Blacksmiths are highly regarded in the 15th century. They play a vital role in any village and especially during the ‘War the Roses’ period. The blacksmith would have endless jobs to do, often waking early to light the forge and working the whole day long. Keeping the forge lit at an incredibly high temperature is no easy job and often takes two people working non-stop to pump the bellows.
We have large bellows that use a long wooden pole to ensure maximum efficiency. Its hot and physical work you don’t really want to exert more energy than you need to. To give you some idea of the heat, we can set a large cauldron of water on the forge to boil and it will take less than a few minutes, certainly a lot less time than a modern kettle or saucepan on a stove.
Paul uses rods of steel that he heats up in the forge, usually in the middle where the fire is at its hottest. He keeps them there a few moments until they glow red. He makes this look so easy but leaving them there too long and the steel will be useless. Not long enough and it will shatter. Once out of the heat Paul has a short time to bend, hammer, mould, twist and turn before having to return it to the heat.
Paul’s understanding of just what can be achieved is boundless. He creates the most stunning examples of steel work to be seen, please feel free to take a look at one of the events.
During times of battle Paul is commissioned by our lord, Walter Devereux, to make arrow heads and mend armour. Paul can make a long bodkin very quickly and within 5 minutes he has one made fully, another one in the heat and a third beginning to take shape. We have many examples of this process and we would be delighted to demonstrate and talk you through the process. Mending the armour after a lucky, or unlucky, scrape takes quite a lot of Pauls time. The rivets that are used to hold all the pieces in place and allow movement are really quite fiddly. One thing a mobile blacksmith wouldn’t have been able to do would be to make swords. These require a much bigger forge for starters. The process of making a fine reliable blade would take months of laminating (adding layers of steel), heating, hammering, smoothing and so on. Noble men and knights are judged by the design, make and condition of their swords, so you’d want some care and attention given to the blade, you certainly wouldn’t want it to break on its first outing. Often swords were named, what name might you give to a sword if you had one?
