malins
Stumbling Seeker
So.... I had to research that.
As usual, that always leads to interesting results. (Only one of them is relevant to Death...)
That's from the Breviarium Grimani 1510; at http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2009/06/05/making-hay/ there's an example of the curve-handled scythe from a 1408 depiction. Though the curved handle isn't essential, there certainly are straighhandled scythes.It's always hard to judge the technical accuracy of medieval illustrations,that problem has been encountered before on the forum...
But without the angled blade, you get an entirely different tool. You just can't use it like you do a 'modern' scythe, so when did we get something like the 'modern' scythe?
What I've found on it mostly states that for harvesting grain, the scythe started being used in the 1300's; the universal tool for grain-harvesting before was the sickle, and in fact the sickle was never completely replaced everywhere right up till automation.
[1] says, At the end of the thirteenth century, new forging theories allowed the blade to be tilted, and that only afterwards was 'the scythe' used for anything else than making hay. This implies that a tool with a straight-mounted blade existed before, but was only used for haymaking; even for that it couldn't be used in the classic scything motion though.
[2] also places the expansion of scythe use at beginning with the 1300's and continuing for centuries.
So it would seem that the scythe began spreading after the angled blade was introduced, and the 'modern scythe' probably derives from the late 13th/early 14th century.
It's pointed out in all sources I found that that the scythe wastes more grain but harvests more quickly and needs less amount of labor and thus provisions, but more skilled and dedicated labor, than the sickle. The scythe also doesn't cope well with uneven, rocky land or beaten-down stalks.
So subsistence agriculture with marginal yields, were every grain had to be collected, plots were small and labor unskilled or undedicated, favored the sickle.
Larger, better managed fields, that produced for markets or export, and use of dedicated or even hired labor, favored the scythe.
[1] also gives later examples how the use of the scythe related to the transition to export-oriented agriculture in the late 15th/early 16th century, shown by the example of Lolland.
Also situations where there was not enough labor available favored hiring migrant workers with the scythe (for instance during the recovery period after the Black Death).
And that's interesting, because these people existed -
'Reapers' who would arrive as strangers at the time of harvests...
wanderers with scythes over their shoulder
... and they would only come when the time was right for cutting... they would not sow, or participate with the other work, only reap.
it's not hard to see how a wandering stranger with a scythe who only comes to harvest might influence the Grim Reaper legend.
About making scythe blades, that wouldn't really be a village blacksmith's task.
A 1363 directory from Nuremberg lists "Sensenschmied" (scythe-smith) as a recognized occupation, it became a local surname. By the 15th century, guilds of scythe-smiths were established. [3]
Styria in Austria made lots of scythes. They had iron ore, forest for making charcoal, and plenty streams to provide the power for water-wheel driven trip hammers (late 1100s onward). Workshops dedicated to scythemaking are attested from the 13th century; the oldest one that's still standing is documented to the early 14th. From the 16th century 70 blades per day is documented for a workshop, and there were hundreds of them. They were exported far throughout Europe. Export of unfinished product was usually forbidden (guild secrets).
an old saying:
Wer de Leh köfft nach dem Klang, un de Fru nach de Gesang, ist betragn sin Leben lang
- old saying from Holstein which reminds a farmer that there are two things he needs to pick carefully in life, otherwise he'll regret it till the end of his days ... his scythe, and his wife
[1] Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe, Grenville G. Astill,John Langdon, page 24 / page 139-141
[2] Decision-Making in Medieval Agriculture, David Stone, p.250
[3] Bäuerliches Leben im Mittelalter: Schriftquellen und Bildzeugnisse, Siegfried Epperlein, p52-56
