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The Making of Medieval Swords
By John Clements, Director of
the HACA
Excerpted from his book "Medieval Swordsmanship"
The best Medieval swords were excellent weapons capable of causing
tremendous
wounds. They were not easy to construct, and the finest ones could last
for generations. It is no surprise that a certain amount of mystery
surrounded both their making and their use. But only a portion of this
sword lore survives for us today. Our knowledge of just how Medieval
swords were made does not come from historical literature directly
describing their manufacture in detail. Instead, it comes from a wide
range of sources - literary, artistic, archeological, metallurgical, and
technical. What is clear is that, unlike other weapons, a sword could not
just be "put together"; it had to be forged and carefully tempered. It
was not just a long knife on a shaft, as with a spear, or a heavy stick
with a metal end attached, as with an axe or mace. It required a
laborious and skillful process. Sword construction and metallurgy are
complex and involved. There were undoubtedly a multitude of methods and
techniques to the craft over the centuries. The final purpose of each was
to create a strong, light blade capable of holding a good edge.
The quality of steel in Medieval swords could vary from weapon to weapon.
It depended a great deal on its heat treatment. Steel first needed
careful forging and tempering (quenching and reheating). Steel is iron
with a higher carbon content and is much stronger. Steel was made from
selected iron ore by repeating heating in a hot charcoal fire. The
addition of the carbon molecules improves the alignment of iron molecules
(carbon content of swords then ranged froma respectable .75 to 1.2
percent). The raw metal was worked by hammer into a bar. A sword might
be constructed from several separate pieces of iron and steel, each
carefully hammered on. These were then "welded" together by hammering
them when yellow hot (one X-ray of a Viking sword revealed it to have been
forged from 58 separate pieces). Separate bars were also sometimes then
added for edges. Finally, while still hot, the blade was worked into
final shape and tempered by quenching (rapid cooling by plunging into a
liquid bath). The steel was hardened by heating the shaped blade to a
bright red color and then plunging it into a liquid bath (which could be
oil, water, wine, honey, urine, or blood). This made the steel hard but
also brittle. To temper it, the blade was then reheated to carefully
soften it. A fine balance was needed between hardness on the edge for
cutting and softness in the body for flex and durability. The tempered
blade was then polished (sharpened) by stone wheel.
Sometime about 500 A.D., the Vikings began to obtain harder blades that
were able to hold better edges by repeated folding and beating higher
carbon iron. Dark Age swords were usually forged by bending together rods
or strips of soft and hard steel. These were twisted and hammer-welded
into bars in a process known as pattern welding. Blades from about 300 to
900 A.D. were of this construction. Pattern welding was not really a
manner of "welding," but rather a method of repeatedly heating and
hammering twisted rods of metal. It is sometimes known as "false
Damascene," but this is a misnomer because it is its own distinct method
and not necessarily an inferior one. (The term came from the fact that
the twisting of pattern welding creates a unique, high distinctive design
in the metal that can be made to stand out through the use of acids.
During polishing, this results in a variety of beautiful patterns in the
exposed metal of the fuller. A decorative mosaic, which in some
literature is described as scalelike or snakelike - called mal or
moel by the Vikings - can be made to appear.) Eventually, easier
methods of forging strong, flexible blades other than by pattern welding
were discovered. In the 900s, a laminated or "piled" sword blade was made
by repeatedly folding layers of soft, pure steel and mild, hard steel
(carburized iron). Some were made by twisting bars of hard and soft steel
and then beating them. Due to improved smelting technology of ferrous
metals, later blades from about 1000 to 1500 A.D. were made of a single
bar of higher quality steel.
In the 1300s, the introduction of water-powered bellows for blast
furnaces and water-powered triphammers for forging both allowed for the
creation of better iron and steel. Improved methods of production may
have well allowed for more blades of a reliable and reasonable quality to
be manufacturered in less time than with the older methods. Apparently,
older methods took longer and could result in a blade whose quality might
just as likely be poor as exceptional.
When forged, the metal of a good blade had to be free of flaws and
impurities that would cause it to break. Even finer, hand-forged blades
can suffer from hidden imperfections, which can cause cracking or
fracturing. Because the exact factors that made up a good sword were not
fully understood or comprehended, it was a matter of intuition and
instinct on the part of the maker. At the time, these swordmakers had no
true "science" of metallurgy and did not know about carbon content, exact
temperatures of heat, or specifics of tempering. Workability, hardness,
and strength all had to be judged from experience. The swordmaker's craft
was almost entirely skill and superstition. Not knowing the precise
factors that made a fine blade added a definite air of mystery and magic
to a good weapon, which is why the greatest swords were often thought to
have mystical properties. The quality of steel, amount of impurities in
it, manner in which it is worked, and length of time for cooling and
heating are only some of the many critical factors involved.
The strength of steel is a matter of its metallurgical composition, as
well as its tempering. Inferior steel can still be good if well tempered,
but poor tempering can ruin even the best quality. Tempering of a sword
was a careful, demanding process, an art in itself. In simplistic terms,
the heat treatment must be just right. Poor heat-treating prevents proper
flexibility. Too little and the sword will be soft and weak-edged, too
much and it can be brittle and fragile. Good steel contains a variety of
minute trace elements and other metals that add to its strength and
flexibility such as carbon, silicon, manganese, and even some chromium.
The percentages, though, can vary greatly and seriously affect the quality
of the resulting blade.
The making of a fine sword would typically involve the skill of several
men, which might include a forger, a shaper, a finisher, a temperer, a
polisher, and finally a cutler for the hilt. However, sometimes these
functions would be done by the same man. Naturally, the quality of
Medieval swords varied. Even a good swordmaker's product could vary from
one blade to another, sometimes greatly. Usually, a smith was
inconsistent. A maker might produce a good piece one month and a poor one
the next. Respected smiths were those whose weapons were consistent and
trust worthy. The major centers of sword production in the Middle Ages
arose in Germany, Italy, Spain and France, as well as elsewhere. Some
leading sword-making towns existed from Roman times through the
Renaissance.
In the ages when warriors relied on their swords daily, continual
communication between warrior and swordmaker would ensure the best design
for the job (if not the best quality individual sword). There was
obviously a constant feedback from those who created the weapons and those
who used them and whose lives thereby depended on them. This produced a
sort of natural selection that could ensure a minimum of expected
quality. Sword design follows from need and technology, and sword
techniques reflect design. A weapon is devised to suit needs and is then
used according to how it handles. For the Medieval sword the workings of
this dynamic produces designs and qulaities that were both practical and
lethal. All the while armorers kept up the effort to imrpove defense
through better means of protection (which in turn necessitated changes in
sword designs). In all its various forms and versions the Medieval sword
ia a fairly simple, even somewhat crude object of clear and lethal
practicality. Although there are many notable exceptions, overall the
swords of Medieval Europe perhaps tend to be less elegant than those of
other contemporary cultures. Instead, they are austere, funcitonal tools
from the clashing societies of a brutal age. This is reflected by the
aesthetic simplicity and symetry of a straight blade intersected by a
simple cross-guard.
John Clements is the author of "Medieval Swordsmanship:
Illustrated Methods and Techniques" (Paladin Press, November 1998, ISBN #
1-58160-004-6). He is the Director of the HACA -
The Historical Armed Combat Association at http://www.thehaca.com/ - a martial
arts organization dedicated to the study and replication of historical
European swordsmanship and fighting skills.
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