Arming Sword

Origins

The arming sword grew out of the Viking-age sword and the Carolingian swords before it. Around the year 1000 swordsmiths lengthened the crossguard into a straight bar and gave the blade a gentler taper, creating the classic knightly sword of the Norman Conquest and the First Crusade. The name "arming sword" comes from later medieval English, where it simply meant the sword worn with armor, as opposed to the larger war sword or the Longsword. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries it was the sword of the mounted knight, used with the Norman Kite Shield, and in the thirteenth with the smaller heater shield and the Great Helm.

Design & Construction

The arming sword has a straight, double-edged blade usually 28 to 32 inches long, a straight crossguard, a grip long enough for one hand, and a pommel shaped like a disc, a wheel or a brazil nut, which balances the blade and locks the hand in place. Most weigh between two and three pounds. Ewart Oakeshott's classification describes how the blade changed. Type X, the broad blade with a deep fuller running almost to the point, was made for cutting mail-clad opponents. Types XI to XIII gave longer or narrower blades, and Type XIV, a broad blade tapering sharply to a point, reflects the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century need to thrust into the gaps of increasingly heavy armor. The best blades were pattern-welded or made of carefully forged steel, and many carry inlaid inscriptions of saints' names or religious formulas.

Combat Use

The arming sword was the knight's weapon after the lance was broken, in the melee that followed the charge. It served in The Crusades, where the Knights Templar and the other military orders carried it with the shield and mail of their day, and it met the curved swords and the Byzantine Spathion of the eastern Mediterranean. The oldest surviving fencing manual in Europe, Royal Armouries MS I.33 from around 1300, shows the arming sword used with a small buckler by clerics and students, proving that a detailed art of swordsmanship already existed. As plate armor developed in the fourteenth century, the arming sword became a sidearm, and the longsword and poleaxe took over as the knight's main weapons on foot.

Legacy

The cross-shaped hilt of the arming sword became the symbol of Christian knighthood. It was carved on tombs, blessed in the ceremony of knighting, and still appears in the heraldry and ceremonial swords of European monarchies. Surviving swords come mostly from rivers and graves, and dated examples are rare; they are among the most valuable of all medieval arms. Its single-edged contemporary was the Falchion, and its successor for civilian wear was the side-sword and eventually the rapier.