If your breastplates are Dutch and of the dates you give, they would have
been made during the latter phase of the Dutch War of Independence. There
was a blockade on trade from the south, which rules out Liege or the
Rhineland as a source. Liege had certainly long been using blast furnaces
and Walloon forges. Louis de Geer and other Dutch residents were
responsible from 1615 for greatly expanding the Swedish iron industry, and
introducing the Walloon process to the area north of Stockholm. This
coincides with a considerable increase in the shipment of iron through the
Sound (out of the Baltic) in Dutch vessels (and presumably to Dutch ports).
This is likely to be the main source of iron for the United Provinces in
this period. Indeed it is quite possible that the breastplates were made in
Sweden.
On the other hand, if the breastplates were of south German origin, they
would no doubt be made of local iron or of Styrian steel (from Austria).
Peter King
-----Original Message-----
From: Arch-Metals Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Sylvia Leever
Sent: 25 January 2005 17:01
To: Peter King
Subject: Armour production in 17th century
Hello all,
I have a question about 17th century armour production. I'm doing some
research into the quality of two breastplates (one from ca. 1630 and one
from ca. 1650) and I was wondering what is known about the armour
production in that time. Does anyone have references to any book or
article that discusses this matter? Or does anyone know by heart what,
how and why? (or has some good foundations on which an assumption can be
based?)
Specifically I would like to know whether (hot) milling was already in
practice for making plates, or that only (water powered) hammering was
applied to flatten pieces of iron (or steel, but that seems to be out of
(common) use in the seventeenth century). I assume now that the iron
that was used for armour was made in a blast furnace followed by a
finery process, or was bloomiron still more common around 1630-1650? The
breastplates I have are presumably made in Germany and Holland, though
it is likely, especially in the latter case that the iron was produced
elsewhere, and maybe was even delivered as plates of indefinate
thickness to the armourworkshops. I know that the dutch republic was a
very large producing and exporting centre for weapons and arms in the
17th century.
Is anything known about these practises?
I have put some results on my research on a website, for those
interested, also people who can help me with the stylistic dating of the
breastplates, that would be appreciated.
The site: http://www.materials.tudelft.nl/breastplate/index.htm
Thanks,
Sylvia
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