Posts: 1,576 Location: Bergen, Norway
Sun 06 Nov, 2011 5:11 am
Jeremy; While not all swords where pattern welded, they where all laminated. That is, folded and hammered to even out impurities. But most where made from a single piece of laminated iron, rather than severald welded together, as in the pattern weld.
This is a neccesity if you are working with low carbon/impure iron, as the marsh ore iron of the dark ages, or japanese river ore. As iron smelting technology improves towards the middle ages, the need to laminate sword blades is no longer present. Thus, most medevial swords are so called monosteel sword, made from a single piece of unfolded steel.
When it comes to arms and equipment:
As allready identified, the standards equipment set down by the laws for the Leidang was spear,
shield, and a axe or sword. This law is thought to date to the 950s, when the Leidang system was formalized by king Hakon the Good to defend Norway from Harald Bluetooth and his henchies.
This early law has no tiers; any equipment above the minimum was voluntary. Income based tiers where not introduced untill the 1270s. However, even then, the basic equipment did not include a helmet, and the
mail armour was not required before the top tier.
Archeological studies show that weapon finds in graves gravitate towards full "sets" towards the end of the viking age, perhaps as a result of the laws.
As for the relative rarity of swords, there are currently more viking age swords than axes in Norwegian musemus. This could of course be due to more swords beeing handed in or reported by the public, but over all, the numbers are significant.
These range from the extremely ornate to the positively plain. The bar hilted Pettersen type M, for instance, is quite common.