Hi all,

I recently ran across this beauty. I can't recall ever seeing decoration like this on a 11-12th century hilt. Does anyone know of any other examples of 11-12th century hilt decoration?

Thanks to Niels Provos for his pictures from the reichsstadtmuseum in rothenburg. For more go here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nielsprovos/7574638152/in/album-72157630586189982/

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Decorated 11-12th century hilt

Dear Tyler,

Where is this located?

Best,

Mark Millman

Well, the hilt of a Finnish sword from the same time period discussed in this old thread is entirely covered with silver inlays in a somewhat similar style.

Rotenburg ob der Tauber. A German medieval town, in Southern Germany, which fortuitously managed to evade any damage during the war. I stayed there once overnight, the room had three foot thick walls and a thick down duvet. A bit out of the way, but well worth a detour if one is reasonably nearby.
Henry

There are some very cool, unusually well preserved, and highly decorated swords in this museum. But I believe it has a reputation for dubious authenticity. Maybe some are Victorian era reproductions?

Just a quick side note. I had another very close look at the pictures that Niels posted and I have a hard time picking out very many that I would categorize as suspect. To me they seem to show an appropriate condition for their age which is consistent on all parts of the piece. The blade forms and hilt shapes also appear to match. That being said, there are a few that I would say are somewhat off. I think these examples are perfect for another discussion topic that I had posted (Examples of Victorian Era Reproduction Swords, link below). If you are interested, have look though Niels's images and post what you think in the other topic. I am very interested to hear what others see in some of these examples.

http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=339511#339511

I finally had a chance to do a bit more searching and I came across some interesting evidence. While looking for examples of existing swords I had the thought that I should see what period art could add to this topic. I was very surprised by what I found. From the artwork it appears that hilts decorated with yellow metal were very common, and other forms of decoration were also prevalent. I didn't take a tally but based on my search it appeared to me that decorated hilts are more common in period art than plain hilts. I will go back sometime and take a tally to get a better idea of the percentage.

Whether or not period art is representative of most blades of the time is of course another discussion. If I had to guess I would lean toward it not being representative. I say this because it appears that the art that is highly colored and detailed is depicting people of higher status and those are the images that I am pulling from. I feel I can at least say that it was not uncommon for hilts of the 11-12th century to be decorated. This came as a surprise to me because prior to this search I had envisioned the weapon fashion of this period as a large move away from the highly decorated hilts of the viking period to a style of plain utilitarian aesthetic. Now I am beginning to think that it was not a move toward a more plain style, but a move away from highly labor intensive wire inlay decoration to a decoration that is easier to apply like gilding or painting. Perhaps the reason that we are accustom to seeing blades from this period without adornment is because the decoration is perishable and has worn off on nearly all examples.

Below are 10 of the best examples that I found from my search of period art. Links to the full pictures and information is also listed below. I tried to get examples that showed Oakeshott type A or B pommels. On some of these it is difficult to tell for sure and some of them are wheel/disk type pommels. #9 is likely a disk, and 1 and 6 are difficult to tell for sure. They may be type B1. I found #3 particularly interesting because it appears to be a B or B1 pommel among Petersen type S hilts most of which appear to have decorative hilts. I also found #10 very interesting because it made me wonder if paints or enamels were also use to give color to hilt components. I found a few other examples of hilts with colors that do not appear to be metallic.

I just wish that we had more intact examples from this period that showed what type of details were applied to the hilts. I'm guessing it was not just a simple gilding applied to a smooth surface or solid color paint. The sword of St. Maurice (Vienna) is one period example I was able to find and it shows more detail that just simple gilding. It also supports the idea that gilding could be the style of decoration that we see in the period art. That being said, it is a coronation sword, so I'm not sure how much we can trust it to be representative.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Please have a look at the picture and links below. I would love to hear what anyone thinks of this, or if there are any other bits of evidence/info that can add to this topic.

1. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4903/14533/
2. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4762/7798/
3. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5771/21793/
4. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4449/22586/
5. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4449/22587/
6. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5815/22559/
7. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4555/11246/
8. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5770/21792/
9. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/manuscr...1447-2.jpg
10. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4739/9849/

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I took some detailed photos and measurements of this sword. Some of the pictures are below, the link to the album is at the end. Sorry about the mix of units of measure, I had a very narrow window of time with a pile of weapons so had multiple measuring tools.

OAL: 40.25"
Blade: 33.5"
POB: 7" from guard
Guard width: 9"
Fuller length: 30"

Blade width at base: 6cm
Blade width half way: 5.5cm
Near tip: 2.74cm

Thickness at base: 4mm
Tip: 2.5mm

Pommel:
8cm wide
4cm tall
3.3cm thick tapering to 8.5mm

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Additional Photos:

https://public.fotki.com/AKBergy/rothenburg-personal/11th-12th-century/

I ran across these beautiful enameled pommels from the Met. They all supposedly date from the 12th to 13th century so i suppose then fit the criteria. When I saw them I immediately thought back to some of the manuscript pictures that I went through while looking for evidence of hilt decoration because many of the manuscript images showed hilts with red and blue pommels (some examples below).

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This image is one of the best to show the colored pommels because of the seemingly accurate colors on other objects, and the different coloration on different hilts in the image:
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Here are a few others:
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5745/21194/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4482/12007/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4528/11336/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4889/14209/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4730/11350/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4471/11155/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4864/11910/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3958/10860/


Perhaps enamel was a common from or hilt decoration. Does anyone know of any other examples or evidence of this?

Beautiful sword in the OP!

With regards to decorated brazilnut pommels, the sword of Siguinus comes to mind immediately:
http://www.armabohemia.cz/imgnew/epees/epees/sigc2.jpg

But I found in my picture collection also the sword attached. This is from the Kulturhistorisk Museum, no. C36640.

And another sword from Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), La Vilaine river Le Mans, Musèe Tessè, Collection des Musèes du Mans, 1981.885.9.

In this thread you can find some further examples of decorated pommels, although generally a bit later: 12th - 13th C onwards.

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The Battersea sword, currently housed at Pitt-Rivers museum

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Here is another example from the myArmoury photo albums that likely fits the period and is decorated. In this case the decoration is silver plating on the pommel and thin silver sheets on the cross.

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