Medieval Style Spoon

[Kepis]

I received a commission the other day to make a wooden spoon in the Medieval style, the client didn't want an exact copy of something in a museum and just simply gave me the brief to "carve one in the Tudor style", so that's what i tried to do.

The spoon is based upon Medieval pewter spoons that i have seen in museums and some of the books i have here, but also incorporates features that I've seen on Medieval wooden spoons at places like the Mary Rose and some of our local museums, many Medieval spoons had what they call "Knops" on the end of the handle, but rather than try to carve one of these, i decided to just taper the handle down along it's length, another feature of Medieval spoons is the large bowl and small handle both in length and diameter, despite this, this spoon still retains the strength of the wood, the handle also per others i have seen, is hexagonal in section.

The spoon still needs a little bit of tidy up work doing to it before it goes off, but I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

 

[Mesquite]

Lovely bit of carving there Kepis

What wood did you use?

 

[Kepis]

Lovely bit of carving there Kepis

What wood did you use?

Cheers mate, the wood i used was a nice piece of fresh cut Poplar, lovely stuff to carve

 

[Badger74]

Apart from the knop on the end, it looks just like my pewter replica. Nice one

 

[Kepis]

Apart from the knop on the end, it looks just like my pewter replica. Nice one

Phew, nice to know that, thanks

 

[kodiakjoe]

really nice spoon Kepis, top job the hexagonal idea is interesting.

Glad to hear poplar is a good carver as i've a big chunk in my back yard waiting to be whittled

 

[robin wood]

Nice spoon. I actually find most medieval wooden spoons to be of rather poor design also the Tudor Mary Rose ones which have a lot of short grain, they are mostly what I call lollipop spoons here is one of the two surviving Mary Rose spoons

I always found requests to make medieval spoons for re-encators and museums problematic because whilst I wanted to do something historically correct I did not like making poor spoons. In mainland Europe there are many more medieval spoons than in the UK (this is not down to differing preservation levels so must reflect differing use at the time I think we used more horn) In 2003 I visited Lubeck museum primarily to study the medieval wooden bowls but they also have an excellent collection of spoons. I took the best features of a couple of them and developed them into what I now sell as my "medieval spoon".

Whilst not being an exact replica the spoon is I think a good compromise between historical accuracy and good design and has inspired many including Barn one of the best spooncarvers in the UK today http://barnthespoon.blogspot.com/2011/07/greatest-eating-spoon-ever-made.html