I've been researching Swiss and German daggers during the last half of the 13th century, and realize I have no information about scabbards. To my knowledge. leather only seems to dominate for knives and daggers during this period, but do we have any examples or knowledge of a wood scabbard without a leather covering? I can think of no examples for this, but again, I'm no expert. I've found a great priced reproduction that I'd like to use for living history, but I feel that the scabbard, though beautiful in it's own right, is much less accurate on the historical sliding scale than the blade. The dagger is "Schweizerdolch" based on a surviving piece from the last half of the 13th century in the Landesmuseum in Zurich. Does anyone have any thoughts or info about this?

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I'm not an expert either. But I have a few books and have been doing a bit of research on swiss daggers/baselards lately and I can/have find/found no evidence of this kind of scabbard. Of course, this lack of evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen but the time to believe something is when there is evidence...so until there is an example I would be skeptical. That is a nice looking dagger though! Maybe you can buy it and have a scabbard made up?

Hi Dan. I, too, have seen ZERO examples of a wood-only scabbard. Thanks for your input!

1+ for me too
Lots of research but no evidence for wood sheaths for knives

Just to drag in possible irrelevancies, there are a couple all-wood scabbards from Bronze Age burials in Denmark, at least. Maybe one or two from other places, but way early. It certainly wasn't the only option, they were also made of leather/hide, with or without wood, and there's a neat one with a wood core wrapped in strips of bark.

Plus there 3 very nicely carved wood scabbards from the Nydam bog finds, c. 400 AD. At least one has elaborate metal fittings.

A bit earlier than you were thinking of, obviously! And I'm *not* trying to claim that the concept would carry over.

Matthew

Excellent point Matthew
I think given the baselard in the original post, I at least was thinking only of the medieval period. I did not consider all of the middle ages, or iron age, or bronze age....