European swords, described entry by entry
Eight entries, three sections, one glossary. Each entry answers one question properly rather than twenty questions badly: what a type name means, what the steel was, what happens to a blade left in a damp cupboard.
The register is organised the way the subject actually divides. Typology covers how swords are sorted into families and what those labels do and do not tell you. Steel and forging covers the material, from bloomery iron to modern spring steel, and the heat treatment that decides whether a blade works. Care and collections covers what happens after the sword stops being used: corrosion, storage and where the surviving pieces are kept.
Figures are given as the published ranges for surviving examples, with the source named, because a single confident number is usually a sign that somebody stopped checking.
TYP-01Typology
Ewart Oakeshott sorted medieval European blades by geometry rather than by country or century. His types X to XXII are still the labels on museum cards and auction listings.
TYP-02Typology
Blades of the eighth to eleventh century are broadly alike, so the classifications work on the hilt. Three competing systems are in circulation and museum labels mix them freely.
TYP-03Typology
A longsword is defined by a grip long enough for two hands and a blade balanced for both. Surviving pieces weigh 1.2 to 1.8 kg, not the four kilos of popular imagination.
FRG-01Steel and forging
Rods of different iron and steel welded, twisted and drawn out, so the joins show as a pattern once the surface is etched. A construction method, not an alloy.
FRG-02Steel and forging
Iron melted in a sealed pot, cast as an ingot at 1.0 to 2.0 per cent carbon. The watered pattern comes from carbide bands inside the metal, not from welded layers.
FRG-03Steel and forging
Hard enough to hold an edge, tough enough not to break. The two demands pull against each other and the heat treatment is where they are settled.
CAR-01Care and collections
Almost all damage to old blades happens slowly, in storage, from hands, damp and the wrong materials. Very little of it comes from use.
CAR-02Care and collections
Eleven collections, three blade museums and five archaeological holdings, with what to look for in each and how to read what the label is actually telling you.
No entry matches this filter.
Every entry follows the same order, which is what makes two of them comparable without reading both from end to end.
It does not value objects and it does not authenticate them: both need the piece in the hand and a specialist who carries the liability. It does not cover firearms, and it covers armour only where armour explains a change in blade design, which it does more than once. It stops at about 1800, when the sword becomes a uniform accessory. And it is a reading resource, not a shop.
If you find an error, the correction is welcome at [email protected]. Sources are named in the entries precisely so that they can be checked.