Optio asked: “Question if I may please? Does anyone know when scissors (roughly as we know them today) came into common use as opposed to shears (like the springy ones we always see in junk shops), were they in common use in 14-15C?”
We do see scissors and shears used for different tasks in the 14th and 15th centuries, just as the two different items are still available today. So here are some examples of scissors:
- Scissors from the Serçe Limani shipwreck
- Scissors from Viking-age Sweden
- Scissors from Wüsten Schloß, Oschatz), c. 1000-1250
- St. Francis of Assisi, The Taymouth Hours (Yates Thompson 13, fol. 180v), 2nd quarter of the 14th century
- An arm from a pair of cast copper-alloy scissors, found on the Isle of Wight, c. 1350-1450; and another arm from a pair of cast copper-alloy scissors found in Cambridgeshire, c. 1350-1450
- Linen clothing (fol. 94v) and silk clothing (fol. 95) in the Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF NAL 1673), c. 1390-1400
- A pair of scissors from medieval Sweden
- Scissors from 15th century London
- Drapers sell cloth, The Schachzabelbuch of Konrad von Ammenhausen (Stuttgart WLB cod. poet. 2, fol. 199v), 1467
- Paulina, De mulieribus claris (BNF Fr. 599, fol. 77v), 15th-16th century
