Hi everybody,

I'm wondering about late medieval multi-coloured scabbards and sheaths. My understanding is that designs might have been painted on, but I have seen some reproductions that make use of dying a scabbard or sheath different colours - for example, half black, half red). My questions are whether there is any evidence for this (although I suppose artistic evidence would be impossible to tell if it was dying or painting) and how such a thing is accomplished? I've never dyed anything other than Easter eggs...wouldn't the dye bleed across any barrier you set?

Thanks!

Dan

Hi Dan,

Such an interesting area. Sadly I am not as expert as you assume I may be as I dye with modern stuff. However Harry Marinakis started and populated an amazing thread here http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=364...eather+dye

My understanding is that whole skins could be dyed at the tannery and so you get through dyed, brown, red whatever. Cut it and use it. This could be done in a limited way chemically in some cases or with organic based dyes in others.

Skins could come out natural and be dyed 'after market' using again chemical or organic dyes depending on colours (see Harrys thread).

Blue and green were not photostable so you could sport a lovely dyed blue scabbard/sheath for a bit but then it would become brown, so perhaps they did knowing it was short lived or perhaps they didn't bother.

Variable dyeing using chemical dyes is very easy to keep separate, just takes a bit of time and N and P shoes whose work I massively respect both in quality and in research also uses variable dye techniques so I feel backed up here, but also using veg tan leathers that have been coloured black (iron salts) will always trump everything else so adding black detailing would be easy.

Painting is trickier as there is some primary evidence, but not that much, but some of the MoL sheaths were painted, but also lets not forget the medieval world loved colour and often as much as possible (no drab grey and brown Hollywood depictions) and the manuscript pictures often show heavily coloured leather work so it would have also been done with paint as this was easy and allowed colours and layers of brightness that leather dye would not. I think it is clear from the amount of colours and the brightness of some depicted pieces that painting must have been used extensively.

From a modern point of view, the world has changed. If I make a sword scabbard and paint it in light green, dark green, sky blue, orange, pink and white nobody, (well there is always one somewhere) nobody would buy it. They would want the lovely clean and non-clashing sheath that shows the quality of the leather etc. In honesty pretty much everything I sell is too tasteful and under-decorated. If you want to make something yourself; go crazy and if your friends recoil behind a polite barrier of 'Thats nice and well done, I don't really know where to start' comments, you are probably in the right ball park.

Tod

Thanks for that Tod!

Yeah I think I have read Harry's post about 10 times - probably more than any other post on the forums. I'm with you in that it is an interesting area and I also think that, generally, people aren't being medieval (that is, colourful) enough in reproductions.

I wonder if the period art really shows that what you say about blue and green is right. I have seen a few green scabbards in art and maybe just one or two blue. In either case, it is muted. In the case of green, it isn't a rich green. It's more an olive green - which might either show that rich greens weren't possible, that the paint in the art is fading, or that it was a rich green that turned, or was turning, brown and olive green, I reckon, is the step towards that.

Still I have seen plenty of green pouches/purse in period art shown as green (indeed, in the 15th century that seems the classic colour from what I have seen)...so maybe those aren't leather? On that, one thing I wonder about with greens, as an aside, is how the Japanese managed it since there are a lot of green wraps and sageos - although that would be silk rather than leather which is probably a different thing entirely (I don't know).

Anyways, I think I'd maybe like to try dying a sheath different colours (maybe one of your Tod Cutler ones?). I might be too much of a coward to actually try, but I would like to see some examples of multi coloured sheathes to get a sense of something historically plausible (or accurate if I am copying something). Of course I'd do it with the modern stuff. There is a store in town that sells the Feibing's stuff. Then I'd have to figure out how to keep the colours separate (and be ready to just make it black if I screw up!).