[Felix R.]

Hello all,
as enhancing my equipment I would like to order a scabbard for my late 14th cent northern italian costume. The sword I would use it for is the Albion Fiore. I decided to go with a wooden core scabbard in brown leather matching the grip. The scabbard should have metal fittings and most thing I am wondering about right now is the apropriate suspension for this longsword. I had a look at christian fletcher for the work he did on the crecy and the regent, if this is compared to the crecy of tritonworks there are some differences in the design. What would be the most appropriate for that time?

[Bruno Giordan]

try to look online for Mantegna's portrait of the Urbino Duke, as well as for the portrait of a Gonzaga whose name I forgot.

get a sharper version of this pala, if you are patient you should find one in some online galleries

http://www.abcgallery.com/P/piero/francesca1.JPG

[Troy G L Williams]

Felix,

Maybe these effigies would help you. I got the images from this site: http://www.themcs.org/index.htm. There are many other great images on the site. My hat is off to them. Maybe you could send some images to whomever you choose to construct the belt and scabbard.

[Russ Ellis]

[Chad Arnow]

A sword like the Crecy is much more a 14th century sword than a 15th century one in my opinion, so what works for the Regent may not work for the Crecy.

A sword like the Crecy could work fairly well throughout most of the 14th century. If you want a 1325-1340 look, some of the later integral leather belts could work. This one, which I had copied for my Sovereign's suspension, dates from circa 1320, which might be slightly early for the Crecy:



This one dates from circa 1340 and is from the brass of the elder John d'Abernon:



For a later-in-the-century look, a plaque hip belt and scabbard with metal locket and chape would work nicely. There are also cases where a separate thin leather sword belt was worn with a plaque belt, so you have options if you don't want to get a plaque belt.

Also, be careful judging solely by what appears on scabbard maker's sites. Russ has mentioned his scabbard design is too early for the Crecy, which I agree with. I might also say Christian's design is a little too 15th century for my taste. But they're what the customers wanted.

It's better to judge scabbard and belt styles by period art than modern customer's tastes.

[Felix R.]

Thanks for the input so far. At the moment I am just aiming at about 1400. So the later suspension would be the one to go for me. As for the plaque belts, I have only seen these on armed knights so far. So I assumed, that there probably would be some kind of the leather belt for civilian or light armoured dress.

And for the manufacturers sites. As Chad noted, exactly that gave me concerns, as I thought this comples leather strap arrangement to be more late 13th cent. style.

For my expected timeframe I thought the Fiore would go quite well as Fiore dei liberi in his books shows swords of this variety (Va) and in Oakshotts books it is stated in the time.

But what I have seen so far and what you showed to me is a suspension system with leather slopes that are positioned together so giving perhaps a rather perpendicular sword position than abour 45°, which I would assume much easier to make a sword draw from?

[Christoffer Lorang Dahl]

I am sorry to bump this, but this is SPOT ON what I am looking for as well.

I have searched and looked, but could anybody help me find some historical references that match the suspension as seen on the pictures below? This is pretty mutch an optimal sollution for both carrying the sword without mutch stress on the belts, and it is supereasy to draw the sword.

Pictures from www.swordcutler.com

[Felix R.]

Hi, have to bring this thread up again.

For the longsword suspension I have decided for a two point knoted design, with hook and ring, as I found something similar in late 14th Italian artwork. Now I have a single handed Typ XV ordered `basing on the Wallace A460 with a scabbard. The maker recommended the attachment with rings attached to two metal fittings on the scabbard, like the version on the Albion Sovereign Scabbard on their page. To my knowledge it is mostly suited for the first half of the 14th at the most, but not for later times. At least there is no depiction or artwork I know of where such a suspension is shown.
On the other hand it would be similar to the plaque belt suspension but instead of one plaque there would be two along the scabbard allowing more for a 45° angle. What is your opinion?

[Ed T.]

Hi Felix,

I have wrestled with exactly the same issue and I have not found anything definitive in the way of documentation. The portrayal I'm working on is an English civilian, late 14th century - sword type XV. While effigies and brasses of the period usually have the scabbard "magically" attached to plaque belts I noticed a trend towards seperate, thin sword belts worn diagonally from waist to hip. These belts start to appear in England around 1400. I feel that this type of scabbard suspension lends itself to civilian dress. I'll be wearing a belt at the waist as well as a diagonally hung sword belt, both leather about 3/4" wide. The locket on my scabbard will have a high and low ring as shown on the Albion Sovereign Scabbard page http://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/ne...abbard.htm with out the additional ring further down the scabbard.

Ed T.

Examples from effigies (images from The Medieval Combat Society, themcs.org)

[Felix R.]

Thank you for the input. I browsed almost every 14th scabbard related topic of the last two years on this site.
There just seem to be no swords worn in civilian dress around this time, at least nothing is shown. Considering this the use of a single chape makes sense, as the angle doesn´t need to be so flat. I only have one picture where a sword is shown on a footman. But it looks more like a long sword, but still shows the two point suspension. On the horseman, although you can´t the the upper locket, there is a band way down the scabbard.

[Al Muckart]

Hi Ed,

[Randall Moffett]

Al,

On the contrary there are loads of examples of civilians wearing swords. From my studies of English towns anyone who was an Alderman or up in many large towns or cities were clearly entitled to wear them and you often see the allowance for other 'good men' (basically freemen works in most cases or at times freemen who are buddies with the mayor, alderman etc.) of the town. Since arms ownership was mandatory I'd guess that most English would have what would be comparable to a soldier at home. The question of if he carried them around actually or legally had the right at totally different. We have in London records of the 14th and 15th a great number of records of men bearing arms including swords in the city. Some are arrest notices for brawls but carrying the weapon about is usually listed. Seems to me that they are not arresting people for just having a weapon on them so likely it has more to do with the inappropriate use of them then leads to extra penalties.

Since it was also from what I can tell only illegal to carry them inside towns, cities and other urbanised locations my guess is that they’d be somewhat common while travelling for civilians, especially those better off. We have loads of town laws stipulating the process of how to deal with travellers with arms. They had to leave them in charge of who ever ran the location in which they were staying.

RPM

[Ed T.]

Hunting would be another situation in which a civilian would wear a sword. The attached images are details from the The Morgan Library & Museum's recent exhibition Illuminating the Medieval Hunt. The manuscript was produced in Paris ca. 1407. http://themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=2

In these illustrations swords are suspended by belts and baldrics.

Ed T.

[Jennifer S]

Ed - thank you for that wonderful reference!

It's interesting to see the hunting party's swords hanging on thin straps over the shoulder - was that common?

I ask because I have a Coustille that after "historicizing" I'm left trying to figure out how the darned thing would have been carried back in the day. It seems too big for the "dangling on a shoelace" approach, and yet small enough that the full swordbelt affair seems clumsy overkill.

From a practical standpoint, it seemed to me that something along the lines of the old legionaire's gladius "purse strap" carriage would be ideal for a "loaner*" civilian sword, but I'd not heard of anyone doing such a thing - though that picture looks like good evidence it was done at times.

Do you know of any similar references - perhaps with a closer image of how the straps were affixed?





----------------------------------------------


** This is a "manorial etiquette" question derived from personal experience.

I spent a summer working at a lodge way out in the bush one year, with all manner of big-toothed wildlife in the vicinity. Although most of the guides working there had a weapon or two of their own, the owners/full time residents left some of their personal arms in a rack in the entryway. The standing understanding was that when an employee was going to be off in the backcountry, they had the option of taking one of the "loaners" with them.

I'm wondering if perhaps some of the manors or smaller gentry houses with servants might have operated in a similar manner. Essentially "Jock, since you're escorting the ladies to the market tomorrow, take the old arming sword in the corner with you."

It seems eminently logical that such things would have occurred, but the only instance I can think of offhand is in a fairy story from the 18th-19th century. Are there any more reliable references to such practices back in the day?
[/i]

[Ed T.]

Jennifer,

Here is another approach that might work for your Coustille. It's from the Grand Chonicles of France c. 1400. I don't know how typical this might be.

Ed T.

[Jennifer S]

Thank you Ed! Neat to see the picture!

So... would it have been tied to the belt with cords, like the ballock daggers seemingly were? Or perhaps a leather band around the throat?

This is how I've cleaned (dirtied?) the Windlass Coustille ...I was going for "commoner's bring-back from Crécy" look to it.


So far so good?