[William Knight]

What evidence is there for hilt bluing or blackening in the 15th century? Most artistic depictions I see show plain steel or yellow metal.

[Steve Fabert]

I'm looking at two French depictions of major battles from the Hundred Years War - one of the battle of Crecy (1346) the other of the battle of Agincourt (1415) - each appearing to show not just blued crosses & pommels on swords but also blued blades and blued or painted armor. I know of no reason to assume that the artists who painted these scenes invented the details concerning the coloration of the weapons and armor. Are you aware of similar artwork from the same approximate time period that shows weapons and armor 'in the white' as was the common fashion later in the 15th Century?

[Tom King]

semi relevant, a lot of silvered/silver infused paints tarnish to black with time. Something in a bible plate or manuscript could have been bright metallic and have faded to a dark grey or black color.

[Steve Fabert]

[Steve Fabert]

There are multiple depictions of Crecy (1346) by different artists. Each shows blued or blackened armor & weaponry.

[T. Kew]

[Steve Fabert]

[Christian Short]

Why would they have blued their hilts or armor ? Was there some advantage?

[William Knight]

Christian - bluing is decorative and somewhat rust resistant. Sometimes it is treated as a decoration or a part of finishing armour, and it was definitely used on both armour and weapons in the early modern period. So it's possible that it was used on say, hilt furniture in the late middle ages. Some modern makers, such as arms and armour, offer blued hilts as an option. However, it can also be viewed differently - as a natural result of heat treatment (namely tempering after a full quench), where certain blue colors (peacock blue, perhaps some purples, less sure on that) actually correspond to the temperatures necessary to achieve a good temper. In this light, bluing is not an independent decorative addition but a natural byproduct of the heat treatment process that is left on afterwards for the sake of aesthetics and (limited) corrosion resistance. It would also not be clear why it would show up on a hilt in that case.

Regarding Froissart, I am well acquainted with the mid-15th century manuscript miniatures that render armoured and armed men entirely with blue-tinted armour and weapons. However, the sheer uniformity of the coloring seems to indicate that it is an artistic convention - that this is simply how some miniaturists paint steel. This is supported by the fact that in other media (oil painting, tapestries, polychrome sculpture) we do not see the profusion of blue-tinted armour that we do in certain manuscript miniatures.

As far as visual evidence, what I am actually looking for is a case where a hilt is colored blue but other steel surfaces are -not-, since that indicates that there is something special about that hilt. In cases where everything is blue-tinted, I think it that artistic evidence has to be seen as inconclusive, since it could be an artistic convention or the result of pigment degradation.

[Steve Fabert]

[Mark Griffin]

Just a note on the fading of pigments. If the hilts described above are made with silver leaf that will tarnish under certain conditions whereas other pigments remain just as bright as when they were first put down.

[Mark Millman]

Folks,

I apologize for reviving this thread. I note, however, that none of the arguments here about whether tarnishing of silver-based pigments might result in the surfaces of metallic objects depicted in medieval art becoming black addresses the highlights painted on the objects. It seems plausible that where images are uniformly black, they may be covered with silver leaf or painted with silver-based pigment. But where there are white highlights on depictions of black items, it seems very unlikely that the paint colors have changed. It's hard to see how putting white highlights on silver (paint or leaf) would give the desired effect--that of brighter glints on an already shiny surface.

Best,

Mark Millman

[Chad Arnow]

Chris Dobson's forthcoming book Beaten Black and Blue: The Myth of the Medieval Knight in Shining Armour may shed some light on some of this. I'm looking forward to my copy some time this summer.

[Dan Kary]

Don't we have actual swords from that period with blackened hilt furniture in the 15th Century? A famous example is featured on this very site: http://myArmoury.com/feature_alexandria.html

[Ryan S.]

There are various examples of tarnished silver in the Manesse codex:

The degree of preservation varies, and often tarnished silver will not only become black, but also smear.