Project Sapper (now with photo)

[chef de chambre]

Hi All,

In the last year we have been accumulating and making and comissioning general stuff for the camp. The following image is of an Axe and Pick taken from the Wolfegg Hausbuch - the Children of Saturn plate, and a generic billhook of the era.

THe tools were made by "Knives by Nick", in the UK, and are complimented by a soon to be shod wood shovel, and an Iron bar, and 2 other bearded axes/hatchets.

[Donal Mac Ruiseart]

In the 18th century that third implement, below the axe, was called a fascine knife. Does that name go back to our period?

[chef de chambre]

It is simply a billhook, or a pruning hook, in the Late Middle Ages.

You see peasants weilding them in large numbers , pruning vines and the like, in 15th century books of hours.

It has a tang, instead of the socket a military billhook would have, and the size is much smaller than the poll weapon.

[Maeryk]

I have a couple of picks like that floating around here. They are all probably 17 or 1800s, but aside from the cheeks dipping down over the handle at the eye, they look nearly identical.

[chef de chambre]

That is actually a very modern sort of Medieval pick - most 15th century images of picks have a long socket, like the axe in the image, which I image would lead to commonly stress fracturing the handle of the pick, digging on rockey soil.

The method works OK with an axe, but I think a little less well with a pick. If I lived anywhere else but the Granite State, I would have opted for one as seen in the Cronicle of Hainault, as opposed to the Wolfegg hausbush model.