The Medieval Roots of Colonial Iron Manufacture Technology

Introduction | Medieval Iron | Medieval Blacksmith | Colonial Iron | Colonial Blacksmith | Conclusion

The Blacksmith in Medieval Europe

The importance of the blacksmith in the Middle Ages cannot be overstated. Not only were his individual products invaluable, but also those that complimented the work of other craftsmen. Countless other craftsmen depended upon the blacksmith for the construction of their goods or performance of their craft, however the blacksmith depended on no other to complete his ware. Carpenters required nails, saws and hammers; masons, mallets, picks, wedges and chisels; carters and wagoners, iron axles and parts; millers, iron components of mill machinery; shipbuilders, nails and fittings. The medieval writer Ælfric of the eleventh century illustrated this dependence with a debate between teacher, student and workers:

A further testament to the magnitude of the craft, blacksmithing, as well as mining and smelting, was of great enough importance and profusion to warrant the control of the guild system. Around the twelfth century, guilds began to incorporate not only merchants, but significant craftsmen as well. Its primary concerns were to aid fellow members of the guild and their families, and to control production, including quality, working hours, prices, and wages. The guild also set up a hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters, and an educational system to teach the craft. Two period texts illustrate this practice. The first is the record of a standard indenture between apprentice and here, a master fisherman, from which we glean an understanding of the general expectations outlined in a apprenticeship contract:

And John Pentreath and Agnes his wife shall teach John Goffe the craft of fishing in the best way they know, chastising him duly, and finding him food, clothing and shoes as befits an apprentice. And at the end of the term aforesaid, John Goffe shall have of John Pentreath twenty shillings. [11]

The second is the report of an Italian who visited England around 1500:

Although recognized by both the guild and the community for the necessity of his craft, the medieval smith was rarely welcome as a neighbor. We find a considerable number of period texts complaining about the blacksmith. In London in 1397, smiths were asked by city officials to relocate because of "the great nuisance, noise, and alarm experienced in divers ways by neighbors around their dwellings." [13] Spurriers, blacksmiths specializing in spur-making, were apparently even less desirable neighbors, reputed to "wander about all day without working," get drunk, and be apt to "blowing up their fires so vigorously" that they blazed "to the great peril of themselves and the whole neighborhood." [14] The neighbors of a London armorer named Stephen atte Fryth even submitted a formal complaint against him in 1377, stating that "the blows of the sledge-hammer when the great pieces of iron…are being wrought into…armor, shake the stone and earthen party walls of the plaintiffs' house so that they are in danger of collapsing, and disturb the rest of the plaintiffs and their servants, day and night, and spoil the wine and ale in their cellar, and the stench of the smoke from the sea-coal used in the forge penetrates their hall and chambers". [15] Another period text in the alliterative style of Piers Plowman colorfully illustrates the great racket that so irritated the smith's neighbors:

In his Sermons, Berthold von Regensburg, a German friar of the mid-thirteenth century, also chastises the smith, among others, and clarifies for us the kind of indiscretion that was common during the period:

Although he was somewhat disliked by the community, no criticism could diminish the value of the blacksmith's trade, necessary to almost all other trades and abundant in the daily life of all classes.