Hi it's Tod of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today we're going
to talk about sets of knives these are really common in the medieval period and
what I mean by sets of knives are things like this so you've got a Swiss dagger
here which is the main arm in it in this scabbard but it's double-sided; it is a
dagger, it is not good for anything else people didn't eat from their daggers and
there's no such things banqueting daggers. You would eat from using your
eating knife but then also other tasks around camp just cutting up a bit of
rope or something it's always going to be useful to have a smaller knife than
is it a great big long double sided dagger so these small collections of
knives were a very common thing in the medieval period because that way you get
to carry everything that you want in a single place at a single time but they
did this on different dagger forms, lots of different dagger forms, even swords
scabbards as well but for some reason this set up with having "by-knives" as they're
called on the main scabbard is a particularly German thing. They they loved
doing it. So this is another German example here it's a "bauernwehr" and again
you've got the main dagger here but then also you have two further small eating
knives just in separate pockets and then the last implement is a pricker now
that's literally is just a spike. Now, you did use them for eating but also they
were a sort of a multi-purpose tool as well you can use it for making holes in
leather loosening straps undoing knots so it's a sort of thing when you're out
on campaign you're out working in the fields this is a farmer's knife it's
just a handy tool to have so it has lots of different purposes now that thinking
is sort of extended on you see in the medieval times you see quite a lot of
two-piece sets like this so you've got the pricker again and you've got the
eating knife you've got everything in one place it's very handy because we
need to consider of course that you carry your cutlery with you because when
you are out in the fields or you stop by somebody's house or you're in the
kitchens of a great house or whatever it might be
they will not have eating implements for you you have to provide your own. Now
this is a 3-piece set there are plenty of two-piece sets in the medieval
records you find them. I have never yet seen a three-piece set of a pricker a knife
and in this case a brass spoon but what I would say about that is the medieval
people seem to really like having sets of objects you see it again and again
whether it's a hunting set surgery set knife sets even sword scabbards with
knives on I would expect that somebody somewhere made a three-piece set so the
fact that I haven't seen one I think personally doesn't preclude the fact
that they would have existed it's just a logical thing then again the same is
true for cooking sets if you're in a kitchen then you know you hang the
knives up on the wall very often you'll see holes in larger cooking knives here
but you know you will also find that people would have used scabbards like
this one so here we just very simply have two fairly plain cooking knives but
they're in a single scabbard because that sort of thing is good for campaign
you just pick up one object it's always just very handy to have your objects in
one place but then very particularly I'll show you this big beasty here and
this is a set of presentation knives, serving knives, for the table so very
high-status tooled scabbard very attractively done
and this is not a set of cooking knives but you have big knives like this one
here which is a chopping knife you have a mincing or a carving knife here and
then you have a a tart knife or again a serving knife. Now all of these just
housed in a single scabbard. You see objects much like this one very often as
either hunting sets or for a doctor set so again you'll see cased tools of
doctors equipment done in the same way another thing to consider is the way
that these sheaths are constructed because this one here
it's constructed basically exactly as you'd expect a knife sheath to be
constructed that you've got a liner in this case that holds the main knife
leather is stretched around and then is just sewn up the back here so it's a
very normal scabbard construction even though you've got some extra elements
built into it this scabbard here after this multiple piece set and you see this
a lot especially on cased ones where you've got a lid on them is the whole
thing has been done with basically bookbinding techniques so there is no
sewing in this scabbard anywhere, not a bit of it. So it is just layer upon layer of
leather which is shaped into the formed into the shapes you want which you do
with a slightly damp veg tan leather and then it's bonded together
and as the glue is drying and cooling down then you're just pushing it into
shape and all sticks down now you you see that on these case knives you don't
see it on cruder simpler knife scabbard such as this but then if we look at this
last example here you have sewing up the back of the scabbard which is up back of
the sheath which is what you would expect but then if we take that out it
and we just have a look in there you can see that it is again just bonded leather
so this one in fact is a combination between bonded leather at the top and
then that is overlaid onto a stitched scabbard and that allows you a very
precise very carefully made fitted scabbard which you would struggle to do
if you were sewing. It is a way of manufacture that you are also see in
higher status sheets on higher status knives not because it's a higher status
way of making a knife sheath it just allows you to do some other things that
sewing does not allow you to do so this particular dagger here is a copy of one
in The Rothenburg Collection and is a mid to late 15th century Burgundian
rondell and there you have it medieval knife sets it's a way of
keeping all of your important objects in one place
one easy to carry handy to pick up depending on the size of the object
collection of parts it keeps your very valuable possessions in one place and in
a place where you know where they are and where you can find them and use them
when you need to... also looks cool. Thanks!