A simple 14th century knife sheath

This sheath was made as part of my participation in the Atlantian Persona Development Challenge.

I have a simple scale-handled knife that is appropriate enough for my persona, and I even made a sheath for it previously. I never tooled or dyed it, though, so I thought a new sheath might be in order!

Extant sheaths from York¹ and London² (not to scale).

I modeled this sheath off of two extant sheathes – one from 13th/14th century York¹, and one from early/mid-14th century London². The overall form and most of the decoration is based on the London knife, but the fleur-de-li is from the York knife.

To shape the sheath, I wrapped my knife in tape and folded leather around it, then compressed it with two boards with cut-outs for the handle. Once it was dry, I trimmed the leather, added a thin welt to protect the stitching, and stitched it closed with linen thread. The tooling with done with a simple woodcarving knife, and the sheath was stained with the walnut dye I used on my pouch. A sheepskin thong secures the sheath to a belt.

Wet-forming the leather around the knife

The wet-formed leather before being trimmed to shape

A functional but plain sheath, stitched with linen thread

Simple tooling, done with a craft knife

References

1. Mould, Quita, Carlisle, Ian, and Cameron, Esther. “15886” in Leather and Leatherworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York, The Archaeology of York 17, 1998. p. 3386-3388
2. Cowgill, J. , de Neergaard, M., and Griffiths, N. “416” in Knives and Scabbards (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 1), 2008. p. 135, 137