Medieval German Heat Treat

Tyson A Wright

Tyson A Wright

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Here's a series of blog posts looking at how medieval German heat treating was done. The source text is Ms 3227a.

Those of you familiar with Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) might know this manuscript as the "Döbringer", but the swordfighting bits are only one part of the document - a Hausbuch like that would have chapters on lots of subjects, including magic, medicine, a recipe for mead, metallurgy, etc.

Here are the posts:
Post 1
Post 2
Post 3
Post 4

-Tyson
 
I will have to look at it more in depth later. The discussion of crystal structures in Part 3 is incorrect (from the author not the medieval Germans). He’s confusing carbon and iron atom positions.
 
It’s amazing what was accomplished by “midieval man”. Just this past week I watched a PBS program where scientists were trying to replicate the gilded armor from ancient times that would achieve results similar to the original equipment and if I remember correctly, the modern attempt tooK better than 18 months to produce a comparable breastplate.
Hats off to our ancestors, they might not have been “educated”, as we understand it, but they certainly weren’t stupid. Heck, they had a better understanding of what it took to make a useable knife or sword than some makers in our own time. Enjoyed the read!
 
john april said:
have you tried the techniques to see if they actually work ?
Click to expand...
No, and I probably never will. My assumption is that the techniques work or they wouldn't have written them down. But I also assume two other things: 1. they probably don't work as well or as consistently as more modern approaches; 2. there is a huge difference between the original techniques and my ability to correctly interpret and execute them. If I heat treat something this way and it fails, that's probably more on me than on the historical approach.

It's worth noting that the authors of those blog posts make some of the finest reproduction swords in the world. And their swords get used hard - my main blunt trainer was made by them and has taken a lot of abuse in both drilling and sparring and is still in great shape. And these guys don't use historical techniques to heat treat their swords - they use modern heat treating approaches. So I don't think they're advocating for this, any more than I am by posting it here. I just thought some here might find it interesting.

But if somebody with skills wants to try this, I'd love to hear what they learn from it!

-Tyson
 
I seem to remember the Ulfbehrt Viking sword documentary had steel assessed in a modern lab, and they were surprised how good it was, not modern steel clean, but quite good.
 
Interesting read. I wonder how they came up with some of this stuff. Did they methodically test hundreds of different ways before settling on "Human blood works, but only if you let it sit out until the water separates"? Was pig's blood tested? Who thought of peeing on a blade? Based on the magic formulas (5V, 66v-67r) also contained in the book that can be found here, I wonder if they really used the scientific method...
 
So on the urine use issue...

I know for a fact that the Romans and some mideaval european folks used urine (uric acid) to clean their laundry, so I'm sure that collecting it for another purpose wouldn't have been to big of a chore...

In big cities there would be allot of human waste around and probably easy enough, albeit unpleasant, to collect.
 
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