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= = =**British Usage of the Sword during the Iron Age**=

toc Though many tools of warfare have been created and abandoned throughout human existence, nothing has endured quite like the sword. It is the iconic symbol for warfare in the majority of the western world and far beyond those bounds as well. The sword can be seen throughout mythology, literature, and history as an object of prestige and power for the wielder. The sword is said to be “the emblem of military honor and should incite the bearer to a just and generous pursuit of honor and virtue. It is symbolic of liberty and strength. In the Middle Ages, the sword was often used as a symbol of the word of God (Swyrich, 2000).” It has been a staple item in any militaristic organization since its original inception and persist to remain as one even today in an age where traditional melee combat has been superseded by ranged combat. This weapon has had many minute changes over the years but its basic form and function have remained the same; kill your adversary quickly through either cutting or stabbing. From the British, a unique tradition of sword crafting emerges with the advent of the Iron Age and reverberates through the annals of history as their designs and implementations lay the ground work for the future of close quarters combat in Western Europe until the end of the Medieval Age.

Anatomy of the British Iron Age Sword
The swords origin lies in its most basic cousin, the knife or dagger. A sword is “in essence a long knife with a grip, its greater length and variations in the blade’s shape and areas of sharpness means it can be adapted for cutting and thrusting while a dagger is used for stabbing.” (Stead, 1988) The differentiation between a sword and a dagger is measured in the archaeological record for the British Iron age through the length of the blade in correlation to how blade would have been used in combat. When a bladed hand held weapon is long enough to be used in a method of inflicting harm outside the realm of stabbing, i.e. slashing or thrusting, the weapon can be considered to be more than a dagger. According to Edward Martyn Jope, “A blade becomes wieldable for slashing when it is above 25-30 centimeters long and below that the implement may truly be termed a dagger (Jope, 1961)”

The sword like most complicated pieces of equipment is the sum of its parts and features. The following is a basic breakdown of the terminology used to describe the intricacies of a sword from the early British Iron Age:

Blade
This is the part of the weapon that is used to cut an opponent with a honed edge or skewer them with a thrusting motion using the sharpened point of the blade. The majority of the material used in the construction of the blade is in the portion known as the forte or “strong” part of the blade. The forte is the thickest portion of the exposed blade and is used to parry incoming blows (Southren, 2005). The thinner portion of the blade known as the foible, or “weak part of the blade and was traditionally used for making fast cuts to soft tissue such as the hands and face” (Southren, 2005). Some blades possess what is called a fuller that runs down the length of the blade. “The fuller is designed to lighten without sacrificing too much rigidity, but this extra rigidity only applies in the plane of the edge, when you cut something, and against torsion, when you twist the blade when cutting (Southren, 2005).

Tang
The portion of the blade that is hidden from view is called the tang. The purpose of the tang is to serve as an attachment point for the hilt, to which it runs all the way through. It is also commonly called the “stem of the blade”. The portion of the blade to where the tang intersects the blade is known as the shoulder of the blade (Southren, 2005). The swords of ancient Britain have tangs that are fastened to the pommel by a process known as peening, or the forging of the exposed tang to the pommel by pounding it flat (Southren, 2005).

Hilt
The hilt is the wieldable handle of the sword and consists of the guard, followed by the grip and then finally the pommel.

Guard or Cross-Guard
The purpose of the guard was to protect the sword wielder’s hand from his or her opponent’s sword as well as prevent the blade from slipping down the wielder’s hand, lacerating it in the process. This feature takes the form the iconic “quillon,” which is a crossbar that flares out perpendicularly from the blade where the hilt and blade coalesce (Southren, 2005).

Grip
The grip is the handle of the sword. It was usually of wood or metal, and often covered with "shagreen", which is un-tanned rough surfaced leather to increase the handle’s adhesion to the sword wielder’s hand. The organic material covered the grip and was usually held on with wire wrapped around it in a helix pattern (Jope, 1961). Under the rough leather bindings the sword handles were usually “made of organic materials-bone, antler or horn-and they rarely survive. Most handles seem to have had three organic components that would have slotted over the tang: the guard covering the junction of the tang and blade, the grip, and the pommel at the top (Stead, 2006).” Occasionally metal washers corroded onto the tang indicate the divisions between organic parts, and, more frequently, a metal hilt end survives, marking the bottom of the guard (Stead, 1991).

Pommel
The pommel, a word derived from Latin for "little apple", lies at the apex of the swords handle and acts as a counterbalance. The weight of the pommel provided a counterweight to the rest of the sword and was supposedly tailored to the sword wielder preferences. The pommel has remained one of the few parts of a sword that has, more than any other, retained its original design and function from the times of antiquity. Depending on the situation, the sword design and the style of swordsmanship the wielder is using the pommel can also be used to strike the opponent in vulnerable areas (Southren, 2005).

Scabbard
A scabbard is what holds the sword when it is not in use and protects it from unnecessary wear and tear. The scabbard can be constructed from a plethora of different materials of an organic and inorganic nature. A metal scabbard, which was common for the time, is constructed from two long plates, one of which has overlaps to retain the other. The shape and size of the scabbard reflects that of the sword blade it was intended to house, and overall measurements are more readily available from the more substantial blades than from the relatively fragile scabbards. The earliest scabbards are made of iron, or organic materials with metal fittings. Perhaps there were earlier scabbards made entirely of wood or leather, but no trace of them has survived (Stead, 2006).Scabbard mouths are convex, campanulate or perhaps pointed, but these variations seem to have no chronological significance (Stead, 2006). Later scabbards for long swords were rarely made or iron, but of a fine copper- alloy in combination with organic materials and metal fittings (Stead, 2006).

The suspension loop is what held the strap that attached the scabbard to the belt of the swords owner. Surviving examples from this time are made of metal, with a plate at each end riveted to the top of the back plate of the scabbard (Stead, 2006). Significant measurements are the overall length of the loop and loop plates, the width of the loop, and the length of the loop (Stead, 2006). The earliest suspension loops are long and narrow, and then the proportions gradually change over time., until they are almost square (Stead, 2006).

Chape
The chape is a separate metal component that slots over the ends of the scabbard plates to secure them as well as protect the tip of the blade (stead, 2006). The upper portion is a frame whose sides clasp the edges of the scabbard plates. The lower portion, known as the chape end, is more substantial and is sometimes decorated (Stead, 2006). The chape is not permanently attached to the scabbard, but designed so that it can be removed without much difficulty. Sometimes the back plate of the scabbard has from one to three dimples to help retain the bridge and prevent the chape from becoming dislodged accidentally (Stead, 2006).

Periods
The British long sword derives from a particular set of metal working cultures in Europe known as the La Tene periods, which are split into three sections; La Tene I, La Tene II, and La Tene III respectively. Unfortunately these swords are very difficult to date any more specifically than what period they originate from due to the context in which they are found. “Very few British swords and scabbards are associated with artefacts that can be dated independently-only four have been found with brooches and only three with pots...so the dates are based almost entirely on typologies.”(Stead, 2006) The dates associated with these periods are as follows: La Tene I: 450 BC - 250 BC, La Tene II: 250 BC - 150 BC & La Tene III: 150 BC – 43 AD, The beginning of the Roman Conquest of Britain. Two distinctive traditions of sword crafting emerged during these periods; the style of Northern Britain and the style of Southern Britain…

Northern Britain and Southern Britain
In Britain, La Tene swords belong to two separate traditions, the one in the south and the one in the north. The geographical distribution of the two, one on either side of the River Humber, is virtually, exclusive, with only one southern sword in the north and one northern chape in the south (Stead, 2006). The most distinct, and albeit obvious, difference between the two sword traditions of Northern and Southern Britain is the length of the blade and the overall length of the weapon. In southern Britain swords of medium length were eventually followed by long swords. But long swords were never part of the northern tradition, where swords of medium length were used until the time of the Roman conquest (Stead, 2006). La Tene swords in southern Britain are quite distinct from daggers with blade measurements ranging between 532 and 870 mm. Between daggers and swords is another category of weapons, usually known as short swords, which include the distinctive group of swords with anthropoid handles whose blades range from 390 to perhaps 420 mm long (Stead, 2006). The swords in northern Britain are slightly shorter than the medium length swords found in the south, with blades ranging in length from 442 to 620mm long, in contrast to the 532 mm to 665mm blade lengths found in the south (Stead, 2006). There is only one exception from the north, the blade of which is more than 120mm longer than any other blade found in the region and is considered to be an outlier from the southern tradition (Stead, 2006)



The remaining differences are visible only after close comparison of the two traditions, for instance the pommels for the northern swords are very elaborate almost to the point of decadence, while the southern tradition consist of mainly of very simplistic designs. In the north, the simple straight hilt end is superseded by the crown-shaped hilt end, which is cast in copper alloy (Stead, 2006). In regards to the differences in the scabbards, the scabbard is reflective of the measurements of the sword, so northern scabbards do not vary in size, only in shape and the mouth to which the blade is slid into (Stead, 2006). Another difference between the scabbard f the north and south is the fact that in the south iron scabbards are common, especially in the early La Tene period, but are completely absent from the north. Instead they are constructed of a copper-alloy, which could lead one to insinuate that copper was more readily available or cost-efficient in certain areas of Britain (Stead, 2006). The southern and northern traditions continue at least until the time of the roman conquest. But the first century AD also saw a merging of the traditions and the introduction of new features (Stead, 2006).

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Foreign Influence: Roman Influence and Variation
(To learn more about the Romanization of Britain click here)

An abrupt change in the design of weapons from the British Isles coincides with the conquest of Britain by the Romans that brings about the end of the La Tene periods in 43 BCE. The Roman legions (click here to learn more about the Roman Legions prowess in battle) used a sword design more compatible with the phalanx combat strategy implored so efficiently by the Romans in other parts of the world. The sword of the legionary infantryman in the early imperial army was the //gladius//, a short heavy weapon designed for cutting and thrusting during close quarters combat (Collingwood and Richmond, 1969). The blade, which is normally about 20 inches long, has two straight edges, almost parallel for most of their length and converging sharply at the point (Collingwood and Richmond, 1969).

That being said, the Romans were indeed influenced by the designs coming back from the British Isles and implementing them into the design of their supplementary melee weapons, for instance the //Spatha.// The sword used by the auxiliary infantry and cavalry was the //spatha//, a long sword directly descended from the long slashing weapon of the La Tene culture; and in time the //spatha// tended to replace the //gladius// throughout the army. (Collingwood and Richmond, 1969) “It was a straight two-edged sword with a point; fine examples from Newstead have a 29 inch blade and are hilted like a //gladius//, though the hilt-guard itself is often of a Celtic pattern, as if made by the native smiths. (Collingwood and Richmond, 1969)” Very elaborate work could be put into the making of these sword-blades, the best of which were forged by pattern-welding, that is, from steel wire rods twisted together and beaten flat into pliant and durable weapons. (Collingwood and Richmond, 1969) A group of at least four such swords was accidently buried by rampart-material at South Shields soon after A.D. 197, their structure being revealed by x-ray examination, which also disclosed upon each side one of them a decorative bronze inlay just below the hilt. (Collingwood and Richmond, 1969)

Though the early Celts as well as the Romans have faded into the annals of history, the influence impressed upon those they encountered and those who studied their remains will live on through our civilization and those that follow after.

Image Citations
Google Earth

Kessler, P.L.: for The British Museum

Lundemo, J. D.: of OdinBlades.com

Wikimedia Commons