I've been busy making some nice leather covered wooden core scabbards with nice bronze chapes and other artistically patterned fittings. A while ago though, I bought a book by Alfred Geibig, and dug up some archeological reports and articles by Jan Petersen and an Icelandic book cataloging grave goods from Iceland that has some statistics on how common metal sword fittings were. This has led me to conclude that:

• The most common covering for scabbards was linen. I think this was not glued on but rather waxed linen sewn onto the wooden core. I dug up a description of the Emperor Charlemagne that mentioned a waxed linen scabbard covering.
  
• Many scabbard cores consisted of two halves that were not glued together.
  
• The previous point may also explain the 'cross ties' i.e. X and Zig-Zag shaped cords or ribbons/straps that seem to be tied around some scabbards in illustrations. Perhaps they were there to keep the scabbard halves together?
  
• Leather was relatively uncommon as a covering and when it was used it there was a layer of (probably) waxed linen underneath. Geibig says leather covering cannot be proven on any surviving German scabbards but there is an example from Iceland that I know of (Sílastaðir 4) and at least one of the scabbards from Cronk Moar that were leather covered on top of a layer of linen. Also some surviving scabbards from Norway are leather covered.
  
• Leather covering sometimes took the form of strips of leather wrapped around the scabbard (did not expect that).
  
• There were very few metal fittings on these scabbards as a rule, usually none (except maybe for belt buckles and D rings), and when metal fittings were used they were probably usually made of iron.
  
• Metal chapes were very uncommon. In Iceland only 5 or 6 have been found for a total of 24 swords and in Norway a similar number for some 2000 swords. Can't speak for the rest of Europe.
  
• Scabbard sliders do not seem to have been terribly common during this period, at least not in Iceland/Norway because I'm not aware of any surviving examples. I have heard the argument that hey were probably all made of perishable materials but quite frankly I find that hard to believe. If scabbard sliders were common there should be at least a few surviving examples made of metal or bone.
  
• Not sure about scabbard lockets/mouths. Does anybody know how common they were?
  

So basically we all have a very non-period correct fetish for leather and expensive artistically patterned metal fittings. The normal Viking would have carried a scabbard that looked like this excellent reproduction by forum member Tim Jorgensen although I have an issue with the slider (wish he'd post a higher res image):
https://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=211888
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...and not like this sumptuous example (or my own pimped up scabbards for that matter):
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...although I'm sure that there were a few Earls/Kings/Emperors who could afford an example like this. The whole discussion just goes to illustrate my chief complaint about re-enactment events, too many earls, too few vikings :-)

Also, there is one thing that I've been pondering. Many of these linen covered scabbards seem to have had a chape that consisted of a tightly wrapped linen spiral as illustrated in the attached scan from Geibig's book and reproduced by Tim. However, the thing I'm still not sure about are the cross-tied, zig-zag and spiral cords/strips wrapped around the scabbards and illustrated in the second scan from Geibig's book (which unfortunately does not show in the post). Tim reconstructed these as being decorative and under the linen wrapping. They may have been under the linen or leather cover but I'm having trouble with these things being decorative. Surely these cross ties would have served some purpose? Were they on top of the covering? Did they hold the halves of the wooden scabbard core together?

I can se how No. 10 for example would be the ribbon of the linen chape wrapped as reproduced by Tim in a long spiral around the rest of the scabbard. I tried reconstructing some of these other cross ties with a bit of string and some of them look plausible like No 5,7,9,12 and 13. Other ones like No. 1, 4, 6 and 8 just fall off when I try to reproduce them with a bit of string. Any ideas on what these cross ties would have looked like on an actual scabbard?

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That's interesting. Do you know if they would have been painted at all or otherwise treated against moisture? Alternatively do you know of any modern stuff that can be used which won't be visible to the naked eye?

Oh, wait... Wax...

Kristjan,

Excellent post, excellent questions, excellent observations.

I agree with your statement that people have a fetish for pimped-out scabbards that are not historically accurate. Not only is this true with Viking scabbards, but medieval scabbards as well.

I am very interested in your research on Icelandic finds. I have been looking, but haven't found much at all, except for an ornate chape. Please send me a PM of the literature you have found, I would love to see it. I am working on a 10th C Icelandic sword scabbard myself, just cannot find any references.

I find it hard to believe that the Icelandic settlers would completely change the way that they made scabbards, as compared to scabbards in Scandinavia. I am not entirely convinced that finished Icelandic scabbards didn't have an out cover of leather.

Sliders were common in Britain during the time period that you mentioned, so why not Iceland? Then again - there is one rock carving dated to the 10th C that shows a scabbard suspended on a belt. So maybe the 10th C was a transition period from the slider to the belt.

As far as chapes are concerned - these must have been very costly to produce in terms of time, so maybe chapes have not been found because they were so prized and expensive.

In the same category of linen for Viking scabbards.

I once made a scabbard for a Pompei style gladius project. I covered the wood part of the scabbard with a piece of heavy linen, since I did not have any leather on hand. I glued the linen to the wood using hide glue and did not bother sewing it up the back. I just folded the linen over and glued the seam. After the glue dried, I painted the linen with casein paint. I found it to be much more durable than leather and very hard.

Combining the hide glue and casein paint made the linen very hard, almost a plastic feel.

Thanks Kristjan,
I do not speak Icelandic but I have Icelandic friends who can translate for me. Been to Iceland numerous times, hiked to the top of Mt. Esja in winter, even spent a couple of weeks driving around Myvatn and the Sprengisandur.

I found some references to Icelandic chapes. Armour & Castings makes a nice reproduction of a chape that looks almost identical to one of the Icelandic chapes.

For my Icelandic scabbard, I was going to make a slider from an Icelandic ram's horn. The scabbard is going to have a birch wood core, given that birch forests were plentiful in Iceland at the time of settlement. Simple leather cover without tooling. Armour & Castings chape. I am planning to cast my own baldric buckle.

I appreciate as much data as you can provide.
Thanks again!

"Sliders were common in Britain during the time period that you mentioned, so why not Iceland? "

We don't know that they were common, merely that that they were definitely used and that, based on the surviving leather covers from York, Gloucester and Dublin (supplemented by manuscript illustrations), the sliders were mounted underneath the leather cover. There's certainly no evidence to demonstrate that they were being mounted on the outside of the scabbard from the 8th century onwards.

We know that suspension methods which do not use sliders were in use at the same time as sliders were being used, both before the period in question and during it. They were never the only suspension solution for scabbards in the early medieval period.

As far as chapes in this time period, it seems from my limited research they were more common in Sweden, the Baltic areas and Rus areas, than Britain, Iceland, Ireland (though there are at least a few from all these countries as you know). See for example this article on chapes from Norway: http://sagy.vikingove.cz/wp-content/uploads/2...chapes.pdf

I've got a few other resources. These are more about the Baltic areas. One in Russian, if you care, I can try to find it.

I'm not doing the math of chape finds vs sword finds to hypothesize how common they were in these Eastern areas. But it's clear they were used, perhaps one could say while not common, they were not rare. Can we make solid suppositions based only what we have found, regarding widespread use? Likewise I won't hypothesize whether chapes were solely a "high class" feature.

Anyhow, I really like your linen/waxy-linen covered scabbard idea and I hope you keep showing more of your research. Thanks.

I've spent a lot of time looking through early medieval manuscripts at depictions of scabbards and there are some interesting examples. This one is particularly interesting (see attached).
It's mid/late 10th century and it's from The Benedictional of St Æthelwold (Add MS 49598 in the British Library) , written by the scribe Godeman for St Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester from 963-984. It seems to show a scabbard with two points of suspension (presumably slides mounted under the covering) and with the belt/baldric passing through both and being wrapped around the scabbard body between them.

Again, no chape and the upper part above the suspension looks as though it may be wrapped with tape/braid as is the case with earlier English scabbards.

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Here's another illustration showing an English scabbard, this time it's a depiction of Orion fromm Harley MS 2506 (990-1000AD):-

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