Today Nathan and Craig drink some Japanese whiskey and complain about how AI is ruining everything. Well, not only complain. Knowledge about swords in contemporary society is influenced by a number of factors, and those have changed substantially over the years. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century popular knowledge about swords was filtered through Victorian understandings of the past, which were deeply influenced by the Renaissance idea that the medieval period was irrational and brutish, and so they tended to view medieval practices through that lens.
Since the mid-twentieth century writers and researchers such as Ewart Oakeshott, David Edge, and Lee Jones produced significant insights based on examination of the artifacts while trying to be honestly engage with the medieval period (which was also happening in academic investigations of the medieval period on its own terms, from history to archaeology to philology. More recently Historical European Martial Arts and the recreation of medieval martial techniques from period sources has provided new ways of testing and experimenting with how swords were used and expected to work in the period. Today, however, there is a profusion of derivative ‘knowledge’ that comes from influencers of various degrees of expertise, and now from AI generated content with opaque relationship to what we might call ‘truth’.
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As always, our swords and other weapons are entirely made by us, by hand, at our shop in Minneapolis, MN. Sword blades are hand ground of 6150 carbon steel, hardened and tempered to 50-52 Rockwell. All of our products are made to look, feel, and function just like the historical originals on which they are based. Arms and Armor is dedicated to quality and authenticity. For over four decades we have worked with museums, collectors, and scholars around the world to develop a deep understanding of European weapons; knowledge we use to make products that exemplify the finest qualities of the very best historic pieces. When we select historic items to reproduce, being pretty isn’t enough, they have to move with grace and beauty, and beg to be used when in the hand. These are pieces that feel as good as they look, and that work as well as they feel. Our mission is to craft items that recreate the look, feel, and function of the best historic originals.
A truly idiotic probably AI generated meme misrepresenting the work of our friend Peter Johnson…
Nathan Clough, Ph.D. is President of Arms and Armor and a member of the governing board of The Oakeshott Institute. He is a historical martial artist and a former university professor of cultural geography. He has given presentations on historical arms at many HEMA events including Longpoint, SoCal Swordfight, and WMAW, and presented scholarly papers at, among others, The International Congress on Medieval Studies.
Craig Johnson is the Production Manager of Arms and Armor and Secretary of The Oakeshott Institute. He has taught and published on the history of arms, armor and western martial arts for over 30 years. He has lectured at several schools and Universities, WMAW, HEMAC, 4W, and ICMS at Kalamazoo. His experiences include iron smelting, jousting, theatrical combat instruction and choreography, historical research, European martial arts and crafting weapons and armor since 1985
