. it makes it quicker to carve. In a nutshell having that ridge makes the manufacture quicker. I was also in the V and A this summer handling some 15thC leatherwork with a view to replicating it for them. When I studied the decorative pattern, which was a cross hatched design, the lines started to run out of true and were no longer parallel accross the face of the box. It happens because the maker was freehanding the lines and as you move accross a piece the angle between your arm and your body changes. It was something I loved to see because I freehand a lot of my work and it happens to me if I don't watch out for it. Basically it told me the guy making it didn't use a straight edge, didn't mark it out, was right handed and was tired/bored/gossiping when he made it. It is also something I love to see as most people have a notion that medieval 'crafted' items were somehow and always perfect, which they rarely were. This was a high status document case, beautifully decorated and yet in a modern sense it had badly executed decoration. Even Henry VIII's armour for the field of cloth of gold has at least one line of hinge rivet holes that were wrongly punched, rivetted in to fill and repositioned and that is probably the most expensive suit of armour ever made. I often have to make a few pieces of one type, but yes you do start to get insights into why things were approached in certain ways and I find that really interesting because you have to understand something to make it properly but more importantly from a commercial point of view, efficiently.

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An interesting topic of conversation Leo. I think you are highlighting why recreating ancient crafts as closely as possible is so important to archeology. Although we can learn a lot by studying period sources, studying period artifacts and their find context sometimes there is just really no substitute for actually trying to DO something. The human animal hasn't really changed much in the last couple thousand years or so. We tend to think a certain way and our bodies have certain mechanical limitations. Chances are pretty good that if we DO something enough we are going to find ourselves DOING it in the way our ancestors did even if we have to arrive at the method through trial and error... just like they did.

My work on a sallet liner turned into a long (long) meditation on the subject of time, labor and craftsmanship in the medieval world. That was always part of my reason for hand-stitching--I wanted a taste of what's required, both physically and mentally--but I feel I got more insight than I expected. Here's what I wrote at the time:

For the quilting, my plan was to make long, crude stitches of the sort I’ve seen in some original liners. I soon discovered that this work is so repetitive and time-consuming that it's almost meditative. Without my brain fully engaged in the sewing, I fell into a pattern of small, close stitches, which I’ve also seen on original liners. When I realized this early in the quilting of the first triangle I decided to press ahead in that pattern rather than undo my work to that point. I finally finished the quilting an estimated 1,000 stitches later.

Ditto for the bevor liner I made next.

Notice the length and spacing of stitches below vs. the straightness of the rows. I used tape as a guide to keep my rows straight, but there are a few stray stitches. I didn't have any sort of guide for stitch length and spacing, but those appear to be more uniform than the rows. Why? Maybe because the brain turns off if there's a mechanical guide to take over that part of the work, while the brain has to work harder when there is no such guide.

I don't have any significant sewing experience. I wouldn't even be qualified to be a medieval apprentice in that field. But even I found that all you have to do is start the project to get closer to a medieval mindset about time and labor, and that starts to direct your work. It took me many, many hours to do this work, and although I usually worked on a park bench with only my thoughts for company, I never had any trouble sewing while talking with somebody curious about what I was doing. After a few stitches the brain (in my case, at least) decides it can set the hands moving and go off to play. The time passes quickly as a result. I wonder if mail-making would be similar.

I keep coming back to the term "meditative". This kind of work certainly is that way for me. Very interesting. Every project inspires me to do more, learn new things and believe that it really is possible to do good work with very simple tools. And I think there's much more to be learned about oneself and one's ancestors from DIY than from purchasing off-the-shelf.

Around the time I was doing this work I read a letter in National Geographic expressing doubt that a bit of sewn fabric shown in a previous issue really was ancient because the stitches were so small and precise. Could that really have been done with primitive tools, the letter-writer asked. The author of the article assured the letter-writer that it certainly was possible. I'll second that and point out that working with "primitive" tools can be much more about valuation of time, craftsmanship and labor than about overall quality. As for uniformity, I now think you'd have to do more than simply glance at conscientious hand-stitching to distinguish it from machine-stitching. Oh, but the time! Hours vs. minutes.

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This is a great topic. As a craftsman, when looking at or handling period objects I am also trying to get into the head of the craftsman a bit, and figure out what he or she was trying to achieve as they worked on the object. Also the relationship between maker and buyer/user - was he trying to cut corners to meet a price?

I have had the privilege to handle some period swords this year, and they offer some fascinating insights. Fullers a bit off line, blades with ripples, and so on, but still often beautifully finished swords. The piece that sticks in my memory is a chanfron that has raised chevrons at the muzzle - it looks like the craftsman started at the muzzle, and as he did the chevron points the line turned to the left a bit and went very off line; he left the points as they were and cheated it by stepping the lines on the other side to distract from the points. As Bob Savage said at the time, these pieces were "made by people, for people".

Some objects still bear evidence of their making methods - hey one could almost make a PhD out of that ;)

I wholeheartedly agree, Todd. This was clear to me even before I really started making things. There are shapes that are dictated by fashion, others that are dictated by 'the sensible motion', and sometimes it's a bit of both.

Of course, using tools as close as possible to period tools, and trying to be as productive (in the efficiency/time ratio aspect) as possible also helps. No movement is wasted (or as less as possible), as time is of the essence. Materials are, too : they didn't want to waste a gram of iron or wood, it seems (of course there are exceptions, and it tends to evolve as time passes).

When making that Burgundian/Heraldic dagger last year (here and here, with the original here) or even with my latest horseman's hammer, I had to think of "how would they have made this or that", and trying out - more feeling than thinking actually - it turned out that some details, even in the mishaps, matched those on the originals. And trying to reproduce them in a thoughtful; conscious manner wouldn't have yelded the same results, I think.

When I work, a bit like when I'm drawing or painting, or swordfighting, I don't really look at things. I'm seeing something a few centimeters inside the matter, or beyond. I'm more relying on my general perception, than on organised, cartesian tought processes.

Interesting conversation, thanks for putting it out for open discussion. It's interesting to try to replicate historical items and wonder how the original maker's methods and tools differred from ours, or how similar they may have been, and how this influences the final product. Also how different common sensibilities might have been for people centuries ago as compared to the modern world where we are so used to precisely formed, mass-produced objects.
There is an organic quality to most hand-made objects that is often hard to define, and is unique to both the craftsman and his experience and influence at the time when the object was made, the latter of which grow and mature throughout the lifetime of any crafstman. Studying even a single piece can be a major undertaking, as with Peter Johnsson's study of the Svante sword, and may still leave one with more questions than answers. The older the object is the more of a mystery it can be.
There are some historical pieces that flat astound me with hand-wrought detail, some of the chiseled iron rapier hilts in particular just leave me in awe, the slightest pondering on how they accomplished this just gives me a headache...

This willingess to spend time is also linked to the pre-industial attitude to cost and luxuries.
In a pre-industrial/capitalist society, the aim of acumulating wealth is to spend it.
(as opposed to the capitalist mindsett, where the aim of accumulating capital is to generate more capital.)

Thus, strict value-for-money did not apply. If you had to pay several years worth of wages to get a exeptional sword or armour, you did so, even if this sword was not strictly much better than a high end "standard" model.
As long as you could afford it, having money laying about wasn't seen as a value in and of it self.

This is a really fascinating discussion and it is forcing me to look at things in a very different way. I have never been much a fan of making stuff for my kit myself, largely because of a combination of a desire for an accuracy I doubt I have the knowledge to produce and an understanding (here read as "being realistic") that I probably don't have the follow through to finish a large project once I have started; I am indeed a product of my age.
In light of what I have read in this discussion though I may have to begin taking up little projects . If nothing else it sounds as though it would be a good stress relief in my spare time and it will inspire me to further my research into specific areas. In the long run if I manage the small ones it will probably give me what I need to complete larger ones too.
:D Anyways, just me spilling my mind on the page

Sometimes I ponder how much of a difference it makes that 500 or 1000 years ago a lot of kids in their formative years were already beginning to learn a trade or craft, at an age when modern kids are learning to read, write, fill out paperwork, play video games, use computers, finding a million ways to use a cell phone, and everything else it takes to be able function in this very complicated modern world, particularly here in the U.S. and other fully industrialized nations. I sometimes think that the difference is bigger than we usually realize.

For me recreating ancient artifacts isn't just getting into the mindset of our ancestors, it's close to having a personal conversation with the makers of the original. When I reproduce things with authentic methods, I try to ask every question I can to find out how they did it. Then I look at the originals, and see if the maker has left the clues in, and when they are there, it's like: Aha! I understand exactly what you mean:) Particularly interesting are unfinished artifacts, or artifacts with flaws in them. When I make something the authentic way, and get exactly the same failure as on originals, then to me it's a perfect success!:) That means that I truly understand the way they were making it. And it's also reassuring that they went through the same difficulties. Then again, it's also very humbling just to see how few original artifacts actually have flaws, even minor esthetic flaws, which are barely noticeable, and don't inhibit the function. Then I also realize that I'm still working on the easy stuff, nowhere close to the high end stuff they were making. Then that makes me realize that these people were not just good, they were nearly inhumanly good at their craft.

And to really get a good understanding, you have to start including superstition. Now I'm a rational thinking person, with a scientific background, but if I don't fully respect the bronze gods, I'm only producing scrap :) I don't know what believes they had in prehistoric times, but in medieval times, creating something was honoring God. When you made something, you were bringing a piece of heaven on earth, and you did as much your best as you possibly could. To me that's a very interesting mindset. For that reason, when I'm working on something, it's never "good enough". If it's "good enough", it means I'm cutting corners, and producing sub-quality work. And with moulds, if it's "good enough" I know it's it will give failed castings. Something is either as good as I can make it, or it's not finished yet. When spending more time into it doesn't change the quality anymore, then it's finished.

I also found out that proper materials and proper finish on them make the replicated object age much much better. Any short cut in this area can sometimes be concealed at first but usually pops up when it's a bit worn or "used".

Found that out the hard way, now if I can't make it properly and from correct materials, I don't even bother because I know the end result will not be pleasing on the long run.

Not that I did a lot of things... Some sewing, leather work, wax tablets...And a lot of board games. I even carved the whole chess set (Islamic type figurines, up to 15th century).

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Sirs-I found a quote I like in Fletcher Pratt's "Engineers of the Ancient World" I believe it was, where he was talking about the Egyptian engineers. He was discussing pyramyds, statues,oblisques, and so on, and said "these things were not miraculous, the were made by men with a few simple tools, basic knowledge of mechanics, and most of all, massed muscle power and Patience"

Hello to all - great thread!

I have found, also, that creating period garments is very meditative.

I am a self-taught seamstress, and for many years, I saw some detail, which seemed overly complicated, unnecessary, or purely decorative in nature. (as an example, codpieces in hose). However, after many failed or semi-successful attempts to alter or remove the detail... I realize why it's there (the codpiece acts as a gusset in a join that desperately needs one, and even were you to cut the hose in such a way that the "decorative" nature of the codpiece was removed, the gusset between the legs would still be necessary) It's a wonderful thing to simply succumb to the craftsmen of the past, and simply do as they did. Or try, at least.

I also wanted to share that sewing garments by hand and by machine are two different arts. Clearly, they are different, I am not telling you guys anything there... but what I mean is that the patterning is different, the joining is different, and the order you sew the garments together is different. You can also accomplish completely different things using either one.

For many medieval/renaissance garments, there is no way to "do" it with a machine. Not just aesthetically, but physically, the construction techniques are so radically different that to do it medievally by machine is simply wrong.

I think that many people have the misconception that it doesn't matter other than by aesthetics, and I simply wanted to throw out that as far as clothing goes, there is a radical difference between the two.