Start planning your vacation and make sure to visit Paris this summer. The Museé de Cluny (The French National Museum of the Middle Ages) will host a major sword exhibition starting late April. Albion is proud to supply swords to let the visitors "travel back in time" and feel the weight and balance of a real medieval sword in their own hands. Albion will also provide steel sparring swords for the demonstrations of historical swordmanship by “De Taille et d’Estoc” to take place at the museum during weekends.

The exhibition will be the premiere of the Albion Museum Line Cluny sword. The Albion Museum Line Cluny sword will give collectors world wide a chance to own an exact recreation of a beautiful late 15th Century long sword from the collection of the Musée de Cluny.
Some high-lights among the many swords of the exhibition are: The Sountaka Sword, The Sword of Svante Nilsson Sture and The Sword of Saint Maurice of Turin

From the official press release:
The Sword - Uses, Myths and Symbols
28 April – 26 September 2011
Musée de Cluny, Musée national du Moyen Âge

An exhibition organised by the Musée de Cluny, Musée national du Moyen Âge and the Réunion des musées nationaux

The sword is probably the object which most powerfully represents the Middle Ages. It is a weapon, a sign of power and justice and a ceremonial object. No other secular object from the time has aroused such interest and exerted such fascination.
The Sword. Uses, Myths and Symbols is the first exhibition on this theme. It brings together a hundred and twenty works: a collection of swords spanning the entire period from the fifth to the fifteenth century, including mythical items such as Joan of Arc's sword, as well as
manuscripts, paintings, gold and ivory work.

Technical Aspects
The sword is found in all civilisations that worked metal, from the copper age to the present day. The first section of the exhibition studies aspects of its production, through archaeological exhibits. Workshops and forges, for example, are evoked through the Gicelin sword, dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries, which bears the smith's name. Whatever its shape, a sword is immediately recognisable by its four parts: blade, guard, tang and hilt. Otherwise, they vary widely in type (dagger, falchion, Messer) and décor. The décor, whether plain or ornate and luxurious, gives clues to the social and artistic context.

Real Uses
The sword is primarily a weapon for fighting and killing enemies. Swordsmanship was an essential part of the education of knights and princes. An outstanding fighting manual in the German tradition, a manuscript from the late fifteenth century, sets out the teaching of the
great fencing masters, including Johann Lichtenauer. Just as precious is the Flos duellatorum by the Italian master Fiore dei Liberi, which covers the martial arts and fighting techniques.
Swords were also used in leisure activities such as fencing or hunting. Two rare survivors are on display: the sword of Philip the Fair, king of Castile and father of Charles V, which dates from the early sixteenth century, and René d’Anjou’s extraordinary hunting rapier.
In a more unexpected approach, the exhibition looks at female uses of swords through the representation of suicide or a sword found in a female tomb.

Symbolic Uses
Many symbolic meanings gravitate around these direct uses. The sword illustrated the royal prerogative in law and was used to mete out justice. It played a part in fundamental rituals such as knighting and coronation. It illustrated a function but could also symbolise a nation. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a collection of “national” swords. These
items, some on loan for the first time, incarnate an entire country through reference to one of its heroes. For example, the sword of Svante Nilsson Sture, the Swedish regent around 1500 who fought for Sweden's independence, or Charlemagne’s famous sword, Joyous. The history of Joyous, as told in the Chanson de Roland, sums up the sword’s many different dimensions.
Objects and weapons connected with high functions belong in this group. For example, the sword of the connétable, commander in chief of the French armies, or the pontifical rapier, a prestigious gift that medieval popes bestowed on someone each year as a particular honour.

The Myth
More than any other object, the sword has been personified and endowed with magical properties and some have become mythical, particularly in literature and art. They have names, like the famous Durandal and Excalibur. They are attributed with extraordinary powers, can fly, break rocks or make their owner invincible. They flirt with magic and are invoked
like gods. The swords of saints (St Comus and St Damian, St Maurice, St George) or heroes belong to this category. This idealisation continued well beyond the medieval era, through the Tuaregs’ swords in the nineteenth century to the modern sword of the academician Jean-Pierre Mahé.

The exhibition will be the premiere of the Albion Museum Line Cluny sword. The Albion Museum Line Cluny sword will give collectors world wide a chance to own an exact recreation of a beautiful late 15th Century long sword from the collection of the Musée de Cluny.

A new Museum Line Sword!

Please, could you show us some photographs?

Any guesses at least to which longsword it may be? I have seen images of one which from memory had a recurved guard and a concave disk pommel similar to the pommel of the Albion Machiavelli.

I can tell you that it's going to be an XVa, and that it's going to be a bit different from the ones currently offered by Albion. It's expected to be particularly popular with people in the WMA community.

My goodness this is exciting! I'll be in London during this period-- I think I'll start putting away some money for train tickets to France one for one of the weekends.

WOW.

I'm hoping it's this one....
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ight=cluny

Sean, that was the one I was thinking of too.

A bump for this spectacular opportunity. :D

I'll be there. :blush: ;)

...and lo ! a Museum Line it was. ;)


More info about this exhibit here :
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=223777#223777