Peter Munsten and family

[urbanspaceman]

When the English civil war began, Benjamin Stone (principle mill owner in Hounslow) relocated to Oxford to serve the King; Cromwell then commandeered 'SOME' of the Hounslow mills and converted them to powder mills. Along with Stone there were various German smiths in Oxford e.g. Peter Munsten (the younger) and Heinrich Hoppie (senior). Two others were Heinrich Hoppie (the younger) and Peter Henekells, who returned to Hounslow, then left with Dell for Shotley Bridge in 1685.
It has been stated by various chroniclers that Hoppie (Sr) and Munsten - in an attempt to return to work at their mills in Hounslow – had petitioned the Crown and the Cutlers Guild but were rejected by both: this is not the case.
Ref. Tom Girtin: The Mark of the Sword (A narrative history of the Cutlers Company)
"As early as 1674 the King (Charles II) had declared that England should once again have its own sword manufactory; the Cutlers Guild had concurrently approached the Master of the King's Great Ordnance of the Tower with a view to establishing a manufactory and had also approached Munsten and Hoppie seeking their involvement.
Despite such favourable beginnings, nothing came of it; here was one of those schemes that simply did not come to fruition. Hoppie and Munsten subsequently sent this petition directly to the King, and yet again it was without result."
"In 1629 they were brought over to England by William Heyden and the late King (Charles 1st) and set up their manufacturies at Hounslow; that in the wars they followed his majesty to Oxford, for which Cromwell took their mills from them and converted them into powder mills; that they only remain who know the Art and foreign workmen are hard to obtain, as they are obliged to swear, on leaving the trade, not to discover it on the pain of death; that his majesty ordered the late Colonel to see them provided for, which he doubtless would have done had he lived; and that his majesty desire of setting up the said manufacture in England may be performed by the instructions of the said Hoppie and Munsten, if they receive his majesty’s encouragement."
(KF) We now know that the Crown had developed other plans for an English sword manufactory – out of reach of the City of London, the Cutler's Guild and Parliament. Also, at that time, import agents had brought in huge quantities of very low priced blades which had saturated the London market; nothing new there then.

[Jim McDougall]

This family of Solingen swordsmiths is one of the more complex it would seem, mostly from their movements as well as having same names.
The Bezdek entry focused on the name change to Peter English and the convention of using Peter Munsten the elder, and Peter Munsten the younger adds to this with the name change.

I think James Mann ("Wallace Collection", 1962) confuses things with the comment, 'this Peter Munsten who went to London could not be the one who was mayor of Solingen'........
Also unclear is exactly when Hounslow began, noting the date span 1620-1634.

Peter Munsten the ELDER (1552-1628) who was indeed mayor of Solingen for a period, actually did go to London for a short period due to the troubles of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) but returned to Solingen.
Munsten worked in Solingen along with Johannes Hoppe, who used the mark of a wildman, and for a time Munsten did as well. They along with others went to Hounslow (it is confusing as London is noted, and Munsten did have a very few swords marked with his name and ME FECIT LONDON).


He is the MUNSTEN associated with the RUNNING WOLF incorporated with his name on a rapier and ME FECIT SOLINGEN.

His son, Peter Munsten the YOUNGER (1580-1629) also was noted in Solingen, and apparently for a time used a Madonna and Child mark, but used the MOORS HEAD as well. This Moors Head had apparently been a family mark used by his father, as well as his grandfather ANDREAS MUNSTEN. He also spelled his name PETHER, as seen on some blades.
He also went to Hounslow and stayed .

He was the one who changed his name to PETER ENGLISH in Hounslow.

The grandfather ANDREAS MUNSTEN was the progenitor and in Solingen used marks with crown and AM 1547-1587......1587 -1610 he worked in TOLEDO, where he used the moors head as well as an A in a shield.

The pages shown are from "The Wallace Collection", James Mann, 1962,

and "European Makers of Edged Weapons, Their Marks" , Staffan Kinman, 2015.

It would seem that the elder Munsten did use the running wolf in accord with his name and me fecit Solingen, which is where the association came in.

I thought my geneology was bad!! yikes!

[urbanspaceman]

One of the potential issues, that has had me wondering, is the perceived differentiation between London and Hounslow; it is like Solingen (pronounced zolling by the natives incidentally) and Remscheid.
Did the immigrants consider Hounslow as London?
Apparently Greenwich remained active well into the Civil War (did it go beyond?).
Hounslow, a mere dozen miles away, was still essentially rural, so I have always assumed London to mean Greenwich.

Johannes Dell, for example, did his apprenticeship in London and marked his blades as such. This was during his first nine years over here (1640 – '49) and before he moved to Hounslow during the Civil War to fill the spaces left by the Royalist armourers up in Oxford.
The reason I emphasized 'some' of the mills being converted earlier was because surely, no way was Cromwell so stupid as to destroy entirely such a valuable source of high class weaponry; in fact, he had an army permanently barracked on the Heath after the war. Guns…? Yes! But not to the exclusion of fine blades. Again, I mention this because it has, too often, been claimed that Cromwell destroyed all of Hounslow's facilities to make gunpowder. So, was Greenwich able to supply as much as needed and was Hounslow not needed… I doubt it.
So when Munsten and Hoppe couldn't get their Hounslow mills back did they begin working in Greenwich.
One of the reasons I have focused on this issue is because I don't understand why Munsten and Hoppe went to Greenwich. Why didn't they work in one of the mills of Cook, Risby or Kindt? All three were still active and I am certain any of them would have welcomed such smiths. Hence the question: did they lump London and Hounslow together. Also, are their any blades marked 'Greenwich' out there? And when are they dated? Or is the entire output always labelled 'London'? I certainly don't know, so I am fielding the issue to the cognoscenti. I don't actually know anything about blade output from Greenwich, focussing, as everyone does, on the likes of Halder et al.

[Triarii]

I've always through that one of the reasons for Hounslow being set up was that it was outside of London and hence outside of the control of the London Cutlers Guild. The LCG did have a role in quality but was also a bit of a closed shop. Set up some indigenous competition and you could bring prices down. James I got Thomas Murrey a patent as a producer of sword and rapier blades to try and expand production but the LCG said they weren't good enough.

London also didn't produce blades, it hilted and [forgotten the word for the trade of assembling - is it slipped?] added the other components to imported blades. That's why Stone was keen to get Charles to ban imported blades so he could obtain the monopoly.

On the mills being converted to gunpowder, I think this is about the realities of mid C17th warfare. A sword, unless you were cavalry, was a secondary weapon, whereas the ratio of muskeeters to pike had been increasing throughout the wars, so there was a great demand for gunpowder (which was also lifed, as it would separate into its component parts and need to be reconstituated). As Parliament controlled the navy, and had done so since 1642, it could fairly easily import swords.

The other problem was that the Germans at Hounslow wouldn't teach anyone else had to forge the blades. I think it was Jencks who said early on that 'never an Englishman can use the profession' (or similar) and promised to train up others, but it doesn't seem to have happened.

On Hounslow v London, I have a Wilhelm Tessche bladed mortuary sword which has 'Weirsburgh' on the blade, which is a suburb of Solingen. Not sure why the distinction, unless he was working for the Weyersberg family, one of whom was important enough to become mayor of Solingen.

[Jim McDougall]

First of all, thank you so much for coming in Triari!!! We have always hoped that others with interests and knowledge in this remarkably esoteric subject matter would join these discussions.

Keith, these geographic names it seems were pretty subjective in earlier times before the incorporation of established cities and borders. It is rather like the myriad of suburbs around Los Angeles, which when noted outside the local scope, are often collectively/colloquially referred to as Los Angeles rather than the true city name.

The Munsten's, with the grandfather for example added zu Elberfeld to his name which referred to a subordinate area of Solingen on the Wupper river nearby which flows into the Rhine through Solingen. The term 'zu' liguistically seems to be applied to a name in German implying nobility also, so these linguistic and geographic devices complicate matters a lot.

In geneology, by another analogy, it is often essential to have a Gazetteer, which is a geographic dictionary of places, names and counties. Legal records are by county, so when checking for records in one place you must know which county it was officially in during which dates. Boundaries often changed.

It would seem to me that LONDON would be a larger and recognized place, where most of these smaller towns, cities would not be known outside local reference. Hounslow was a rural place, geographically as well as jurisdictionally outside the parameters of London and the Cutlers guild (as Triari has noted). Greenwich and Oxford same deal.
London in my opinion was collectively used for geographic expedience in reference, much in the manner of 'Los Angeles' in modern times.

It does seem at some point there was some weapon marked Greenwich, but cant say for sure. Possibly it was armor, as King Henry VIII was the forerunner in bringing German artisans to England.....Greenwich to be exact.

RE: TESCHE

The group of makers/family with this name seem to have had good connections with Toledo and Sweden, though it does not seem they worked in those locations as some Solingen smiths did on occasion.

In Mann, Wallace Coll. 1962, op. cit. p.295;
"..Wilhelm Tesche was probably not a member of the Wirsberg family. In this case it is thought that Wirsberg is the Solingen dialect form of Weyersberg which used to be an estate to the north of the wall encircling the town center , this is where Tesche lived. He added 'von Wirsberg' or 'am Wirsberg' to his signature to distinguish himself from another swordsmith of the same name?.


RE: Solingen, and place names

In early times, while Solingen made blades, these were sent to Koln (Cologne) to be mounted.....and were often termed KOLN SWORDS as such, as Solingen was simply the fabricator of blades. Koln was important as the Electorate of Cologne, a key center in the Holy Roman Empire. This was another factor in place name reference, by these factors or Diocese, which became the determining factor in place reference.

HOUNSLOW:
While Hounslow became well known in its time for the swords produced, the style of these became established long after the mills had closed as a standing form or design. This carried well into the next century as 'of the Hounslow school'.
I agree, when Cromwell took over Hounslow it would have been ridiculous to entirely eliminate sword production, and while many of the Germans left there following the King....a number remained. The manufacture of powder was key by these times, but secondary arms such as swords remained essential.

The original intent of bringing the Germans into England was not simply to circumvent taxation on imports, but hopefully to learn their processes.
While there is the hyperbole of the'guarded secrets of forging etc.' there is also the question of just how many blades were actually forged there, or were they either finshed or brought in for grinding and finishing?

The assembly of swords is broadly cutlery, and cutlers were often even distinguished by long or short, the long obviously to sword blades. In Scotland they were termed 'sword slippers' and of course very few, if any blades, were ever formed in Scotland (regardless of ""The Highlander" films).

Much as noted, swords mounted in Koln, used Solingen blades...in Italy the blades made in Lucca, Ferara, and others typically went to Milan or Brescia for mounting ...in Hungary, it was said there could not have been 'Hungarian' swords as the blades were from many other places and none as far as known were in Hungary.

Well, as always...like to keep it brief