[Jeremy V. Krause]

Hello everyone,

I have found myself wondering iif early midieval swords (1050-1200) had pommels and or guards made of bronze. Are there examples of bronze brazil nut or tea cozy pommels? The examples I can think of have pommels of iron- and in one case the iron tea cozy was originally covered in gold. If there are historical examples of bronze hilted early medieval swords I think that it would be nice to see someone like Albion make a quality reproduction.

Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Chad Arnow]

[Chad Arnow]

Type XII.1 in Records of the Medieval Sword has a bronze pommel, though it may be a tad later than your date of 1200.

From what I can find (or not find actually), it doesn't seem to have been common. We know of bronze used before and after that period, so one could guess that it would have been used during that period, too, but there aren't many at all that show it.

I like the look of the cuprous metals and don't find it to be much harder to justify from an accuracy standpoint than using modern mild and tool steels.

[Shane Allee]

The use of copper alloy fittings in the Viking age I think is probably more common than we might think. For some reason though complete examples are somewhat rare. There are a number of pommel caps that have been found in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian context. Several years ago on ebay a very nice example of a bronze hilted viking age sword sold and it seemed very unique at the time to me. Once I started coming across the pommel caps it become clear something was going on since they are all very similar. One interesting thing that runs common with them is that stands out as different from most other pommel caps from the viking age is that the tang runs all the way through them and is peened.

A quick search on http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk will turn up several of these pommel caps.

Here are a couple though....
http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_obj.p...6D6E201E47

http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_obj.p...7F9E7015B9

http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_obj.p...C566C017E9

The site is wonderful and probably should have a thread of its own, but it is one that I keep forgetting to post about.

Shane

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Chad Arnow]

There's a Viking sword dated near that era with a bronze hilt (overlaid with other stuff). There's also a Magyar or Slavic horseman's sword from just prior to your era with bronze fittings.

I don't think I've run across a bronze brazil nut yet, though. There are some swords I've seen where the hilt doesn't look like iron or steel, but the author/cataloguer has neglected to mention what it's made of.

So while there are earlier, and later, examples than your period of bronze being used (some just barely outside your range), I haven't run across examples where they are dated to your target period and described as being of bronze.

Nothing like this yet either:

[Richard Wells]

Hi Jeremy,

Here's a picture of a pommel from the Hunt Museum in Limerick Ireland. It's described as being copper alloy-bronze and has a lion and unicorn depicted on it. There is no date given (Cat. No. MG 064).

Richard

[Chad Arnow]

There's a beautiful bronze Viking pommel in Peter Finer's 2006 catalogue as well. It's dated to the late 10th century.

[Peter Johnsson]

[Jeremy V. Krause]

Hi Peter,

I would never reccommend a lossening of the rules to accommodate customer's wishful thinking- I was simpy unaware of any Bronze brazil nut or tez cozy pommels and IF there were examples perhaps this is something to be considered. Thanks very much for your reply. I wonder why we see this archeological space of time between the viking age and the 13th c. in the use of bronze in the pommel.

Thanks,
Jeremy

[Henrik Zoltan Toth]

Hi!

Most of the greek swords and the sabres of the hungarians , pechenegs etc. had bronze guards.

Zoltan

[Henrik Zoltan Toth]

Kipchak sabre, 12. Cent., from the Nat. Museum in Kiev.

Zoltan