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in favour o f the guilds as such, although the state authorities often had to tolerate them. In the field o f arms production in particular the theory o f mercantilism was favourable to home-supplies, the importance o f which in case o f war was evident. Christian III had for this reason established a Royal Armoury in Copenhagen, and, in 1604 , Christian IV com­ pleted a new Armoury building in which gunsmiths and sword-cutlers had their work­ shops. In the same w ay an armoury was built at Elsinore where one W illum Hermansen is mentioned as sword-cutler to the King in 16 2 5 . The sword-cutler who, in 16 36 , ob­ tained a passport from Elsinore to Nykøbing from Prince Christian, the King Elect, may have been Johan Willumsen, probably a son o f W illum Hermansen; a few years later, in any case, Johan Willumsen worked for the Prince at Nykøbing. It is not known whether W illum Herman­ sen at Elsinore was a foreigner. Many crafts­ men were summoned to Denmark under Fre­ derik II and Christian IV, among them the following sword-cutlers: Ambrosius van Brunsvig mentioned 1 5 7 2 - 8 1 , Hans von Nürnberg 15 7 6 , the w idow o f Lamoral van Wessel 159 7 and Pieter van Bassa 15 9 3 . Between 1596 and 1644 the name Anders Kohl occurs very frequently in the accounts, covering a period o f so many years that we must infer that there were at least two gene­ rations o f sword-cutlers w ith the same name. They may have belonged to the wellknown Solingen fam ily o f smiths. From 1642 the sword-cutler Marcus Kopper, a German by birth, worked for Prince Christian at N ykø­ bing; he represents the first o f four genera­ tions in that family. The sort o f work delivered by the sword- cutlers can also be deduced from the accounts, and it is astonishing how much o f their skill and energy was spent upon simple repair

w ork to hilts and scabbards, the grinding o f blades, gilding o f nails and other trifling af­ fairs. N ow and then costly pieces with hilts o f gold, silver and enamel are also mentioned, although many o f the very finest swords were furnished by goldsmiths. In some cases a sword-cutler may have made the hilt o f iron and passed it on to the goldsmith who under­ took the gilding, enamelling and jeweller’s work. An attempt was made in 16 13 by Christian IV to relieve the restrictions placed upon pro­ duction by the guilds, which he in that year ordered to be abolished. This does not seem to have stopped their activity, for, in 1 6 2 1 , they regained their licences and proceeded to maintain themselves as institutions o f consid­ erable influence. In the follow ing period the sword-cutlers seem in some cases to have submitted separate petitions, although they were still members o f the guild o f smiths. Thus, in 16 37 and 1 6 4 1 , they complained that foreign dealers were encroaching on their rights to sell swords. The different working conditions for sword- cutlers and other members o f the guild o f smiths may have been one o f the reasons that moved the sword-cutlers to apply for a guild o f their own. Other smiths required for their work only a supply o f crude iron, whereas the sword-cutler could not w ork without blades, which had to be imported or made in special factories. Actually, some simple sword blades may have been produced by a factory for scythe blades which had been established under Christian IV , and it is known that swords were delivered to the Crown from the factory at Brobyværk in Funen, founded CHAPTER 2 THE SWORD-CUTLERS FORM A SEPARATE GUILD