Replicating a late 15th c. sword with Curator Iason Tzouriadis & Schola Gladiatoria's Matt Easton

And we're back! So, we're doing a second video on this series about our collaboration with Windlass and Matt Easton. I'm Jasson Zurianis, I'm the Curator of European Intellectual Weapons here at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. And I have with me Matt Easton of Skola Gladiatoria. Hi! This time we're looking at this second sword from the first part of the second batch. Actually, Windlass has a weird way of putting it. In the last episode we looked at the late 14th century sword from the Arsenal of Alexandria. This one. However, this time we have something that is possibly more local. We have a replica of this sword here. I'll pick up the original, if Matt would like to pick up the replica. So, this is a single-handed arming sword from the late 15th century. Initially, swords of this type were dated to a bit earlier. Largely because of that sword in Westminster Abbey. You mean the Henry V sword? Yeah, the Henry V sword that was associated with Henry V. Therefore, everything must be from the early 15th century. However, this has been disputed and it has been proven wrong. For various reasons, including the decoration and style of them. And they're placed closer to the tail end, in the third quarter of the 15th century. The sword itself, when it comes to its shape, it has this upturned phalange. With these sort of inwards turned finials. A gorgeous wheel pommel and a stiff blade with a pronounced medial ridge. Blades of this type are developed especially from the second quarter of the 15th century. And they became more and more prominent towards the end of the 15th century and into the 16th century. With stiffer blades, designed and optimised for thrusting. As you can see, it comes to a very acute point as well. Much like the sword in the Westminster Abbey, it has been speculated that this sword as well. It is likely that it was deposited or even it was hanging above a tomb in a church. This can be speculated because of the deterioration on the blade itself. As well as other factors. And of course we have this long-standing tradition in Britain, especially in England. With helmets and swords hanging above graves in the rafters and beams in churches. The sword in the Westminster Abbey now has been more closely associated with Kennedy VII. But we do not know who the owner of this would have been. As is the case with most swords, unfortunately. The only thing that can tell us a bit more about the status, although it is an amazing sword, of course. About the owner and the maker of the sword. Is a tiny little mark near the column block. As well as this incredible engraved design of floral patterns on both sides. That is barely visible. On the more worn side as well it is interesting because there are even places for gilding. So quite high-end. What is nice about that is there are surviving Italian swords which have that same feature. They have an engraved cut into the steel with a chisel at the base. And then fire-gilded, which is very dangerous incidentally because it involves mercury, over the top of that. Which also helps with date because we know those swords date to between 1490 and 1510. It is a gorgeous piece. When we shoot some details later you will see that there are even some small incised details here. Which were replicated on the modern copy as well. The reason I find this a bit weird is because as a shape with a pattern of filaments. It echoes designs of swords from at least 100-150 years before that. We do see this with many forms of French weapons where makers and fashion in general keeps revisiting certain motifs. Sometimes deliberately perhaps because they are trying to allude to some past history. There is always a fascination with the past. Sometimes people just reach the same conclusions because things work so they want to do something different. The same thing with the pommel really as well in the case of this. This looks very similar to what you would get much earlier but there are slight changes to it. The grip as well is sizeable. This could easily be grasped with an armoured gauntlet as well as with a bare hand. The blade is very stiff and very pointed towards the tip. Usable obviously both for cutting and thrusting as with most swords of the period. When we are discussing the development of the previous sword, I would like to hear your thoughts about why this is a good idea for producing as a replica from a museum collection. I've got to be honest, part of the reason I wanted to replicate this one was because of its relationship and similarity to the Westminster Abbey sword. Commonly known as the Henry V sword which we are pretty sure has nothing to do with Henry V. Probably Henry VII. But it goes wider than that. It's because it's part of a family. It's part of a family of swords which are absolutely demonstrably worn by English knights in the 15th century. We can see it in countless effigies and brasses particularly from about 1450-1460 right the way through to the end of the 1400s. Of all statuses as well. The more typical knight all the way up to kings. This was clearly a type of sword that was in use and popular amongst knights during the Wars of the Roses. I do Wars of the Roses reenactment and I love the Wars of the Roses. We're in England. This is a British national collection and I think this is one of those rare medieval swords where we might possibly be able to say even if it wasn't made in England it might have been made in England. It's of a style that was definitely popular here. Exactly. It was almost certainly imported into England. Now that's not to say they weren't used elsewhere as well. We know they were popular in France. There are Swiss paintings with them as well. But I think it is one of these examples you say that stylistically they were popular definitely here. There were also functional reasons I chose this as well. I felt that there should be a medieval arming sword in this batch. And when this is scabbarded, so it's called an arming sword because it's the sword you arm and you wear. So it's a sidearm. So this is the equivalent to the pistol that you wear rather than the rifle that you carry. So the knight who wore one of these, their primary weapon would have been a lance on horseback or if they're fighting on foot usually either a spear or a poleaxe. Sometimes something else like a glade. So that's their backup weapon and I really like how compact it is. With something like a longsword you've got a long blade and you've got a long hilt sticking out getting in the way. To put it side by side as well. It's just much much more compact. So it means that if you're busy using your poleaxe or your spear or whatever else, that can be at your side. And I actually have worn this in armour in a reenactment context. A blunted one I hasten to point out with the point chopper. But it is very convenient to wear. You just don't even notice it getting in the way. The hilt doesn't stick out too far, the blade doesn't stick out too far. They can either be worn at an angle or vertically. But either way very very convenient and it's there when you need it. And being a relatively shorter blade, it's about 30 inches, it's quick and easy to get out of the scabbard as well. Which means it's easier and quicker to pull out when you need it to. So I just really really like it. It's a very compact sidearm and I also like the length of it. I think it's got a slightly unusually long crossguard. And I think that's possibly, some people find that a bit odd looking. But from a functional point of view, it means more hand protection. So if you've got a longer crossguard, the angle to the pommel which your fingers are hidden behind, it gives you that extra added bit of protection. And the fact that these are curved up with these little hooked elements here, means that any opposing blade or spear shaft that slides down can get caught in there. Which means you can do these sort of winding actions against an opponent's blade, and their blade will get stuck in there. And I also like from a decorative aesthetic point of view, the blade's quite simple. But on the crossguard, you mentioned that it's flat on the underneath. But one of the things I really like about the guard is it has this ridge, this chamfer, even that goes up inside these ends of these quillons. And I just love that detail. I love the fact that they've put that much thought and effort into it. This was clearly, at least it seems to me, a sword made for someone with quite a bit of money to spend. Because there's these little details and the fact that there might be gilding on the base of the blade and the engraving. We should mention actually, this does not have the engraving on it. Now there's a very good reason why we decided not to do that. In fact, in the prototype stage, and this is one of the complications that we go through when we're developing these things, we tried to recreate the engraving. But on the original, the first thing you have to mention is that the engraving is only visible on one side. It's pretty much corroded away completely. So there's been either guesswork or simply replicating the same on both sides. And moreover, even the side where it has survived, there are areas where we can't really see what's going on. Now it's sort of floral decoration. It looks like there might be some flowers. I think it's interwoven with plants of sorts. It's a common pattern. You get similar things in Central Europe in this period as well, and Britain. But I think without a lot of guesswork, it would have been very, very hard to make something that's aesthetically pleasing and correct. And we did experiment with it, but it just didn't look right. So we considered rather than making it look ugly with a badly rendered version, it was better to just leave that off. And that's still historically plausible because a lot of these swords would have been made without that additional engraving. To go on the social aspect of this, because you mentioned that somebody very rich or wealthy would have been the patron or the owner of the sword. I think the sword comes from a period that there's an interesting transitional point for ownership of swords. Whereas when you're looking at an arming sword from the 13th century, from the 12th century, we're talking about objects that belong exclusively or nearly exclusively to the martial elite. But the production and the ease of production by this point in the late 15th century changes. So these become more accessible. This doesn't mean that everybody fighting has them. And not everybody would have swords of the same quality. In a period where swords become more accessible for the fighting man, these are still swords of the elite. In my mind, I compare them with cars in the modern world. Basically, most people can afford one, but they don't all buy the same car. And if you want to spend more on an embellishment, if you want to get that optional extra, you get the engraving or the gilding on. Otherwise, you just have the one without that. The other thing to mention just briefly as well is about what we call distal taper. So something that I've been really, really strict on is getting the thicknesses down the blade at the correct taper. Because what that gives you is the correct relative stiffness or flexibility, but also the correct weight distribution. Which is, of course, it's something that we can only, we cannot check the stiffness of a blade. You're not supposed to. But yes, whereas this one, we can do that to it. And we can see that this is sprung steel, which we're not going to do that with a 15th century sword. But it's interesting because when these blades are correctly tapered, they only noticeably flex in the second half of the blade. But apart from the fact that that is good for the strength of the sword, that also gives them the characteristic feeling in the hand. Because it means that the mass distribution is around here, it's not out at the tip. If the tip was too thick or if the base of the blade was too thin, the blade would feel too heavy in the hand. And instead, this feels just amazingly lively. The sword wants to move around an area around here. It's very, very nimble. It's quite interesting seeing the differences of something that's been worn out and something that is complete. Yes. And how the modern object conforms to the same shapes and functions as we expected the original to. I've been studying arms and armor for a few decades now. But something which I find when I talk to normal people, average members of the public, is that they sometimes find it hard to visualize a sword like that when it was new. And they see a corroded, degraded, missing its grip object in a cabinet. And I think for a lot of people, seeing something like that actually helps bring it to life. And we've certainly seen that with the most obvious example I can think of is the Sutton Hoo sword. When someone looks at a rusty lump of steel in a cabinet, but then when they see the reproduction of the pattern welding of that beautiful blade, they're like, wow, okay, I understand what the Anglo-Saxons were talking about when they were writing about these blades. And so I think it helps bring history to life. Let's talk a bit more about choosing this type of handle for this. Because again, as we said in the previous video, recreating a pattern or the shape that a handle might have is based on historical sources that are usually visual, rather than surviving examples. Exactly that. And so essentially, when a handle is missing on an original, I have to choose a grip that is available from other historical sources. So essentially, I went and looked at all of the artistic sources which I've collected over the years, and I arrived at this. Now, this does have risers in it, for a slightly different reason. Well, this is kind of similar reason actually to the long sword. It's really just to lock your hand onto the grip. And that helps with a wheel pommel as well, because wheel pommels can, for some people, depends on the exact wheel pommel. In fact, this one's actually quite comfortable. But some wheel pommels can be quite uncomfortable against the base of your hand, if your hand is sweaty or tired and your hand sags down. In contrast to that, sometimes wheel pommels can help with edge alignment, as we saw with the long sword. And that is actually the case here. And I actually find that with my little finger locked in against the side of that wheel pommel, that actually is really, really comfortable. But nevertheless, having that rib assists a hand, particularly when it's tired, in keeping it where you want it to be. And you can really put just one finger above or two fingers above, it depends on your hand, but it just helps lock the hand onto that grip. And another important thing to mention about grips is they are thinner this way than that way. So they are kind of flat or oval, sometimes rectangular or octagonal. And this, again, helps with the edge alignment. Because it doesn't matter how hard you hit something, if you hit it with a twisted blade, it's not going to cut anything. I'll just point it out. I don't know for those of you who don't know at home, it might be worth mentioning that the core in a grip is wooden. Yes. And then the leather is wrapped around it, or the cord, and then it's dressed, depending on the grip and depending on the period. But in the vast majority of cases, it's a wooden core that is fitted onto the tang, and then whatever goes on it, sometimes wire as well. Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, but it's usually hardwood inside. And it has to be quite hardwood, because of course there's a lot of vibrations and impacts coming through this thing, and the metal inside would kind of degrade softer wood. And if I may, because I know this was your choice here, because this falls on the part of the production that we couldn't comment on the scabbard. And I have to say, of all those, I really enjoyed the scabbard of this particular sword. A, because it's red. Because when we look at pictorial sources from the 15th and the early 16th century, and even earlier, there's a lot of colour. And both the leather and fabric, they're both very rich, and it is something that often you do not see either with scabbards in the enactment or even for display pieces. But I just love this, because it also stands out from the rest. Well, I agree, and in many ways, this is more historically correct. Not to say that you don't find black or brown scabbards, you absolutely do in the historical artwork, but you find a lot of brightly coloured ones. One question that came up is why I didn't choose a red grip to go with the red scabbard. I prefer that. I literally just went through 15th century art, and my observation was it was very difficult to find an example where the grip matched the scabbard. Almost always, they had one colour for the scabbard, a different colour for the grip, and very often, a third colour for the belt. And that multi-colour thing as well, I think, is a way of showing off. And it's a decorative aspect, in general, for people wearing these things. And I have to comment, by the way, that I really like the shape at the end of it. It's maybe my favourite of all those that we've done. The brass finish really... Yeah, this is a very pointy, acute sword as well, so it was important to have quite a deep shape, because in wear and tear, if someone were wearing this around riding, the end of the scabbard would get bashed and hit. So that is there to protect the end of the sword, really, from breaking through the end of the scabbard. So yeah, this was the second sword of the series, and as I say, I'm also delighted. Yeah, I'm very happy with that. Because it's a wonderful example, and I really like where it sits, as you mentioned, in the whole project of Windlass, of going from 14th century London swords, and even arming swords that we've done previously, to something from the late 15th century that is possibly British or English. So, we hope you enjoyed this episode, and we will be back for a third part, to show you the last object of this batch that the Royal Armies have produced in collaboration with MathEastern and Windlass. We hope you enjoyed the video, please like and subscribe to our channel, and we'll see you next time with another video. If you'd like these swords, and if you'd like to own a piece of history, you can find this in our shop. Until next time, be swordy.