How historically correct are brightly coloured scabbards and handle wraps in the viking age? For example, would most if not all swords comtemporary to Albion's Thegn or Valkyrja have scabbards with similar colouring to the Gaddhjalt scabbard, or were bight reds, blues etc regularly used? I know that in the early middle ages things get a lot more colourful, but I'm not sure about the late migration era.

Thanks!

While I know of no pictorial evidence the wide spread use cloisonne with bronze and gold in earlier migration hilts suggests an appreciation of color.

Most leather work from that period would have been brightly colored.A broad range of hues were available and any one with enough cash to buy a sword would have definantly had the grip/scabbard dyed in a bright colour to enhance its appearance .Brightly coloured clothing ,belts, shoes , etc. would have been as much a status symbol as fine jewelry and weapons.We (as Modern people) try to apply our sense of aestetics(sp?) to iron age and early medieval people.In an age of plastics, polymers,fibreglass etc. we appreciate wood, leather ,bone etc. for its natural appearence.You or I would not paint a mahogany table bright blue, a medieval norwegian would have, and he probably would have carved zoomorphic designs into every flat surface.As for references of I will have to do some digging but I do remember reading about scabbards in Danish bog deposits showing traces of red and blue leather.Also, "viking" ships were painted in bright colours.

Great link Mathias
Thanks
ks

Krik wrote:

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I have also heard that during the migration period laws stipulated how many colors each social class could wear. The elite class, which would purchase most of the swords and scabbards could wear seven colors. So there is a good chance one of these seven colors was applied to the scabbard.

This is correct, although the laws referred to (the Brehon laws) are specifically Irish. Tradition attributes the origins of this law to the High King Tighernmas. Royalty was allowed to wear cloaks and garments of seven colours; the druids (specifically the Ollamh-- the equivalent to a "doctor" in the Middle Ages), six; lesser kings, five; war leaders, four; warriors/land owners, three; tenants/craftsmen, two; slaves, one colour. While I can't recall, I think smiths may have been allowed to where more than the average craftsman due to their higher status within Irish society.

There was actually a question at one point over the priestly use of eight colours in stoles (I think?). The church argued that Christ was the High King over all Kings and thus the stole should reflect his sovereignty.

Having identified this as Irish, I think it is still right to think of the Northern Europeans in general as appreciating a certain amount of ostentation. The trade in dyes and coloured textiles was brisk throughout the "barbarian" world and the Medieval world alike. While I cannot comment on scabbards as such (I appreciated James' note about the Danish bog discoveries-- very interesting) I am sure that if they could colour them, they would. They could, so they probably did :)

I suppose to be sure it would be useful to know more about the discoveries mentioned by James, and any others relevant to the era/culture in question.

A second question that has often occured to me is "which colours were available at that time?" I have seen some amazing hilts and scabbards of various colours on modern recreations which I would love to duplicate on my own acquisitions-- I wonder, though, if all of these colours were available (being restricted to natural dyes etc)? If they were, available in 1500 AD, were they also available in 1000 AD? 500AD?

David

Here's some information on the history of natural dyes, and the areas of the world where the source would be readily available :

http://www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Dyeing/dyehistory.htm
http://www.straw.com/sig/dyehist.html
http://footguards.tripod.com/06ARTICLES/ART33_madder.htm

Remember that you can produce virtually any color if you have red, yellow, and blue tinctures available to intermix. Not knowing whether any particular mixture would be chemically stable, all you can really be sure of is that the simplest tints would likely have been used in the areas where the dye was available in abundance.

Steve Fabert wrote:

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Here's some information on the history of natural dyes, and the areas of the world where the source would be readily available...

Thanks for the Steve-- very helpful stuff. Could you amplify what you mean by "the simplest tints"?

Thanks,

David

By simple tints, I just mean the naturally occuring color. rather than any color you might try to create by mixing material from multiple sources. Woad blue would be available, as would at least one source of yellow and perhaps a good source for red. So those are the three colors that you would expect to see used with the least effort and expense. Whether additional hues could have been reliably produced by mixing those three depends on the chemistry of the original sources, plus the chemistry of the material you apply it to. Tannin in leather may ruin your attempt to apply to a scabbard a pretty colored mixture that would reliably dye linen fabric, for example.

If you allow for the use of paint rather than penetrating dye, a clever craftsman might well have produced all the colors of the rainbow using just one source each for red, blue, and yellow, if he or she found the right medium to mix them in. When you start talking about organic products that predate our earliest color illustrations, though, you are largely guessing whether they were painted or dyed or left natural. From the Bayeux Tapestry forward, at least, you would have some idea of the colors from the pictorial history.

Thanks for all the posts guys!

I think I've now decided to go with an Albion Valkyrja with bronze mounts, a blue handle wrap and a historically accurate scabbard and baldric setup in black leather. A sword Beowulf himself would have been proud of!