I love how Tod could have just dunked the sword under water, but no, he dunked himself in at the same time. Does it make the experiment any more valid? Not really, but I can't help but admire the dedication.

It actually makes a lot of sense for knives and swords to be made by multiple people in medieval times. If you are going to outfit an army, then instead of a single person makeing one entire sword maybe every two days, it would be faster for someone to be churning out blades all day while another person churns out handles and another scabbards, all to be assembled by another person elsewhere. It's kinda like an assembly line.

I spend a lot of time working in the bush (not just strolling, doing actual work), and I always have a big knife on my side (blade about 16"). When I watch those videos about how medieval people used to do stuff, a lot of it is still applicable for when you do actual physical labour in difficult contexts. Having your knife tightly bound to your hip is very annoying. It gets caught on everything, and then you get caught. If you let it hang loosely, it will get caught on stuff but will free itself as you move.

Really appreciate how you don't romanticise old craftsmen but also show respect and understanding for the work they did, they were people just like us and they weren't stupid, they just had their own priorities and needs.

You heard it here, boyos. If it is too tight when it gets wet, it becomes a two hand operation.

My grandfather before getting drafted he was advised by his war veteran father " never let your knife bloody in the scabbard and your revolver get wet in the holster"
He found out why the hard way when he tried to remove his revolver from the holster and the gun was just refusing to unstuck
He really got lucky, because the opponent just started uncontrollably laughing finding it very amusing and told him just to walk away from them 😏

Naval swords have had a little folding clip on them to retain the blade in the scabbard since the 1700s, even if it ends up upside down.  Also means the scabbard can be relatively loose. Wonder if there were any such features in the mediaeval times?

Its not medieval, but I have an Iranian shamshir circa 1600 with an original scabbard which is extremely tight - even accounting for shrinkage and warp over time, it is fitted VERY well despite the deep curve of the sword. Other swords I have are quite loosely fitted despite being "good" quality scabbards made specifically for that sword - such as one of my Kilic. It varies, quite a lot, even for the recent stuff.

I think that last few seconds shows that it was probably likely that swords and knives went through multiple sheaths/scabbards. You wouldn't want to carry that sword in that sheath, so get another one. Maybe on a knife it gets wet and tight and even your draw it, the leather is cut. Now you get a new one...

That is exactly one of the scenes i love from Gladiator ... Maximus is able to kill the Praetorian because he couldn't draw his sword due to frost sticking the blade to the scabbard. Genius.

I think the importance of being able to retrieve any blade one-handed is often under-appreciated, if not completely overlooked... whether it's carried for self-defense or as a tool. I have a lot of knives (pocket and fixed blade) and the ones I carry are almost always ones I can pull out and start using with one hand. It's just frustrating having to put something down or stop what you're doing to fumble around with a folding knife that requires both hands or pull a blade from a sheath that's too tight...

I love these little bits of experimental archaeology - it's always interesting. Never giving us absolute answers, but always adding valuable data points! On this particular point, I can honestly imagine guys arguing about things like this in the pub. One walks in with his new dagger and starts showing off how tightly it fits in his new sheath; and his friend responds by going on about how, "after my da' came back from fighting those bastards over the border, he always said blah blahblah blah blahblahblah...."

I never considered it before, but it makes sense that multiple craftsmen would be making the various components of swords and knives. It was a cottage industry much as was found throughout the world for literal ages.

Also, bravo to Tod for sacrificing his personal comfort for research and for our entertainment. Thank you!

For everyone musing on pre-soaking of leather scabbards, the leather is almost always pre-wetted during manufacture, simply because you need the leather to stretch a little as you stitch it so it has a tight fit over the wooden core. The tightening issues  arent just about the leather on a scabbard, but rather how the wood core swells when wet and presses on the blade. So soaking a newly made scabbard again after its finished would probably be a bit redundant, since it wont keep the wood from swelling as humidity changes

So, idea, what if medieval scabbards were made loose like that on purpose for WHEN they get wet so that they would fit properly when they do? What if you were expected to grab a sheath that kinda fit pretty good and were expected to water treat it so that it would then tighten up slightly and mold itself around the blade some? What if they pre water treated the scabbards before selling them so that it wouldn't get too tight?

Very interesting.
Given that you prove the change and binding is so immediate and obvious, it would have to follow that ALL of the campaigning men would be well aware of the issue. They probably thought close fitting scabbards were a stupid idea that would last just as long as it didn't rain.

I will throw some counterarguments to the idea of loose scabbards, especially in case of daggers. So I do HEMA longsword sparring, almost always with a dagger. I've had a couple mounting systems during my years of HEMA, after a while I've started trying out historical options. Whenever I was using a loose scabbard and any kind of loose thong system I pretty often lost my dagger during the fight. The solution was usually to either use a more secure mounting system (like thongs looped over in front of the scabbard - this holds the dagger pretty securely, it creates a loop for a belt almost like on modern scabbards) or to use a tighter scabbard. So this could indicate that even historically they would do either loose scabbard or loose mounting, but not both - as much as I can take the argument that running or doing physical activities with a "fully loose" dagger isn't a problem, I can't believe anyone would ever stick to that kind of a carrying method after learning from experience that they are quite likely to loose a dagger during a fight.
The other point I would make is that I've learned that people often try to take my own dagger and use it against me. When the scabbard is tight I can usually pull it out rather fast and easily if I do it the right way - pulling with a decisive upward motion. The correct angle is key here - in case of a tighter scabbard my opponents usually couldn't take my own dagger, because their pulling angle in any reasonable fighting scenario was limited, so they oculdn't execute the straight up motion that and an owner of a weapon can.
Overall I would argue that tight dagger scabbards/sheaths were probably a thing, was it a majority? Im not going to make any assumptions here, but based on my fighting experience with a longsword and dagger I would rather have a tighter scabbard.

Now  there are two caveats here:
- the dagger I use is a sparring blunt blade and it isn't balanced like a real dagger, its heavier toward the handle, this can impact how likely it is that the dagger falls out of a scabbard
- I'm completely ignoring the moisture/wheather argument here which could play a bigger part in choosing the carry method than I think.

Dunked in a river, then rained on all night? That poor man-at-arms is probably freezing to death, and a tight scabbard is the least of his worries if he has to fight in the morning.

0:00 I can tell that this video is going to create an interesting discussion. 😄

Since leather shrinks and hardens after being soaked, especially with hot water, it may give us a hint of how they fitted scabbards to the individual blades and how they got away with using only one layer of leather.