The Armour Archive

In the "Knight's Tale" thread you said:

"The female armour/blacksmith was awesome and period. I do 1800's reinactment as well and we blacksmiths of the period have period proof of female blacksmiths through out history."

Please provide documentation that there were female armourers in the Medieval/Renaissance period.

ok next time i go to the shop(this comming sunday) i will get the information you are looking for. See the apprenticeship was like a nice term for child slavery. The parents of the child in question(male or female child) would pay a fee to the blacksmith to teach their child the trade. The blacksmith would then have the more experianced apprentices teach the child in question the ropes, so to speak. After 2 to 3 years the master blacksmith would assign the apprentice(formally the child in question) to one of the blacksmiths under him(him being the master blacksmith) and every year the master blacksmith would reassign the apprentice to a new blacksmith. Each blacksmith had a specialty.Be it chain making, houshold items, casting, etc. This would allow the apprentice to get a full range of skills and then eventually pick a specialty for his/herself. After seven years of apprenticing the blacksmith would get the apprentice out of his/her shop if the master had no work for the new "journeymen". Ok now you have a basic understanding on how apprenticeship works.

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Hochmeister of the Order of the Teutonic Knights
at the Commandery of Marienburg,
Harold der Bär

http://www.elfhill.com/leighann/writings/brigid.html

http://www.ubb.org/drachenfels/

http://acad.smumn.edu/manhattan/Chapter9.html
scroll 2/3 the way down

http://www.cjbooks.demon.co.uk/serv01strange%20but%20true.htm
there is some stuff about female blacksmiths in there.

That should hold you guys till i can get the documentation from the state park

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Hochmeister of the Order of the Teutonic Knights
at the Commandery of Marienburg,
Harold der Bär

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Glen K:
<B>Please provide documentation that there were female armourers in the Medieval/Renaissance period.
</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Glen K,

While I don't know about blacksmithing specifically, there are a number of women's history studies books available showing that women participated in many trades/guilds that most people assume to have been solely the domain of men. Women's access to guilds/trades varies by country and individiual town/city and period of course. There are instances of women guildmasters that pop up in guilds known to have rules against female members. The documentation of female owners/craftswomen is usually found in court records. Its usually dry reading, but what is available shows women's roles in Medieval/Renaissance society as much more fluid than most people realize.

One of the primary reasons for female ownership transfer is death of a husband, thus allowing legal "ownership" and control to the wife, who often knows the trade, since most trades are family partnerships at this point. The black plague also had a distinct impact due to population devastation. Social norms are just that; there are always those who fall outside the curve.

I agree that most guilds were male dominated, and in many places and specific time periods were exclusively male.

Juliana

Hi Harold,

There is a huge difference between heresay and third hand information, and documentation. If you haven't realized it yet, just because someone writes something on the web does not make the story true.

What Glen & I expect for documentation is a record in some form. The usual form is wills and legal records and guild records. The people who wrote that information either got it from a source, or they made it up. Unless they footnote it or tell us the source, we have to assume they made it up.

I have seen documentation for women practising as smiths (usually after their husband was deceased, and they carried on the business) in mid 15th century Germany. There is some metion of women assiting their armourer husbands, but absolutely no record of women armourers that I am aware. The information I have given you can be found in "Legend of the Good Women", which is sadly out of print, but is a decent social history pertaining to the role of women in society. I believe the women blacksmith reference is top be found in the guild copurt records of Cologne, c 1450. I will try to locate the book and give you the reference.

What I have given you above is shakey reference, as I have not yet given you the exact source - I am using this to try and teach you about proper reference and footnotes.

Neither Glenn or I need any lecture on the apprentice system from you. Both of us have trained as historians, and my courses in Colonial American history and Medieval law covered the subject more than adequately. From that and my recent studies, I can assurre you that no woman was ever an apprentice, then journeyman, then master smith. Women were often specificaly barred by law from certain guilds, although widows were granted exceptions to carry on their husbands business. They were forbidden to practise the 'mystery' if they were to re-marry, for fear that it would let outsiders horn in on trade.

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Bob R.

Unfortunately, the webpages you provide are at best questionable, at worst nonsense, and in any respect irrelevant to the situation.

Thanks, Bob, for the rebuttal. I completely agree and appreciate the 1,324th explanation to HtB of what documentation is.

Harold, I await your "information from the shop". And remember, my challenge is:

"Please provide documentation that there were female armourers in the Medieval/Renaissance period."

that inst my blacksmith documentation just something to get your wheels turning. I said female "blacksmiths" not "armoursmiths" there is a differance, somewhat. Ohh and there was female apprentices. I never said their were master female blacksmiths either. The title of master is awarded by the Guild and takes many many many years to be able to fufill what tasks the guild may assign you to prove your mastership. Let me get the documentation from the shop

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Hochmeister of the Order of the Teutonic Knights
at the Commandery of Marienburg,
Harold der Bär

[This message has been edited by Harold the Bear (edited 05-15-2001).]

"I said female "blacksmiths" not "armoursmiths" there is a differance, somewhat"

Mr. The Bear, go back and read your own post: "The female armour/blacksmith was awesome and period". THAT'S what you said.

Do you ever get tired of showing us all how very young, unintelligent, arrogant, and ignorant you are? Again, I'll wait on your documentation [sic] to show me that there were female armourers in the medieval/renaissance era. Heck, I'll even be impressed if you can provide real documentation for female blacksmiths in this period.

"Do you ever get tired of showing us all how very young, unintelligent, arrogant, and ignorant you are?"


Hey Glen, no need to get hostile over this - if Harold comes up with the documentation, great - if not, I'm sure he'll be happier for being corrected. The name calling and insults don't add anything to your arguement.

We've all got stuff we feel strongly about, but it's no excuse to behave like a git.

Jim (running ducking and dodging away)

Harold,

You might want to just give up now. Really.

Unless you get solid, documentable evidence, such as in a diary of the time, bill-of-sale, order form, etc... NOT a paper writen in the last one hundred years...) Glen and Bob aren't going to accept it. And they shouldn't. Glen and Bob have presented themselves as experts in the field of historical research -- and they have NEVER shown any errors to prove otherwise (They HAVE said, "I don't know" and "That is not my field of expertise, may I suggest reading this book or talking to this person...."). You, Harold, on the other hand, have shown errors in historical research at least once (that two-handed sword through plate armour thing ).

You may consider having the research in hand -- and ready to present -- as you type your statements. Bob and Glen are just too sharp to let anything else get by them.

Let me give you a comparison to what they think you have done. On a theological basis, it would be like saying that "Adam and Eve were transported down to Earth by the Starship Enterprize, piloted by Superman -- and the evidence is in the Bible!"

Now, the theological experts will RUN to their Bibles, look up every possible translation, referance the Dead Sea Scrolls, fly to Isreal, consult with Rabbis, meditate and pray on the issue, and come back to you and ask for your referances (or tell you flat out that you don't know what you are talking about).

They asked for your referances. This is polite. Please produce the referances, or retract your statement.

-Aaron

PS: This admonishment, of course, comes from the man who STILL hasn't presented his referance for Middle Ages Tournaments as "Knock-Down-Drag-Out" fights as opposed to counted blows. Bob caught me on this one...and my grace-period for the documentation is running out... . I'll be the pot if you'll be the kettle.

[This message has been edited by Aaron (edited 05-15-2001).]

Hi Aaron,

I have been wrong before, and will be wrong in the future. Nobody is infalible, and "what I don't know would fill a warehouse" - more like several. I'd just like to teach Harold what the difference between documentation and heresay is.

As an example, this taken from the St. Sebald parish records in Nuremberg, the registers between 1439 - 1477 - they list
9 female coppersmiths
7 brass mounters
1 cutler
1 thimble maker
1 wiredrawer
3 tinsmiths
1 compass maker
6 pewterers

This taken from "The Legend of Good Women" - Erika Uitz 1990 Moyer Bell ltd ISBN 1-55921-013-3

From the same source "A Nuremberg town council resolution of 1535 informs us that women were commonly employed as cutlers until the early 16th c." (pg60)

That is 28 women listed in these occupations in a 48 year span. No mention in my source as to how they came to the position, but the most common method (according to the same reference) was to be married to someone in the particular occupation and then be widowed. These are not huge numbers of women employed.

Traditional crafts that employed women and allowed women to apprentice are textile manufacture, clothing manufacture, embroidery and embellishment.

That is a reference. It is partial documentation. A dozen more examples would fully document something. A vauge link to an unfootnoted page asserting something on the internet is not documentation.

As an aside, a cutler is usually someone putting grips and fittings on pre-made blades - not bladesmiths.

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Bob R.

The littlest bear can't provide documentation because I have hidden it under living room furniture in Alaska...

http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001157.html

thanks chef for the detailed clarification on how you want it presented

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Hochmeister of the Order of the Teutonic Knights
at the Commandery of Marienburg,
Harold der Bär

I believe i pointed out clearly that i have it and would post it on sunday when i went back to the shop. I never brought this up just saying in a thread about a knights tale how female blacksmiths where period.

Now that we understand each other, I keenly await your documentation Harold. There is no person alive who knows everything about a specific subject, and it is a sad day when we do not learn anything new.

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Bob R.

Just when I thought Glen and Harold had become best of buddies and would be jousting together as soon as Glen's wrist heals...

Harold. I too would like to see the documentation you mentioned, as many others have asked me about medieval female armourers and blacksmiths over the years. I would appreciate any help you could provide in answering this question. As others have pointed out though, we really need something that leads us to a primary source or is based upon primary sources with appropriate references to them.

I too have heard that there were female blacksmiths. I have never heard that there were female armourers, at least not pre 1550 which is where I have focused my study of armour. I had heard stories of females working in the decorative arts related to the finishing of armour rather than its actual creation. Unfortunately, I have not found any documentation whatsoever to support any of these stories and as a result I question their veracity, although I will admit to not having really researched any of it myself.

To Glen and Chef who have helpfully pointed out to Harold what constitutes proper documentation, many thanks.

[This message has been edited by Richard Blackmoore (edited 05-16-2001).]

Harold,

Given today's culture, if you FIND documentable proof of female armourers, or blacksmiths....write a book and publish. That's what Micheal Criton does -- gets scientific or historical facts and then "stretches" them a little (or a lot). Just document your sources at the end of the book, and you'll be golden.

Hey, it could work...with lots of work.

-Aaron

Glen K.,
I was under the impression that you were fairly young, as well. Perhaps I have confused internet persons, again.

Idëval

Idëval, I'm 28. And to quote many great men, it's not the years, it's the miles. (that's even funnier if you read "miles" in the Latin sense... ah, nevermind). Of course, that does make me but a young pup compared to the folks like Cheval and Gaston who say that Stonehenge was so much prettier when it was new...

Believe you me, I don't think there's anything wrong with being young or acting young. But when a person spends a majority of their time here displaying all the bad aspects of youth, it does make me use the word as a slur. Therefore, I retract the "young" part. The rest, unfortunately, seems to continuously be borne out.

When we built Stonehenge originally, Cheval and I had installed beautiful stained glass windows, a lovely slate roof and a wet bar. I have not been back to see it in a long time. I understand it was since sold to the Americans in the late 1900's to go with a decrepit old bridge purchased from London.

I believe there is a replica of Stonehenge somewhere in England, perhaps on the original site, that the Middle Upper Lowingham Soccer team financed. But they built it without the roof and windows, so it looks funny, just a bunch of big stones. So it does not serve its original purpose well (a little Celtic sports pub with a view).

Thanks, Glen.
I appreciate the retraction immensely; being but twenty-two, I often find myself proving my way out of a preconception before I'm able to begin presenting either my material or myself.
You will forgive me for studying a Latinate language, Spanish, rather than the source. I would assume the gest emphasizes, "It's not the years, it's the thousands [of years]." Good stuff.
Thanks, Richard, I enjoyed your post.

Idëval

I have a book with a photo of an engraving (unfortunately I have no access to a scanner) showing what appears to be a woman armorer along with two men and the master.

The book is "Warfare in The Middle Ages" by Richard Humble.
Published by Magna Books
Magna Rd
Wigston
Leicester, LE8 2ZHI

Copyright 1989 Bison Boooks

Page 156 Captioned "The armorers workshop of the Emperor Maxamilian I (c. 1515)" Courtesy of the Royal Armouries HM Tower of London.

The book has no specific info about the engraving itself. So if anyone else has access to it, maybe they can add something. The figure is either a woman or an apprentice; however, it looks more like a woman (hair up etc.)

BEDLAM

[This message has been edited by Bedlam (edited 05-17-2001).]

Hi Bedlam,

In my above mentioned source, it does say that in Nuremberg armourers wives were sometimes employed in the operation of beating out breastplates. They had no guild status however, and were not considered armourers.

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Bob R.

Chef:

You are probably right, although the engraving has the woman holding something that looks like it may be a helm.

BEDLAM

While glancing through one of my medieval women day books, there were two pictures of women at a forge, both seem to be blacksmithing small items.

The annotation to the pictures are:

Woman at Forge
Guilliaume de Lorris adn Jean de Meun.
Le Roman de la Rose.
MS 1126, f. 115
French, 14th century
Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Paris

No armorers were evident, though the book does have manuscript pictures of women fighting using swords and using projectile missiles in battles.

Julie

Juliana,

that book (Le Roman de la Rose) is an allegory of love and its fullfilment through search, quests and other deeds--the illustrations are not reflecting everyday reality whatsoever...
We need to pay attention to the context of images when doing historical research--that's one of the reasons I do not like 'picture books' or 'coffee table books' or the Victorian survey books that much...images are completely out of their original surroundings, and in very rare cases are any explanations given about these.
Just my perpetual rant...

Take care,
Rhia


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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Chef according to some of my fellow guild members women did get the guild status of apprentice and we didnt really give them status after that. We would just send them on their way as a "journymen" but women were never called so

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Hochmeister of the Order of the Teutonic Knights
at the Commandery of Marienburg,
Harold der Bär

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Chef according to some of my fellow guild members...</font>

Now, Harold, you know darn well that this isn't reputable documentation, unless they had specific references. Please see the above posts about how to provide documentation for something.

Well clay guilds usally are the final say on many things dealing with blacksmithing. They just dont pull things out of their asses If you cant trust the guilds who can you trust. Plus this is a guild that has been around since 1710

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They call him Bear,

Harold der Bär

[This message has been edited by Harold the Bear (edited 05-18-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Harold the Bear (edited 05-18-2001).]

Harold -

If your source goes "back to 1710" and is based in the New World, then it is completely irrelevant to the original statement you made, and you have refuted yourself. Their guild records will go back to when the guild was founded. If that datr is 1710, then what they contain is pertinant to the 18th (and presumably 19th) century - not before. If it refers to a period before, but elswhere, then it is third hand information - not documentation.

If you persist in claiming that this sort of information is documentation, then you and I no longer have anything to discuss.

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Bob R.

Perhaps we should all (including Harold) stay silent until Harold produces the documentation he promised he would get on Sunday (5/20/01).


Harold, if you want nonjudgemental advice on historical documentation, call (or go) to any of these local historical societies and they can advise you. Trust me, there is nothing that old historical society people like better than "educating" some young kid. Just put on your "bambi" eyes and look ernest (and be VERY polite). They'll love you for it. Historical documentation is NOT an easy subject. Good luck!

50 Pitman Ave
Ocean Grove, NJ 07756
(732) 774-1869

5th & Warren Ave
Spring Lake, NJ 07762
(732) 449-0772

27 Prospect Ave
Atlantic Highlands, NJ 07716
(732) 291-1861

Leonardville Rd
Leonardo, NJ 07737
(732) 291-2835


[This message has been edited by Aaron (edited 05-18-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Aaron (edited 05-18-2001).]

At this point, I'm very tempteed to register as Harold von Munchausen and post a list of semi-plausible book titles and page numbers, but JT asked us not to do that sort of stuff, so I won't.

I could also post what the People in Clown Paint think of Harold's version of documentation, but that would be even worse.

So I'll just say: Feh.

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<B>Gundobad,
Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day
Wise Ogre Armory T-shirts & more</B>

There are three kinds of people - commonplace men, remarkable men and lunatics - Mark Twain

A position worth taking, is worth defending.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Rhia:
<B>Juliana,

that book (Le Roman de la Rose) is an allegory of love and its fullfilment through search, quests and other deeds--the illustrations are not reflecting everyday reality whatsoever...
We need to pay attention to the context of images when doing historical research--that's one of the reasons I do not like 'picture books' or 'coffee table books' or the Victorian survey books that much...images are completely out of their original surroundings, and in very rare cases are any explanations given about these.
Just my perpetual rant...

Take care,
Rhia
</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I absolutely agree. But I have also found that many of the original images shown of women doing unusual crafts and activities that are traditionally male can be eventually documented by court records and the like. Manuscript images are not final documentation by any means, but pictoral evidence often leads me to believe that possible further investigation might be fruitful. When coupled with the information Chef provided above - his list of various crafts which require forgework in a very narrow time period and place from a single book, it would lead me to believe that the concept of a female apprentice blacksmith has some conjectural plausibility and _might_ be documentable with further research. This doesn't mean that it WILL be proven, just that each piece of evidence gives more clues as to where to look.

My intention was not to say that the pictures were documentation, but only that they might provide some clues. I should have clarified that.

Another point would be that modern living history enthusiasts often classify all forgework as blacksmithing, bladesmithing or armoury, when historically there were many subdivisions of specialists doing forgework - locksmiths, basinsmiths, coppersmiths, nailmakers, etc...

Julie

Thanks for those local listings. I did not say they are compiled during the guilds history. They have assured me that they have proof of women blacksmiths. So we will see

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They call him Bear,

Harold der Bär

Hi Harold,

This does get tiresome. The original question Glen asked you is -

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The female armour/blacksmith was awesome and period. I do 1800's reinactment as well and we blacksmiths of the period have period proof of female blacksmiths through out history."

Please provide documentation that there were female armourers in the Medieval/Renaissance period.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Do not dodge the original question. "Proving" (if you indeed have proof forthcoming) that women may have been smiths in colonial America emphaticaly does NOT "prove" that there were female armourers, or even female blacksmiths in Medieval Europe. That is equivelant to saying "I have proof men wore fedoras in the 1950's, ergo they must have worn them in the 17th century".



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Bob R.