[Harry Marinakis]

I have a fascination with Medieval scabbards and thong belts, so I decided to try to reproduce one of the scabbards that can be seen on the statues at the Naumburg cathedral in Germany. Construction of the Naumburg cathdedral began right after AD 1200.

The scabbards depicted at the Naumburg cathedral are interesting in that the thong belts are extremely wide - about 4 inches wide. There are depictions of similarly-wide thong belts in the illuminated manuscript Elisabethpsalter (folio 139 verso), Germany, circa AD 1200-1220, but later (13th-14th C) thong belts of the German Empire were a tad bit narrow than these monsters.

The other interesting point about the Naumburg scabbards is that they all have an offset sword belt. To the best of my knowledge and research, the offset sword belt was developed right around AD 1200 - and the earliest depiction that I can find of an offset sword belt is also depicted in folio 139 verso in Elisabethpsalter.

So perhaps these extremely wide thong belts represent the "first generation" of the offset sword belt.

Reproducing the Naumburg scabbard presented several of challenges, all of which I managed to solve through a lot of experimentation and failure.

The first challenge was to find a suitable leather for the thong belt. There is at least one other thread that addressed this question. Oakeshott described the leather as "buckskin" in Records of the Medieval Sword - and looking at the soft, cloth-like characteristics of thong belt leather one would tend to agree. However, buckskin stretches too much to be of any use for a sword belt. I used oil-tanned Latigo leather in a cream color and I believe this is perfect. It is slightly elastic but does not stretch, is very strong and has a very soft (almost chamois-like) feel.

The second challenge was reproducing the striking lacing pattern noted on the Naumburg scabbards. After many months of staring at photos of this lacing, I finally figured out how to reproduce the pattern. To perfect the technique I make a mock-up of a scabbard and did some hands-on experimentation (see the DIY Scabbard thread).

The third and most difficult challenge - one that no none has ever addressed that I can tell - is the piping that I have seen around the edges of triangular rain guards of the Naumburg (and other) scabbards. Days of experimentation and multiple failures finally produced a solution, albeit not an ideal one.

Anyway, here it is.

[Harry Marinakis]

Here is the scabbard.

I started with a high-resolution photo of one of the Naumburg lacing patterns and carefully measured all of the strap widths and other parameters. I converted these measurements into fractions of the scabbard width. Then I multiplied these fractions by the width of my wood core to get real measurements for my scabbard. This way the proportions are identical to the Naumburg scabbard.

Sword is an Oakeshott Type XI (Del Tin 2121)
Bronze chape is from DBK's new line of chapes.

[Martin Helgren]

Nice Work! I always admire this amount of attention to detail and hands on research. Congratulations on a very nice scabbard!

[Jerry Monaghan]

Hi Martin
love what you have done very nice scabbard great detail congratulations on an fine job

[Bryan Heff]

Really nice! I like what you did just below the throat. Looks like it's integrated by passing through slits in the black leather but then perhaps the top and bottom gets an additional wrap with the white leather. I don't think I have seen that before. Very cool.

[Radovan Geist]

That´s a really nice job, indeed. Very clean, well-thought and backed by research. Congrats!

[Harry Marinakis]

Regarding the lacing below the mouth:

One strap from the thong was laced through the cover, then was split into two tails on the backside. Each of these tails were wrapped around front again, one above and one below. This gives you the ladder-like appearance.

Other stats:

Carved two-piece poplar wood core, 1/8" thick

Lined with 8 oz. woven wool fabric (fullered)

Veg tan leather cover 2-3 oz.

Linen thread whip stitch on the back seam

Straps are 6-8 oz. cream Latigo leather, sanded down to 3-4 oz. weight

I have always used a butted seam and cross stitch on the back seam until now but I don't have any evidence that such a stitch was used. The Vikings used a butted seam and whip stitch early on, but after AD 975 switched to closed seam and saddler's stitch.

Anyone have any evidence of the cross stitch on scabbards in the medieval period?

[Brian K.]

Outstanding work Harry. Even without any back story to your construction it's immediately obvious that attention to detail was a priority.

[Harry Marinakis]

Okay

This thread confirms my suspicions: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...+stitching

The cross stitch (represented in the above thread as XXXXX) was not used for scabbards.

Initially I used the cross stitch with a butted seam because that's what everyone else was doing, but there is no evidence that this stitch was ever used for scabbards.

Seems the most common stitches for scabbards were:

-Closed seam with a saddler's stitch
-Butted seam with a whip stitch (represented in the above thread as ///////////)
-Butted seam with a hidden edge-flesh stitch

From my reseatrch it seems that the stitching became tighter and tighter wtih time. My Naumburg scabbard has 3-1/2 stitches per inch, while it is likely that I should have 5-6 stitches per inch for historical accuracy.

[J.D. Crawford]

Nice work, I admire your talent.

You mentioned having the measurements for the original scabbard - is the statue life size? How long would you say the original bade of this sword would have been?

[Harry Marinakis]

[J.D. Crawford]

[Mart Shearer]

They're close to life-sized. See this image of restorer Friedhelm Wittchen with Ekkehard and Uta.


Of course two men of equal height can have inseams differing by several inches.

[Harry Marinakis]

If the Naumburg swords are really type XI, then....

...these scabbards probably date to the late 1100s, which means.....

...these are the earliest known examples of offset sword belts.

[Mart Shearer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naumburg_Master

[Harry Marinakis]

The planning for the cathedral was likely done before the constructions began, but how early?

According to Oakeshott the Type XI was replaced by the Type XII around AD 1175, but we see what looks like a Type XI on a statues that was constructed after AD 1230.

Did Oakeshott gets the Type XI service dates wrong?
Do the statues show Type XI or XII swords?

Lots of unanswerable questions.

[J.D. Crawford]

For what its worth, I could accept that type XI lasted into the 13th century.

There seems to be some current consensus that Oakeshott both over-compensated for some of the too-late dating of swords by the generation that preceded him - and overgeneralized the dating of Leppaho's finds to later swords based on general similarity of the inlay. In other words, some of the swords he dated to 12th century might have been 13th century. The Witham sword in the British Museum is an another example (not of XI, but of the principle).

[Scott Hrouda]

I admire your attention to detail, especially the quality of your seam stitching!

[Harry Marinakis]