From the Sickle to the Scythe

For centuries, the sickle was the common tool of the harvest. Its small curved blade, used close to the ground, was the familiar companion of peasants from ancient times through much of the Middle Ages. But by the 15th century, something had changed. Across the grain fields of Europe, the quiet arc of the sickle began giving way to a longer sweep — the scythe.

Though known since antiquity, the scythe was originally used for cutting grass and hay. Early medieval farmers saw it as a companion tool, not a replacement. But across the central Middle Ages, it gradually spread into reaping work. By the 12th and 13th centuries, it was becoming increasingly common in some regions for harvesting grain. Its long handle allowed the mower to stand upright; its wide arc harvested more stalks per stroke. As field sizes grew and harvest deadlines sharpened, the scythe proved more efficient — faster, less physically punishing, and better suited to large-scale work.

By the late Middle Ages, the scythe had become the primary harvest tool for able-bodied men across much of Europe. The sickle remained in use, but in more limited contexts: among poorer households, in gardens and small plots, or in the hands of women, children, and the elderly during gleaning. While the scythe did the heavy lifting, the sickle remained part of the traditional farming toolkit — practical, affordable, and suited to tasks where precision mattered more than speed.

This shift also carried symbolic meaning. As a harvesting blade, the scythe soon entered medieval Christian imagery. By the 14th century — in the aftermath of the Black Death — the figure of Death began to appear as a skeletal reaper bearing a scythe. The image was immediate and sobering. Just as the blade swept through wheat, so did death sweep through lives. By the late Middle Ages, this figure — now known to us as the Grim Reaper — became a fixture in murals, manuscripts, and woodcuts.

In other settings, the scythe marked the season, not the end. In medieval books of hours, the Labors of the Months commonly depicted peasants harvesting grain with scythes to represent July or August. These illustrations traced the liturgical and agricultural calendar through the labor of the land: pruning, plowing, mowing, baking. In those images, the scythe simply meant that the harvest season had come.

The sickle and the scythe each served their place. But by the close of the medieval period, it was the scythe that had transformed the harvest — not just as a tool, but as a symbol. It shaped how medieval people gathered their grain, how they imagined death, and how they marked time itself.