Swords and Sheaths

A picture of three engraved brasses showing the sword belts of knights. All of the swords hang upright, one from a hip belt, one from a belt which wraps around a high waist at the right to a low hip on the left, and one from two short angled straps attached to a hip belt — Three common ways of wearing a sword in western European art, 1360-1410. **Left:** From a hip belt (brass of Ralph de Knevynton: St Michael’s Church, Aveley, Essex, England). **Middle:** From a slanted belt (brass of William Loveny: Church of St Mary the Virgin, Wendens Ambo, Essex, England). **Right:** From a hip belt on two short straps (brass of Sir John de St Quintin: Church of St. Mary, Brandesburton, England). Images courtesy of Effigies and Brasses (middle) and the Medieval Combat Society (left and right).

This is not the place to talk about 14th century swords, but rather to discuss a mystery.

Between 1360 and 1410, by far the most common way to wear a sword was vertically from a hip belt. In this mechanism, there are usually no signs of short diagonal straps to control the position of the sword. How the sheath is attached to the hip belt is usually invisible, so it was probably hidden on the back of the sheath. The last broad study of medieval sword belts was by Albert Hartshorne in 1891 and only covers art from England! Today we have other kinds of evidence from all over Europe.

As of February 2024 this page needs rewriting to work well with all the evidence I found since I wrote the first version.

Suspension from the Back of the Locket
Suspension from a Lace
Suspensions from a Strap around the Locket
Miscellaneous Suspensions
Sheaths
Chapes
List of Changes

Suspension from the Back of the Locket

No scabbards with this suspension mechanism have been identified, but a handful of throats for sheaths with staples to take a single strap survive (eg. Portable Antiquities Scheme ESS-D85B66). Knives in this period were usually suspended from thongs looped over the belt and knotted closed. Another possibility is a ring on the scabbard and a hook on the belt: the Ewart Oakeshott collection once contained a fragment of a plaque belt with several plaques and a hook dangling below the main belt (oakeshott-archaeology-of-weapons plate 13a). One of the Sleeping Guards from Strassbourg Cathedral has a buckle oriented vertically on the back of the top of the scabbard of his falchion (thanks Robert Macpherson). This type of sheath does not dangle gracefully behind the wearer like we expect a sword to hang, but it seems to have been the most common solution in this period.

Because this style of suspension is hidden between sword and body, and no surviving examples are known, understanding of this topic has been built up over decades by researchers such as Harry Marinakis, Mark Shier, Will McLean, and Ian LaSpina.

a side view of the left side of a marble statue of St. George in full armour on foot — Detail of the sheath worn by St. George in the Museo Diocesiano in Mantua. Inv. no. 418/Cattedrale. Said to be by Jacopo e Pietro Paolo dalle Masegne. Photo by S. Manning before 2019

a bronze statue of St. George in full armour on horseback, and a closeup of how his scabbard is hung — The equestrian statue of St. George at Prague from 1373 (the original [right] is indoors, a replica [left] is out where the rain and the birds can take revenge for this reptile-killing) with a ring or a buckle connecting his scabbard to the fauld of his pair of plates. A similar strap appears on his right hip to hold up his missing dagger. You can see another set of photos of the replica at http://www.svjiri.wz.cz/pages/sv_jiri%2032.htm Comparison photo c/o Dimicator https://www.patreon.com/Dimicator/

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Suspension from a Lace

a sculpture in smooth grey stone of a knight in full armour lying on his back on a draped bed, as seen from the left side — The sword suspension on an effigy from the Veneto (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, object A.24-1910). The will of Robert Norwich (February 1443/1444) leaves someone a sword, buckler, and silver-mounted scabbard for riding "and if he desires to have the other scabbard used to carry the sword in the manner of a baselard, he may have it for a reasonable price." (blair-baselard p. 194). The museum estimates that the effigy dates c. 1370-1375.

Some other mechanisms appear in art. Sometimes the sheath seems to be attached directly to the skirt of the cuirass, as in a statue of St. George in Mantua or several English paintings in capwell-aotek-i (British Library Royal MS 20.C.viii Tree of Battles, Bodleian MS. Auct. D.inf.2.11.Saints, fol. 44v). Sometimes the sword is attached to a belt which slants from the right waist to the left hip. Sometimes the sheath is attached to a hip or waist belt with two short straps or chains, one at the front edge and one at the back edge. A knife with a copper-alloy locket with two horizontal rings on the back survives in Salisbury. In all of these solutions, the scabbard usually has an elabourate metal throat or locket, and the sword hangs upright or tilts slightly forward.

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Suspension from a Strap around the Locket

detail of the sword and belt of a statue of a knight in mid-14th-century armour — Copy of the effigy of Berthold von Zähringen at Freiburg Cathedral in the Freiburger Museum für Stadgeschichte c/o Roland Warzecha Simple Suspension Loops for 14th Century Scabbards)

The effigy of Berthold von Zähringen at Freiburg Cathedral shows a short belt wrapped around the throat of the scabbard and buckled closed. This belt sits just below the hip belt and seems to be part of the suspension mechanism. Once again, the sword hangs vertically.

a gorgeous panel painting on a gilt background with two swords worn by knights. One hangs from a narrow waist belt by a narrow strap angled fore and aft which passes under the plaque belt and wraps around the throat of the sheath, the other has a strap buckled around the throat of the sheath and a vertical strap behind the throat which wraps around the silver belt — Sword suspension from the *Wiltener Kreuzigung* (probably from Allerheiligenkirche, Hart bei Innsbruck, Tirol c. 1435) in the Belvedere, Vienna. Taken by Sean Manning, 13 November 2017.

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Miscellaneous Suspensions

a painting of a knight in full armour being struck by a lance and beginning to fall from the saddle — Type A-4 Paduan suspension, with a waist belt, two slings from the back of the scabbard which converge at the belt, and a female buckle at the mouth of the scabbard receiving the male end of the waistbelt. Modern scabbard-makers love these, but I only know of two clear examples in the entire corpus of medieval art, only one (and one possible) from my period.

Beginning around 1380, a very small number of paintings show swords hanging at an angle from a waist belt (Altichiero’s frescos in Padua, Padua Picture Bible, Getty Fior di Battaglia, National Library of the Netherlands, KB 72 A 25 Chroniques (painted in Paris c. 1410) ). A secondary strap reaches from the small of the back to 1/3 or 1/4 down the sword, raising the tip of the scabbard off the ground. This type of belt is very popular with scabbardmakers today, and very rare in art from 1360 to 1410.

The sword, scabbard, and belt from the grave of Bishop Gerhard von Schwartzburg (d. 9 November 1400) are preserved in the Domschatz, Würzburg DE (Oakeshott Type XV or XVI, overall length 100 cm, blade length 77 cm, photo in jahn-et-al-edel-und-frei, pp.180-181; I thank Roland Warzecha and Holger Heid for the reference; Maciej Kopciuch lists similar swords). The one hung over the tomb of Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince (d. 1376), just consists of a leather cover and square gold or gilt ornaments with no throat or chape and no wooden core (Anonymous, The Times of Edward the Black Prince p. 21): presumably the heavy silver or copper gilt throat was stolen and melted down long ago. The sword of Frederick the Warrior, Elector of Saxony (c. 1419-1425) has a scabbard of wood wrapped in red velvet and strips of silver gilt (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD), Inventarnummer VI/361 (Ehrenthal A34), schoebel-arms-and-armor p. 86, http://www.deutschefotothek.de/documents/obj/32004923 and http://myarmoury.com/ - Wikipedia). The sword of Emperor Sigismund I for the Order of the Dragon (c. 1433: KHM Wien, Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, A 49) has a “pressed leather” scabbard and a chape but no throat/locket. Various websites mention scabbards or scabbard fittings in the Museum für Franken in Würzburg and a “St. George’s sword” in the Museum Schnütgen in Köln.

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Sheaths

Broadly speaking, medieval scabbards for swords were made from two wooden slats wrapped in a sheet of vegetable-tanned calfskin, with additional layers sometimes added between wood and steel or wood and leather. There is a great deal of evidence for scabbards in the late 13th and early 14th century, including hundreds of leather covers for sheaths in Schleswig (Schnack Lederfunde) and Leiden (van Driel-Murray, Sword Sheaths from Leiden), the early 13th century ‘belt of St. Hadrian’ at the Historisches Museum, Bamberg, the swords and scabbards of Fernando de la Cerda (d. 1270: narrow thongs laced through the scabbard cover) and Sancho IV el Bravo of Castille (d. 1295: Z-shaped leather) in Spain, the sword and scabbard mounts from the sarcophagus of Cangrande della Scala (d. 1329: three small rings on the sides of the scabbard) in the Castelvecchio, Verona, and a sword and set of silver scabbard fittings from Westminister Bridge (Museum of London, ID 52.12(1) and 52.12(2)). Scabbard leather A3678 in the Museum of London probably dates to this earlier period, but other scabbards and scabbard leathers in the same museum may be later (22347, A24815, A26748, A26703, etc.)

Studies by Geibig and Esther Cameron (Leather and Leatherworking in York pp. 3366ff) are helpful for understanding the ancestors of this form of scabbard; Roland Warzecha is working intensely on scabbards and suspensions from the 9th and 10th century as part of his Viking shield fighting project (one thread of posts on his Dimicator patreon and comments on a photo of a Carolingian sword and sheath found in Paris).

In Europe, scabbards were made in very similar ways from the early middle ages into the 19th century, and a number of texts describe the process. In order, we have the rule of the furbishers of Paris from 1290, 1486 and 1566 (item 21), the rule of the armourers and scabbardmakers of Angers (1488, see items 11 and 12), a description by Randle Holme from 1688 (The Academy of Armory, or, A Storehouse of Armory and Blazon book 3 p. 91

Draw out the Scale. / Rash it even. / Lining of the Scabbard, is the Linnen or Woollen Cloth in the inner side of the Scabbard. / Bind it up and glew it, is to tye the two sides of the scale when lined, together, the Blade being between. / Cover it with leather.”)

and finally Diderot’s Encyclopedie in the 18th century (the French entries for fourbisseur and fourbisserie are available online, and translated in J.D. Aylward, The Small Sword in England [quoted on Will’s Commonplace Book].

Original	Translation
Le bois qui sert à la monture des fourreaux se tire de Villers-Cotterets ; on n’y employe guere que du hêtre qu’on achette en feuilles de quatre pouces de large, & de deux ou trois lignes d’épaisseur ; & qu’après avoir dressé avec des rapes, on coupe le long d’une regle avec un couteau, pour les réduire & partager en une largeur convenable à la lame qui doit y être enfermée : ces feuilles de hêtre se vendent ordinairement au cent.	The wood used for scabbards comes from Villers-Coterets; hardly anything but beechwood is employed, it is bought in boards four pouces (4×27 mm) wide and two or three lines (two or three twelfths of a pouce, 4.5-7 mm) thick. After having been dressed with rasps it is cut with a knife along a steel rule in order to reduce it and also to divide it into strips suitable for the blade which is to be closed in it. These beechwood veneers are sold by the hundred. (tr. J.D Aylward)
On n’employe point d’autre moule pour faire ces fourreaux, que la lame même de l’épée, sur laquelle on place d’abord le bois, qu’on couvre ensuite de toile, & enfin d’un cuir bien passé qu’on coud par-dessus, après avoir collé le tout ensemble. On met un bout de métal à la pointe & un crochet au haut.	One does not use any other kind of form for making these scabbards, except the blade of the sword itself, upon which one places the wood to fit it, which one covers completely with linen, and finally with a leather well fitted (passé) which one sews over everything else, after having glued everything together. One puts a piece of metal at the tip and a hook at the top. (tr. Manning)

Le bois qui sert à la monture des fourreaux se tire de Villers-Cotterets ; on n’y employe guere que du hêtre qu’on achette en feuilles de quatre pouces de large, & de deux ou trois lignes d’épaisseur ; & qu’après avoir dressé avec des rapes, on coupe le long d’une regle avec un couteau, pour les réduire & partager en une largeur convenable à la lame qui doit y être enfermée : ces feuilles de hêtre se vendent ordinairement au cent.

The wood used for scabbards comes from Villers-Coterets; hardly anything but beechwood is employed, it is bought in boards four pouces (4×27 mm) wide and two or three lines (two or three twelfths of a pouce, 4.5-7 mm) thick. After having been dressed with rasps it is cut with a knife along a steel rule in order to reduce it and also to divide it into strips suitable for the blade which is to be closed in it. These beechwood veneers are sold by the hundred. (tr. J.D Aylward)

On n’employe point d’autre moule pour faire ces fourreaux, que la lame même de l’épée, sur laquelle on place d’abord le bois, qu’on couvre ensuite de toile, & enfin d’un cuir bien passé qu’on coud par-dessus, après avoir collé le tout ensemble. On met un bout de métal à la pointe & un crochet au haut.

One does not use any other kind of form for making these scabbards, except the blade of the sword itself, upon which one places the wood to fit it, which one covers completely with linen, and finally with a leather well fitted (passé) which one sews over everything else, after having glued everything together. One puts a piece of metal at the tip and a hook at the top. (tr. Manning)

a heavily corroded medieval sword with remains of a wooden scabbard with a brass throat and a belt wrapped around the blade — Diderot's illustrations (Planches Tome IV, printed 1765) http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/planche/v25-x13?p=v25-g138&vp=y&

Original	Translation
Ces fourreaux (fig. 53. & 54.) sont les étuis qui doivent contenir les lames d’épées, de couteaux-de-chasse, de sabres, &c. & qui par conséquent doivent avoir la même forme ; aussi leurs lames servent-elles de mandrins pour les faire : on les fait en bois de hêtre qui nous vient en feuilles des environs de Villers-coterets & de quelques autres endroits, couverts d’abord en toile & ensuite en peau, en chagrin, en roussette, en requin ou autre chose semblable, noirs, jaunes, blancs, verds & autres couleurs, bien collés, garnis par le bout A, côte de la garde de l’épée, d’une petite virole A (fig. 55.) de même métal, portant un crochet B ou petit bouton pour l’arrêter dans la boutonniere d’un ceinturon, & par l’autre B (fig. 53. & 54.) d’un bout (fig. 56.) aussi de même métal, espece de virole pointue qui environne son extrémité pour la rendre plus ferme contre la pointe.	translation will go here

Ces fourreaux (fig. 53. & 54.) sont les étuis qui doivent contenir les lames d’épées, de couteaux-de-chasse, de sabres, &c. & qui par conséquent doivent avoir la même forme ; aussi leurs lames servent-elles de mandrins pour les faire : on les fait en bois de hêtre qui nous vient en feuilles des environs de Villers-coterets & de quelques autres endroits, couverts d’abord en toile & ensuite en peau, en chagrin, en roussette, en requin ou autre chose semblable, noirs, jaunes, blancs, verds & autres couleurs, bien collés, garnis par le bout A, côte de la garde de l’épée, d’une petite virole A (fig. 55.) de même métal, portant un crochet B ou petit bouton pour l’arrêter dans la boutonniere d’un ceinturon, & par l’autre B (fig. 53. & 54.) d’un bout (fig. 56.) aussi de même métal, espece de virole pointue qui environne son extrémité pour la rendre plus ferme contre la pointe.

translation will go here

Angers 1488, Paris 1566, and Diderot agree that the core should be of beechwood (fagus sylvatica). The decree which settled the dispute between the furbishers and bladesmiths of Paris in 1486 said "cedar wood". Paris 1486, Angers 1488, and Paris 1566 agree that the cover should be of calfskin. A.V.B. Norman summarizes the French guild rules in The Rapier and Small-Sword p. 304. Recently, an edition of BNF MS fr. 640 from sixteenth-century Toulouse recommends calfskin and beechwood and says that you can dip the leather in lukewarm water to soften it or shave it thin with a plane.

The preference for beech wood is older than the guild rules. According to the team at Project Forlog, of 31 scabbards for Latin Christian, Slavic, and Norse swords from 700 to 1200 CE, 9 were beech, 5 oak, 4 alder, 3 maple, and 10 of other woods attested twice or less (https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/wood-species-used-for-sword-scabbard/ thanks Roland Warzecha).

There is a practical guide to making an earlier style of scabbard and belt by a famous Swedish cutler care of Ye Olde Gaffer's Scabbards (2006). The same cutler has a tutorial on how to make a 'medieval-ish' scabbard from layers of veneer for model aircraft. There are photos and desrciptions of the process in volken-goubitz-covering-the-blade.

It was very common to carry the sword in hand with the belt wrapped around the scabbard rather than wear it.[1] Bishop Gerhard’s sword still has the belt with buckle and strap-end (mordant) wrapped around the blade.

Sword and scabbard of Johann Siebenhirter (1499) in the Landesmuseum für Kärnten, Klagenfurt, Austria https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/748501

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Chapes

a heavily patinated copper-alloy chape for a knife scabbard made of bent sheet with a knop soldered to the tip — A nicer-than-average late medieval chape in the Gaukler collection, Victoria BC (number 5564). 17 gauge on the copper-alloy gauge (= 1.15 mm thick). Top and bottom views of the same chape are available.

a heavily patinated copper-alloy chape for a knife scabbard made of sheet bent into a rectangle and stapled closed on one of the large sides — A chape of typical late medieval quality for a broad-pointed knife or sword. This one is closed with a staple and has traces of leather inside. 25 gauge on the copper-alloy gauge (= 0.45 mm thick). Bottom and front views of the same chape are available. Gaukler collection, Victoria BC, number 7264.

a heavily patinated copper-alloy chape for a sword sheath cast as a hollow shell to be soldered to a matching shell — One half of a cast copper-alloy chape in the Portable Antiquities Scheme (UK: Unique ID: BERK-85F302). They guess it dates to the 15th century. Photo by the British Museum released under a CC BY attribution licence

Scabbards for swords and fighting knives often had chapes, and copper-alloy and silver chapes appear in many collections. Some are made from bent and slit sheets of metal, others were made from two cast shells soldered together. A round or nut-shaped ornament (knop) was sometimes soldered to the tip.

Ottaway and Rogers, Craft, Industry, and Everyday Life p. 2094
The Gaukler Collection (the items he is willing to sell are listed at http://medievalwares.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65_74_118)
Portable Antiquities Scheme LANCUM-886FEF Sheet copper-alloy rolled with a knop applied to the point, no visible fastening at the seam
Portable Antiquities Scheme SWYOR-601C96 Sheet copper-alloy 0.6 mm thick rolled around the tip of the scabbard, overlapped and soldered closed, the tip slit and folded together
Portable Antiquities Scheme NLM-974F94 here the sheet is 0.5 mm thick
Portable Antiquities Scheme OXON-E75F00 ugly but they are explicit that the lapped seam was soldered and then the knop was soldered in place
Portable Antiquities Scheme SUR-997ED7 Some engraved decoration, and the seam is nice and solid
Portable Antiquities Scheme PUBLIC-F103E8 U-shaped chape, again from folded and slit copperalloy sheet
Portable Antiquities Scheme DENO-265393 This is like a five-sided box but there are the remains of iron rivets in holes; a few other chapes have single or paired rivet holes near the upper edge
Portable Antiquities Scheme BERK-85F302 a (cast?) ‘half clamshell’, I would bet that it was brazed or soldered to a matching half and fell apart at some point

Chapes in the Gaukler collection are often 0.018″ (0.46 mm) or 0.032″ (0.8 mm) thick.

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List of Changes

2026-01-24: mentioned Volken and Goubitz

[1] Art which shows scabbarded swords held rather than worn includes:

donors at Naumberg Cathedral
Metropolitan Museum of Art, MET 2006.250 Laudario
the Beast of Revelation, BL Royal 19 B XV The Queen Mary Apocalypse fol. 23v https://manuscriptminiatures.com/5430/17807
trial scene in Trivulziana MS. 691
gambling soldiers by Altichiero at Padua
KBR Ms. 11201-02 Politica & Economica fol. 263r (Paris, 1376)
lost painting from St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminister, in MoL-shoes-and-pattens p. 84 fig. 118
BNF Nouvelle acquisition française 15939 Miroir Historial (Vol 1) fol. 37v
BNF Français 343 fol. 4r, 32r
Getty Fior di Battaglia
crucifixion in Schloss Eggenberg, Graz (c. 1410) here
BNF Français 356 Guiron le Courtois fol. 228r (France c. 1420)