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E N G L I S H S U M M A R Y
1 83
were the true Swedish patterns but European
arms o f varying provenance stored in the
fortresses.
Under Christian VI (
1730
-
1746
), the sword-
cutlers continued to work for the armoury,
but the different types o f military swords o f
the period cannot be distinguished with any
certainty from each other, as many were
altered under the following kings. The brass-
hilted types now seem to gain ground, but a
new type o f iron-hilted broad-swords is men
tioned in
17 3 3
-
34
, and, in
174 5
, some hun
dreds o f them were repaired.
The reign o f King Frederik V (
1746
-
1766
)
brought a single contractor, namely Johan
Christian Herrig, to prominence. Although
this single man delivered military side-arms on
a hitherto unknown scale, there was at the
same time a tendency to experiment with
blade-manufacture and so to become inde
pendent o f the sword-cutlers’ supplies. Herrig
probably imported his blades and may have
contracted with his colleagues, the other
sword-cutlers o f Copenhagen, to furnish them
w ith hilts and scabbards. Plate
12
shows a
broadsword o f which specimens exist with
the marks o f N . C. Plockross, Peter Meis and
Matthias Johansen Hoy who were among
eight sword-cutlers who, in
175 9
, delivered
1403
new broadswords. It is not quite clear
whether this delivery should be credited to
Herrig or whether they had been specially
contracted for by the sword-cutlers’ guild.
In the years
175 7
-
63
, Herrig delivered a
large number o f a new type o f side-arm, the
“ sabre” , which was a single-edged, slightly
curved soldier’s sword inspired by those used
by the Prussians under Frederik the Great.
The new regiment o f light cavalry raised in
17 6 2
, the hussars, were given longer sabres.
Plate
13
is probably one o f them; the hilt is
marked by Peter Meis, the blade was prob
ably replaced at a later date. Herrig left Co
penhagen in the mid
1760
’s leaving his work
shop to his stepson, Peter Weidenhaupt, to
whom is attributed the “ yellow officer’s small
sword” (Plate
7
,
4
) delivered in
1 7 7 7
.
B y that time the manufacture o f swords had
been mostly transferred from the sword-
cutlers to the factories and the poorer mem
bers o f the guild certainly felt their existence
endangered and their trade a declining one.
ch a pter
6
THE GUILD IN THE l8TH CENTURY
To tell the complete story o f the sword-
cutlers’ guild is impossible because its records
are lost. Notwithstanding, it has proved pos
sible to reconstruct ta fairly reliable list o f its
members in the
1 8
th century from other offi
cial sources, and this list could be checked with
the number o f sword-cutlers in those years
for which the official reports about the guilds
o f Copenhagen survive. Furthermore, a great
deal o f material for the period
17 15 -2 2
sur
vives in the records o f the local courts, as it
was a period o f fierce quarrels within the
guild.
The number o f master sword-cutlers at
different times confirms the general impres
sion we have gained about the rise and fall o f
the sword-cutler’s craft. It reached its peak
with
22
masters in
1 7 1 0
, but the plague-year
1 7 1 1
reduced them to
1 4
. The great fire o f
1728
left undamaged those districts where
most o f the sword-cutlers lived, but their
number fell to an average o f
10
-
1 1
. In
1764
there were
1 2
, but a steady decline now set in.
In the last three decades o f the century their
number varied between
6
and
8
. The British
assault in
1801
and the constant menace o f
war in the following years seems to have en
couraged a few journeymen o f the trade to
take out their licences, but the success o f the
knife and sword manufacture at Frederiks-