Rome vs Japan

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

WARNING:

Big post-modern art history rant ahead!! Turn back now! You have been warned.

LOL

Now I'm not a metal expert, but I have been told that the 16th C. was the era of greatest sword making in Europe.

To compare, a katana is pattern welded from many different varieties of iron in laminations. The edge and core, as well as the spine are all made up of various pattern-welded steels that are best suited to that part of the weapon. The spine is flexible and the edge is harder, right where it needs to be. We know exactly how this is done, and it is very impressive.

When we look at a comparable 16th C. sword from Toledo (NOT Ohio) we see a very different weapon. No pattern welding, one solid piece of steel that somehow, and this is amazing, varies in hardness and carbon content over the length of the blade. The edge is hard high carbon steel, the core, more flexible and lower in carbon. Even the crystalline structure varies across the blade, tight where it needs to be hard and sharp, long where it needs flexibility.

How do you do this?!! Modern smiths have replicated this...somewhat... by varying forge and metal tempature, "cold"-forging, and other techniques.

OK, as Spanish and former estudioso of old XV-XVII two sword (rapier based) Spanish fencing (destreça de las armas) from original books on the subject (which is a fascinating and fortunate fact by itself!) I'll add my little contribution.

Effectively, XVI C. was probably the peak of the sword-making craft on Europe. All Toledo, Sheffield and Soringen are quoted as the most important sword-making sites, and their reputation was probably about right: a Spanish rapier (done either in Toledo or Albacete, or in Solingen (after king Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, father of famous Phillip II, things Spanish and German were pretty intermingled for a century or two) were of superb craftsmanship, able to cut a "sweet" iron bar from a single cut, but also able to sustain the strain of being bended until the tip of the blade touched the pommel without being deformed or broken... Despite this, they had an admirable twisting resistance, so they didn't swirl easily as late, silly dueling sables would do (after a while it's more like a sharp whip instead of a single-edged sword, but I digress)...

The problem about studying further likeable techniques with these swords is that most tests are destructive in nature, and no museum in its own judgement would destroy a sword on purpose! Despite the lack of ritual (when compared to their Japanese counterparts) European swordsmiths also had lots of "magical" formulae and tricks to measure temperature, time, carbon and other materials compositions (by using different temperatures in water, different kinds of woods and carbons for their forges and using different types of clay and mud to tamper with different parts of the blades and control what happened when and where). The guilds structure also favoured oral transmission over written works, and one can honestly wonder how many smiths would have been able to write, anyway... Swordplay was of importance to noblemen, who wrote and did so profusely; sword making was hot, dirty work completely unfit to upper classes... Again we are victims of History.

Another fascinating fact about the swords, anyway, was their endurance: those swords managed to resist heat, humidity and other aggressive factors like hands and leather and whatnot without stain; while we know the katana is really fragile to fingering and other staining features (the blade is basically permanently oiled, surely due to high iron, and relatively low carbon, content of its steel). I've watched lots of swords in museums around Spain, and many of them bear visible marks of heavy use, however the steel is only slightly stained. While I am all too eager to recognize the ability of museum curators and their teams to recover swords and other hoplological devices, I wouldn't put a lot of faith in the money or time spent in conservation or weapons, while pendants, armour and other kind of medieval and renaissance gadgets are available: spectacular is spectacular is spectacular... and a poor sword cannot compete with a whole body court armor of infant king (put name in here) or baptism dress of queen (do the same)... sigh

Anyway, romanticism is about close times being lost, and certainly XVI C. swordsmanship is pretty far away... Let's hope the recent/soon to be released movie about Javier Pérez Reverte's Captain Alatriste (centered in XVII C.) will sprout some kind of revival in the interest about all this...

Anyway, nice postmodern entry, Travis... :-) )

thanks!