[James Cunniffe]

We all know high end swords $1,000-$1,500 give or take a few hundred bucks look perfect in appearance fullers being perfect straight exact same length each side no flaws in the blade construction as we know a lot of these blades are machine made this is why there are so perfect .Then you see the mid range blades $300- $600 these blades are hand forged for the most part and you will see some imperfections with them.So my question is Eight hundred or so years ago how perfect were the blades of a standard foot soldier I'm sure they were not as high as quality as a sword of a King ,Lord ,Earl or Duke.So are the cheaper blades with slight imperfections more historically correct in appearence?

[Sean Flynt]

Try as we might, I don't think there's any way to view the world through medieval eyes. There certainly were "perfect" objects, but they were probably understood to be the finest in the world. On the other hand, in our machine age we expect pretty much everything we use on a daily basis to be "perfect" in form and function.

A few years ago I was able to sight down the blade of a Wallace Collection saber, and I suspect that many modern collectors would find that blade unacceptable (the dreaded "ripples" that some complain about in Windlass blades). It certainly wasn't perfect by the standards of many of us, but it was a fine 16th c. complex hilt weapon--arguably of higher quality than your basic infantry sword of the period.

Look around at antique swords missing their grips and see how many have crosses that don't even approach a tight fit on the tang. Many modern collectors consider that unacceptable in even a $150 sword!

On the other hand, there are plenty of swords that even the best modern craftsmen would struggle to reproduce to the fullness of the antique's quality.

It's not that our standards are higher or theirs were lower or that medieval craftsmen weren't capable of finer finish or closer tolerances (clearly, they were). They just viewed the world differently, and it's up to us to choose between their values and ours when assembling our collections.

[Allan Senefelder]

Much of medieval arms and armour would be found to be " unacceptable " to the modern eye which looks for machine made perfection. Waves or ripples in blades as sean pointed out, medial ridges slightly off from one plate to the next, holes mislocated and simply filled with a blind flush rivet, variances along the length of a fuller, the visible forgeweld in the socket of a pole arm. For my personal tastes those are the things that give the period original pieces I own thier character, thier real connection to the past for me, but in the machine made mass production age, much of this is not desirable to the modern eye in reproductions. In an day and age where arms and armour are bought purely for entertainment value the aesthetic eye is different for alot of people, I think probably principally because were are surrounded in our everday lives by stuff that is identicle from one to the next, we can go to three differnt big box stores and find the exact same flat panel TV in each, the same or GM car at different lots, we are surrounded by machine made uniformity in virtually ever apsect of our lives.

[Adam Smith]

Very well said Allan, I am in total agreement. I find it ironic that some sword enthusiusts who insist on historical accuracy covet swords made by milling machines. In my opinion machined swords are merely cookie cut objects that have little value and very little historical accuracy, I'll tke the hand made sword along with its flaws and inperfections any time. It seems that modern day collecters in some cases have turned the tables on what really should be consided historically accurate.

[Matthew Amt]

The Romans could hardly make a symmetrical blade to save their souls. Hilt parts are often crooked or lopsided, too. They could certainly do spectacular work, and much of their every-day stuff defies reproduction by the average skilled hobbyist. But at the same time, some of the most ornate pieces will have rivets out of place or other rather obvious flaws. Mostly I love seeing crappy work like that on armor, since armor is generally what I can make. "Oh, look at that lousy work--THAT I can do!" But you're absolutely right that most people shopping for high-end crafts are going to want the BEST workmanship, not necessarily the most ACCURATE.

One other thing to keep in mind is that brilliant workmanship does not guarantee historical accuracy even setting aside the accurate flaws. I've seen hand-made helmets for a thousand bucks that were less accurate in general shape and form than the Indian-made version for $250. So *period* mistakes and flaws are good, but *modern* ones are bad!

Matthew

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

Very educational to me was this particular sword in the Army Museum, Delft, Netherlands:





To me it looks like a good quality, well made sword, yet with a rather poor finish. The grooves are allover the place, and the blade is full of pits and scale marks left from forging. Yet I think it's gorgeous

[Addison C. de Lisle]

I'm not completely sold on the opinion that medieval people didn't care about a consistent finish, symmetry, or other indications of less than perfect handwork. It is certainly obvious that medieval craftsman were capable of producing very regulated work. One needs look no further than illuminated manuscripts or architecture to see evidence of this.

However, as with today, perfect work was expensive, and therefore probably reserved for only the wealthiest patrons. Today, advances in technology allow for very regulated workmanship to be done more easily, and therefore it is less expensive and more common. I would argue that symmetry and regulation were still goals of the medieval period, but they were less commonly achieved. Today, people are more picky about flaws such as asymmetry and imperfect finishes because function is no longer a primary concern. In the past, one's sword may have had a wandering fuller, but for the common man the primary concern was that it worked. Now swords are objects of curiosity and functioning is not as important, so we focus more on aesthetic details.

On a side note, I also disagree with handmade work that is so well done that it looks "too perfect". It reveals a sad fact that our culture no longer has the same regard for handwork, and that perfectly finished products are only achieved by machines. This is not a specific criticism of anyone in particular, it's just a subject that I've been reading a lot about in my Craft Theory class. Ok, tangent is done.

Relating this back to the original post, I would agree that swords made by CNC machines today are not examples of average period swords. I'll use Albion swords for an example. The geometry and aesthetic is all there, but everything is very close to being perfectly regulated. To me, they represent a very well made, ideal form for a medieval sword of the typology being represented. Does the fact that they are so well made to the point of being near perfect mean that they are no longer historically accurate? To me, no. Are they perfect to the point that such craftsmanship would have been uncommon (but not unknown) in period? Maybe. I recently read a post on this forum somewhere about Vince Evans' work, criticizing it for being "too perfect" for historical pieces. Is it really fair to criticize someone for being too good at what they do? I'm not being accusatory or defensive, and I hope it's not taken that way.

This is all my opinion, and as such should not be regarded as hard facts, so make of it what you will.

[David Teague]

Hello All,

I don't remember where I read this chestnut, it could be some of that Victorian claptrap I fell for years ago, or it could be true...

So...

I remember reading that medieval craftsmen made sure that their work would always have some sort of flaw as only God could create perfection and it was sinful / blasphemous to attempt perfection.

Anybody else remember this?

Cheers,

David

[Adam Bodorics]

Only one thing to add, something I frequently say.
"So, your group portrays a well-equipped mercenary band from the15th century? I've never heard about so many Holy Roman Emperors, archdukes, kings etc in ONE SQUAD... without any servants, horses, land, jewelery, ships and personal armies."

If you are an individual collector, then asking for perfection is OK. If you're part of a reenacting group... get real. Don't be the sixth archduke in a group of 30.

Edited to add: David, AFAIK that'd be Muslims, not Christians.

[Christopher H]

I own an Atrim ('English Bastard') and an Albion Crecy and they are not 'perfect' in fact it looks like the hand finishing (or design) has imparted asymmetries to it which add to the charm.

[David Teague]

[Peter Johnsson]

There is one aspect of "perfect" that is difficult to discuss and define. It does not relate to materials, fit or finish. It is about the idea and concept of an object. You can have an understanding of an object that has been ingrained in your mind since childhood, but you may be forced to work quickly. This means you cannot spend too much time getting everything perfect. It has to be good enough to do the job and that is when it is finished (but very rarely with a complete disregard for aesthetic qualities). This is very evident in many surviving originals. They were made at a certain speed, but with a deep understanding of the important aspects.

Today we have to push ourselves to come close to that level of identification with a shape and a function. It takes years of studies of originals and training in a craft to come close.
There is a romance about hand made work today. That is very understandable in our virtual world. This goes to the extreme sometimes, so that good work is spurned on expense of careless and clumsy work. There is often a very low understanding of the fact that the skill of the craftsman is not just a skill of the hand but also skill of the mind. The resulting product will be defined by how well the craftsman understands his tools, methods and materials, but equally much how well he understands the object he is making.
Sloppy and bad work can be sold today on the merit of "being hand made" . "Hand forged" is often a label of quality even if it is *badly* hand forged.
If something looks like a newly cleaned original that has lied 1500 years in the soil, it is often taken for authentic if there are black blobs of scale and crude hammer marks all over. This tends to look a lot like the rust pits of the original, while originally it may have had a well defined surface and balanced lines.
If we strive for this superficial likeness, it is very likely that the essence of the objects go unnoticed.

If we judge object by surface finish alone or asymmetries that may have been the result of wear during use and the gnawing of mr Time, we end up with an idea of what the objects must have looked like originally. This idea may or may not be on target. Most often not. It is common to see this aspect greatly exaggerated ion low cost object that hope to look "genuine".

Among the historical swords and weapons I have seen some are really very fine in just about any criteria you would use as base for comparison, others are pretty sloppy in shape and finish. It varies a lot. It is even so that a sword may have a very fine blade and a so-so hilt, or the other way around.

A modern maker is faced with a dilemma. Some aficionados appreciate slight imperfections and see those as the crowning achievement of a replica, while other argue that if they have payed XXX amount of currency for a collectible, they want it to be dead on *perfect*(I have met cases where the merit of a sword is measured with a laser beam). I hope you don´t mind if I use Albion as an example: a swords might disappoint one person since it has a tiny black dot in the guard or the pommel from casting resulting in him rejecting it (and casting "flaws" like this looks pretty much spot on like the scale and hammer marks as you see on originals at times!). The *very same* sword will look *too perfect* for another guy who is heavily into reenactment.
The saving grace of this is that you can always distress a pristine sword and give it a year or two of wear...
At the core it will still be a blade with proper shape and heft: a sword that feels and looks like a good quality original. If you think the blade is too straight it is easily fixed with a honing stone. A few minutes will introduce the tell tale signs of nicks that have been honed out.

Even the most sloppy of originals have a quality that the vast majority of contemporary swords lack: they were made by craftsmen who *knew what was critical for function* for warriors who depended on these for survival. This is something that cannot be underestimated in importance. If you have a modern made blade that show the same degree of irregularities as some lower grade originals, it is not authentic just because of that. It will most probably lack in all the critical aspects that made that half crappy original a functional weapon back in the 2nd C AD. The modern made replica that has crooked lines and "marks of the hammer" (that in reality is sloppy grind marks in 9.8 cases out of 10) will never preform or feel like that original it tries to mimic. It will miss most or all of the crucial marks that defines the original weapon.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

IMO there is a difference between perfection and simplification of shapes. The danger with CNC milling is that the geometric equations used to define the shape are more simplified compared to a hand made artifact. Naturally the more effort is paid in the model it will copy more of the subtleties of the real artifacts, but it's still an approach using fairly basic geometrical shapes.

Regarding perfection, there is a difference between handmade "perfection" and machine made perfection. A CNC mill can repeatedly get every dimension and every point on the object within hundreds of a mm accuracy. Ancient artifacts, no matter how much effort was paid to perfecting the shapes and finish will never have come anywhere close to that. The handmade artifact may look perfect and even when you measure it, but put it next to a CNC milled reproduction and you will generally see the difference instantly, even if you can't say what is different about it.

Personally I try to follow authentic production methods as best as I can, even when I speed things up using modern tools. When making models for casting bronze swords, I don't measure everything to make them perfectly symmetrical, but try to get as close as I can until I can't see assymetry by eye. I do know measuring tools are very old, as even in the bronze age there is evidence of the use of compasses in defining shapes, so I have no problems in using those. When forging, I usually have a wooden template, and entirely shape by eye, trying to approximate the template as best as I can. With smaller knives, I often even don't do that, and just shape them from memory. I always strife for perfection in shape and finish. But I stop at a point where I'm happy with it. If a line is not intended to be exactly straight on an original, I see no point in doing that myself. F.e. on a broken back style sax, the edge and back are never exactly straight, so to me perfection is not to make the straight, but to capture the same non-straightness. And if a groove looks hammered in on the original, I may be able to get a more even and straight groove by scraping with guides, but I will still hammer it in to get the same result as on the original. But I will try to get it as good as I can, which may sometimes mean that I get a better result and sometimes worse as I don't have the level of skill. Perfection to me is more then getting just the basic shapes right, it also means getting all the subtleties correct which are the result of the fabrication process.

[Sander Marechal]

[Leo Todeschini]

There was a wide range of quality from the black, out of the forge munition grade armour to the highly polished Lords armour and logically this must have been true for every product.

I handled a fantastic leather document case from the VandA a while back, heavily tooled and sumptuously made. The decoration looked fantastic but the closer you looked the more errors you saw, but only because you were looking for errors. If you were not looking for errors all you saw was skill. The cross hatched pattern on the back face was done quickly without measurement, by a righthander, probably on Friday afternoon before the ale house called him. It was still in my eyes perfectly made.

Had the same case been measured exactly and achieved the look of a machine made item your subconcious would be telling you it wasn't quite right.

There is a sword in one of my books and I can't put my finger on it but if I remeber right it 15thC and was owned by a French Bishop, the coat of arms on the pommel are very 'off square' but presumably this man thought it looked fine.

Even a sword like the one on page 110 of records is chock full of assymetries and for me that is one of the aspects that gives them soul.

Again there are plenty of pieces that are near perfect in execution, but the closer you look, the less perfect they become....

All customers have their idea of what works for them and all makers have their own style of how they like to work; then and now.

For most of us a sword is essentially a decorative item, we might do some training against a pell or some cuting tests against pool noodles but really the function of a modern sword is simply to fulfill the desire of ownership. The function of a medieval sword was a far more serious matter. I suspect an ordinary soldier was far more concerned with function than form and while pondering two swords on the cutlers stall he would buy the one that felt best, running off fuller or not.

Tod

[Chad Arnow]

[Allan Senefelder]

[Viktor Abrahamson]

One thing that should be considered is the cost of material, now and back then (whenever that is).
The metal 1000 years ago were rare and expensive compared to today.
What if a blacksmith made a patternwelded sword and the pattern didn´t end up right.
Or if a rivet hole ended up in the wrong place, the fuller is not straight or whatever the mistake might be.
What should he do with it?
Throw it away? Reforge the hole thing? Grind down until it looks right but loose material and maybe balance?
I do belive it was sold anyway.
It was to much work and expensive materials involved.

/Viktor

[Jeff Pringle]

To reinforce some of the points made earlier in this thread, it is not a question of perfect vs. imperfect, but rather one of different artistic priorities both aesthetic and functional. The sloppy work on a low-end reproduction is not going to make it more authentic because it is the wrong kind of imperfection for the wrong reason. The hand made=imperfect vs. machine made=perfect dichotomy is also a red herring which misses the point, hand work can be (perceptibly) every bit as precise as machine work, where and how this precision was applied reveals a lot about how the pre-industrial artists approached their work and created their perfectly imperfect art. And that is where the difference between ‘good’ perfect and ‘bad’ perfect lies.
As Peter so eloquently said – “If we strive for this superficial likeness, it is very likely that the essence of the objects go unnoticed.”

[Leo Todeschini]