A Dress Sword of the Italian Renaissance

The Olympia Antique Arms Fair, 2017

2007

Note on an unfinished but elaborately decorated model in lead for a sword-pommel of the late-fifth or early-sixth century, with ornament in Salin's animal Style I, purchased by the British Museum in 1988 from an antiquities dealer.

K. Dowen 2015, An Early Medieval Sword in the Wallace Collection, AMM XI: [181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193][194] The article discusses an excavated medieval sword in London's Wallace Collection, which has hitherto received little academic attention. The unusual features of the sword, particularly its pommel and quillon bars, have created confusion over the years particularly with regard to dating. The collated evidence suggests a likely date range of ca. 1150-1250; a time of considerable, sustained developments in armour when plate was increasingly used to supplement mail. As a result the blade of A458 is designed as both a cut and thrust weapon. The sword also exhibits traces of a silver inscription, which though now illegible, has many parallels across Europe.

IMSA 10 , 2021

Ken Trotman Publishing, 2019

Author: NORMAN (A.V.B.) Facsimile of 1980 edn. but with a reproduction of the author’s own index with corrections, 464pp., 4to, 30 b/w plates, numerous figs.in text. 2019 reissue. We are delighted to be able to offer a reprint of the most important study of rapier & small sword classification ever published. The author, A.V.B.”Nick” Norman will need no introduction as one of the great scholars of arms and armour. This precious study covers the development of the rapier into the small sword during the period when swords were part of fashionable dress. Original copies are always very difficult to find (the original printing was not a large edition) and much in demand. We are delighted to now have this book available once again in a laminated hardback edition.

The subject of this note is an unfinished, but elaborately decorated, model in lead for a sword-pommel of the late 5th or early 6th century, with ornament in Salin's animal Style I (Figs. 1-2). It was acquired by the British Museum in 1988 and the recent redesign of the Early Medieval room has provided an opportunity of putting it on permanent public display. 1 It was purchased from a London antiquities dealer, who had it among a miscellaneous group of material, partly from the River Thames and partly from an old collection including pieces apparently of Scandinavian origin. But, most regrettably, the findspot of the model was not recorded and it could conceivably, therefore, have come from either region. Consequently its value for establishing stylistic links between Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England in the Migration Period is much reduced. It is, nevertheless, of both art-historical and technical interest as a fine addition to the increasing corpus of lead models that appear to have been used at a stage in the production of certain Early-medieval, precious-metal and copper-alloy artefacts. description Surface metal analysis by X-ray fluorescence in the museum's Research Laboratory showed that the model consists of almost pure lead, with only 0.05% tin and no other metals detected. It is of a narrow boat shape in plan, bifacial, hollow all along and with rounded ends; length, 93 mm; height, 18 mm; width of base, 10 mm (max., although possibly reduced by later compression). It has a low, curved back. The roughness of the main design on both sides (a and b), which shows deep gouges and toolmarks, suggests that, although the basic pattern is essentially complete, the object is either unfinished, or was rejected as defective. It seems most likely that it is a model for use in making a two-piece mould to cast a sword-pommel in a metal such as silver or copper alloy. Interpretation of the ornament of the model is made somewhat difficult by slight lateral distortion, the rough, unfinished state of the decoration, some surface wear, and by damage towards the upper left-hand end and at two other points on side b, near the 1 British Museum registration no. P&E 1988, 3-2, 1 (on display in Room 41, case 43). The museum also possesses three other lead models, of which one is for the chape terminal of a sword-scabbard, possibly from East Anglia (reg. no. P&E OA.10808), which my colleague Leslie Webster kindly informs me has a close parallel in a finished casting from

Acta Militaria Mediaevalia, vol. 11, 2015

There are two weapons, which belong to are covered with a simple ornament and the hilt the High Middle ages, preserved in the Georgian ends with a small, spherical pommel. The width National Museum. One of them is a double-edged of the quillons is 8.9 cm. They are turned down sword from Khevsureti whereas the other, a single-towards the blade and end with spherical endings. 2 edged sabre, which was found in the Vani burial site. Both sides of the guard used to possess a "langet" which has been broken off on one side and lost.

The two-edged swords are a small but significant group of the medieval material culture of Transylvania. 2 For various subjective and objective reasons the scholarly world, which dealt with swords of the migration and the early medieval period of Europe, neglected the research of this group of swords. Although the European sword was classified in numerous types and sub-types precise definitions of date and place cannot be done. Therefore in some cases it seems more practical to look for a period during which it might have been in use than to try to date the sword or its types, even if this does not supply a certain date. 3 Swords were widespread and very distributable objects throughout Europe and it is impossible to assign certain specific regions of origins. Since, out-of-context finds get published rarely it is our aim to publish this single find in order to make its type and details available for the researchers dealing with medieval weapons.

The Coat of Arms, 2011

At least thirty-six medieval sword pommels have been discovered in Norfolk, most since the advent of metal-detecting and the recording of metal-detected finds, for Norfolk that is from the mid-1970s, but including at least three earlier finds. Of five armorial pommels, described and illustrated herein, two display personal arms, while the other three carry versions of royal arms.