Just back from holidays, so here’s a completely unrelated gallery of my pictures of medieval and early modern archery-related leatherwork from collections in Blighty. I’ll do posts on making copies of some of these later. I know ivory and tortise shell are cheating, although if challenged, I’ll claim they are still animal-derived materials.
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- English, early 16th C, British Museum MLA 1922,1-10,1
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- Tudor period archer’s bracer found in Worship Street, London. Museum of London.
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- Leather arrow spacer 1400-1500. Museum of London
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- Archer’s Bracer, Flemish, about 1620. Made from tortoiseshell and edged in silver. Royal Armouries, Leeds. XI.143
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- Flemish, about 1620. View from right side. XI.143
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- European, 17th century. Made of ivory, curved and tapered to the shape of the forearm. XI.94
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- Leather bracer embossed with the royal arms of Henry VIII. Mary Rose Museum, 1545.
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- Bracer, Mary Rose Museum 1545, similar to the MoL one
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- Two bracers, Mary Rose Museum 1545. The leather straps have torn away, probably at the rivet holes.
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- Bracer, Mary Rose Museum 1545
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- Ivory bracer with leather straps, Mary Rose Museum, 1545.
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- Arrow spacer, Mary Rose Museum 1545. I suspect this was for use with bodkin points.
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- Arrow spacer, Mary Rose Museum 1545
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- Left hand mitten, Mary Rose 1545. I’m going to be a bit contentious and suggest that as there were two, both left hand and bot associated with other archery equipment, these were to protect the bow hand when using fire-arrows.
The Reverend's Big Blog of Leather 
Great pics! Thanks for posting these up (and the specs as well- they’re one of the many things on my “projects I might eventually get around to” list too).
You know, I did a rectangular bracer with the “Y” strap a while back- don’t find it stays in place on my arm that well which is vexing. How do you find yours?
Cheers
Holly
sevenstarwheel.wordpress.com
I don’t have any problem with mine, it might be due to the fabric underneath. What are you wearing under it? I wear a mid 17th century felted wool suit.
Thank you for sharing your nice pics 🙂
…btw. I have a nice collection of museum pics here in Austria and Germany – also of some leather things as far as I remember…
my museum collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/collections/72157602008704784/
for example Austrian Treasury:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/2990119675/in/set-72157602018340363/
Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe – Hamburg:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/4118037011/in/set-72157622838857800/
…
I very much enjoy your blog.
Several of the items shown appear to be stamped. Have you come across anything on extant leather stamps from the period?
Hi James, stamping was a common method of decorating leather, pottery, metal and leatherwork. Prety much any object can be used as a stamp, as long as it’s hard enough to withstand the required use. I’m only aware of one extant stamp, a Viking period antler stamp in the shape of a cross – I think it’s from Hedeby. Regia Anglorum have an illustration of it on their site where it is identified as a pottery stamp. The address is http://www.regia.org/pottery.htm, it’s about half way down the page.
The shape of other stamps can be infered from the impression left on extant leather finds, I suspect stamps would be recut or reused when they wore out. That’s what I do with mine.
I’ll keep an eye out and post again if I find any.
Wayne
That first sentence is probably too much of a generalisation. Stamping wasn’t universally used, for example in the case of York, the earliest stamp decorated leather scabbards are from the 12th century (http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/archcom/projects/summarys/html98_9/cc2017b.htm) despite the ample number of earlier dated finds. Early decoration seems to have been embossing/incising only.
Wayne
Do you have any pictorial examples of embossing/incising? Say Viking, Anglo Saxon, Norman, or Roman York?
Hi Cat, there are a few examples from Anglo-Scandanavian York. I’ve left some pictures here, there are also the leather sheaths from Parliament Street, finds 753-5 published in YAT 17/4 Finds from Parliament Street and Other Sites in the City Centre. For Roman, there’s the Newstead finds in the National Museum of Scotland. Here’s a chamfron. Can’t say I know of any Norman examples.
For the “Bracer, Mary Rose Museum 1545, similar to the MoL one” do you happen to have the dimensions? James and I worked out a stamp in maple this evening for the scallops and I want to make sure I get the size right.
Thanks,
Matt
Matt, I don’t have the find number as the book is due to be published later this year (http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/37746). According to the Mary Rose Artefact Database, http://www.maryrose.org/database/mary_rose_archive.html, I think it is 80A0901, which makes it 126mm long and 140mm wide. None of the others have stamped ray decoration in the description.
If you still work in widths of long dead king’s thumbs, divide by 25.4. 😉
Wayne
I have finished the bracer.
Matt
Matt’s bracer photo is here along with a brief description of how they made the stamp.
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