[Dan Kary]

Hi everybody,

I'm aware of evidence for blackened armour and blackened hilts parts (guard, pommel, etc.) in the late medieval period, and why (aside from aesthetics) you would do this (rust prevention/mitigation, for one). Did they ever do this with blades (daggers, swords, etc.)? Is there a good reason why they wouldn't do this (other than preference)?

Thanks!

Dan

[Victor R.]

I'm not sure I've seen a chemically or heat blued/blacked blade attributed to the era, but I wouldn't be surprised by an "unpolished" look with a natural patina like you see on non-stainless knives and cleavers in many kitchens (including my own). I have a custom sword that is done this way (you can see it in my avatar ) - the blade is perfectly smooth, no hammer marks, no rust, but it is just darker, the way high carbon steels frequently are without significant polishing. I like the look and just make sure no active oxidation is occurring.

[Matthew Amt]

I'd also be interested to know how the evidence swings for household knives and simple civilian knives (carried on belt or in pouch, etc.). Repros are often left unfinished, black (and often very rough) from the forge, though I don't know if that's a carryover from modern "wrought iron" products. Of course high-end repros often go with the shiny look, whether satin or polished. Do we have any idea what was more common?

Thanks!

Matthew

[Dan Kary]

Thanks guys. I wonder about this point in particular: Plenty of places in Europe, I suspect, have environments that would be perfect conditions for rust. If they could do this, I wonder why they wouldn't if for no reason other than rust prevention/mitigation. Is it just not something they want to bother with? But isn't it less work to blacken a blade than to constantly perform rust maintenance on it? Isn't that why they would do it with armour? Or is it just that armour maintenance is so labour intensive that they would do it for armour but it wasn't much bother to maintain a blade?

[Victor R.]

On the thought of basic knives, I suspect that most folks wouldn't have a drawer full of them at the time, as most of us do today, but would have a small number of different sized/designed knives for different purposes that would be used almost daily. Rust isn't likely to build up on a daily-used knife as it is constantly being wiped clean, and sheathed, or otherwise stored, where it could be quickly found and put to use again. You wouldn't need a protective coating on such a knife because the knife wouldn't be damp for very long at any given stretch or simply left in a drawer or chest to rarely be seen. I doubt most of them were the "rough" knives so many people seem to associate with the concept of "medieval" or "dark age", but were valuable tools and cared for as such. I also suspect they looked much like my high carbon knives do - clean, no active rust, but with a patina since there's no reason to spend hours at a time polishing a daily use tool to a gleam unless you are also using it as a mirror for some reason.

[Sean Manning]

Also, knives which are used all day for work get used up. Within years they are ground down to a sliver (or have lost the steel edge and are nothing but soft iron). So your common knife with a 3" to 4" blade was not going to last a lifetime (and it was going to get nasty things like blood on it).

I did not have any trouble maintaining my carbon steel knife when I used it as my main paring and eating knife for a couple of years.

[Dan Kary]

I think all that makes perfect sense for knives being used every day...but what about your granddad's dagger or sword that spends most of it's time in it's sheath/scabbard. Would you just clean it constantly (I suppose people had more down time in the middle ages? No internet or TV...) or would some clever guys blacken their blades? Or maybe they were always in a state of being oiled?

[Victor R.]

If you had your granddad's sword you were probably living on your grandad's estate and you had servants and an armorer that maintained your weapons. If your granddad's dagger was still around and not buried with your granddad, you were likely carrying it or, more likely, it was forgotten in a chest or cupboard somewhere because you had your own stuff as the new lord of the estate.

Swords weren't for commoners. If a commoner had one, he probably looted it from a battle and kept it hidden away, or had the smithy melt it down to turn into something more useful in his daily life.

I think you're looking at this like a modern collector and not considering the realities of life in that age. You might have a commoner that descended from a fallen noble family holding onto an heirloom, but in reality, that was probably very rare. If you were a commoner, you likely weren't going to have the funds to blue or black an old sword used by an ancestor in the glory days of your family, and the law was likely against you keeping it if it was discovered you had it. Remember: those in power never wanted their "subjects" to have arms to use against them. Whether it was swords then or firearms today - it's all the same mentality: you can't anoint yourself as "elite" and effectively rule the peasants if the peasants can fight back when you go too far, and those that deem themselves "elite" always eventually go too far.

[Matthew Amt]

[Dan Kary]

So if you, personally, owned a sword, you would always also have somebody else taking care of it for you? What about cases of levies? Depending on the time and place, weren't some of them non-ruling, too poor to have servants, but still owned arms? I am guessing in those cases they just took really good care of their gear themselves in case they got called to war.

I wonder about cases like town armouries. Here, I bet that they just packed things away oiled or greased up in some way. But here I think it would make sense to blacken stuff because it could be sitting there for a while and blackening things would provide some measure of defence against rust, right?

I think I have to agree with Matthew. It seems really implausible that you'd melt down a sword to make a pitchfork or something like that. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to sell a sword and buy a bunch of pitch forks? (or a pitchfork and whatever else you need).

I suppose this is all useless speculation on my part. I guess I just want to know if anybody knows of examples of blackened blades at least in art (because probably on the blades that survive you can't tell) and whether that is plausibly representative.

[Victor R.]

[Blaz Berlec]

There was very little of "melting" going on in middle ages. Especially at the local blacksmith. "Getting it hot enough" wasn't something medieval forges, furnaces were good at, molten steel wasn't produced when making steel from the ore, and they generally didn't melt steel at all, except for some rare processes (that weren't done in your general local smithy). But yes, even ordinary iron was valuable and recycled (reforged), and steel was more valuable.

[Ryan S.]