The metal was held in esteem principally as the material of war.

All male adults were required to be provided with weapons, and honour was awarded to such artificers as excelled in the fabrication of swords, arms, and defensive armour.[1] Camden incidentally states that the manufacture of iron was continued in the western counties during the Saxon era, more particularly in the Forest of Dean, and that in the time of Edward the Confessor the tribute paid by the city of Gloucester consisted almost entirely of iron rods wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's ships.
An old religious writer speaks of the ironworkers of that day as heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated with worldly prosperity.

On the occasion of St.

Egwin's visit to the smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given up to every kind of luxury; and when he proceeded to preach unto them, they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so as completely to deafen him; upon which he addressed his prayers to heaven, and the town was immediately destroyed.[2] But the first reception given to John Wesley by the miners of the Forest of Dean, more than a thousand years later, was perhaps scarcely more gratifying than that given to St.

Egwin.
That working in iron was regarded as an honourable and useful calling in the Middle Ages, is apparent from the extent to which it was followed by the monks, some of whom were excellent craftsmen.