Falchion

Origins

The falchion's ancestors were the single-edged knives and short swords of the early Middle Ages, like the Germanic seax, and the name comes through Old French fauchon from the Latin falx, a sickle. The weapon itself appears in the thirteenth century. The Maciejowski Bible, painted in France around 1250, shows falchions everywhere among its battle scenes, and in England and France the weapon remained common through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was cheaper to make than a double-edged sword, because a single-edged blade is simpler to forge and grind, and its weight near the point gave a powerful cut against the lightly armored and the unarmored.

Design & Construction

Two main types are recognized. The first, the cleaver type, has a very broad, flat blade that widens toward a squared or rounded tip, like a butcher's cleaver. The best known example is the Conyers Falchion, kept at Durham Cathedral, which dates from the mid-thirteenth century and has a crossguard ending in wyverns and a pommel bearing the three lions of England and the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, the arms of Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans. The second type has a narrower blade with a clipped or cusped back near the point, giving a sharp tip for thrusting; many later falchions of this kind are close to the sabers and messers of the fifteenth century. Both types have a sword hilt with a straight or slightly curved crossguard and a pommel, and most are between about 30 and 40 inches long.

Combat Use

Because so few falchions survive, much of what we know about their use comes from art and written records. They appear in the hands of knights and men-at-arms as well as of archers and foot soldiers, and in the Hundred Years War they were among the side-arms of English archers who fought alongside the English Longbow. Against plate armor, a falchion's cut was no better than any other sword's, and many fighters turned to thrusting weapons, maces and the War Hammer. Against mail and the unarmored, its heavy blow was dreadful, and the weapon remained useful in the confused fighting of sieges and raids.

Legacy

The Conyers Falchion has an unusual later history. By tradition it is the sword with which Sir John Conyers slew the Sockburn Worm, a dragon of local legend, and it was presented to each new Bishop of Durham on his first entry into the diocese, a ceremony revived in modern times. Falchions are among the rarest of medieval swords, and genuine examples are almost all in museums or cathedral treasuries. The type's single-edged, point-heavy idea lived on in the German messer, the later hanger, and eventually the Boarding Cutlass. Its double-edged contemporary was the knightly Arming Sword, and the two were often carried by the same men in the same armies.