Monday the 26th of Five members of the Boar’s Tooth and our guest Paul Binns, travelled to the Museum of London to look at one of their lesser known secret collections….
Jon, Paul Binns, Owen Bush, Steve, Ed & Hazel.
The trip came about almost by chance while chatting with Hazel Forsyth, she revealed that the museum holds the largest collection of fighting knives in the country…in case you didn’t hear that, I said THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF FIGHTING KNIVES IN THE COUNTRY!!!
And they were very happy to let us look at it…
That may look like a box of files but…
Many of these knives are river finds, bought in to the museum by mudlarks (not the birds, a society under licence from the Port of London Authority, who are allowed to dig and detect along the shores of the Thames), but also from the many excavations of our ever changing London, and they have several wonderful things about them. Firstly, even the seaxes that at first glance looked liked nothing more than a box of broken files, showed so many subtle and unique variations, so many little nuanced blade shapes( a real full bowie knife clip reversal on one) that you really begin to get a feel for the pride that the smith put into his work, and also for the desires of his client. That as Owen said, the more you look at a blade of a certain type, the more you realise there is no certain type, the lines become blurred as desire and function dictate to create unique and amazing items.
Of course this is too big for a left handed dagger…. Silver would be proud, huge, heavy and very practical.
Secondly, how culturally diverse London has always been, with styles and variations from many miles beyond our shores blending with what we may consider, bland and homely.
It Looks simple, look closely at the pommel and blade
items such as the knife below stand out for their apparent simplicity, looking at very much like a kitchen knife, till you look at the bodkin tip and realise the wielder of this blade had more in mind than cutting carrots when he ordered this piece.
Unless before tin foil, chickens wore chain mail.
Of course one other thing that made this trip special, was the insight that Phill, Owen and Steve (our smiths in residence), bought to the table, though I’m not sure why they so happy, that the fact they found so much evidence for forge welding going on.
Although I appreciate their fine work even more having witnessed the little imperfections and “finishes” you find on almost all medieval blades:)
there were many other little insights that actually made viewing the less intact pieces a delight and learning experience in themselves, but… those are things I’ll tell on another day, I’ll leave you with this my favourite blade of the day, and hidden in the last drawer we opened.
Thanks once more to Hazel Forsythe for her immense patience, and to the chaps that came along.
And if you go to London, go to the Museum of London, understated and lacking the grandeur of other more highly profiled museums, it is a fantastic resource, with a positive approach to genuine enquiries, go there and learn.
