I stumbled across this interesting image, in which Alexander defeats King Porus. From what I gather this was painted in Flanders circa 1325-1335. King Porus's sword looks distictly like a type XIV to me, but is curved toward the end of the blade. From what I gather this was painted in Flanders.

King Porus is made to look almost bestial, but otherwise is armored precisely like his counterpart. I wonder if the artist hadn't heard that curved swords were used in the east, but having no further detail simply modified what he knew. If that is not the case, I'd love to see a curved Type XIV.

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I don't know the context of the painting, but I wonder if perhaps the sword is supposed to be bent. It kind of looks that way to me. In fact, I don't believe Alexander killed Porus, historically. In fact, I think after Alexander defeated him, Porus later became an ally, so I'm curious what the story is behind this particular image. Interesting.

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I wonder if the artist hadn't heard that curved swords were used in the east, but having no further detail simply modified what he knew.

That's a plausible theory, but during the 14th century, I don't believe curved swords were any more common in the east than they were in the west. So I doubt that's the reason.

Could be a curved blade like a sabre or a strait blade flexing sideways in the drawing to suggest some speed of motion or bending of the sword after being parried ?

Some sort of non-literal explanation would be something similar to what is done in traditional cartoon animation where distortions of shape are used to show brutal motion transitions or impact: Think road runner/coyote, Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck.

A curved drawing of a sword isn't always because the actual sword was curved. ;) :lol:

I imagine it would be an illustrative way of demonstrating movement or flex during movement.

I have to go with Bill's theory on this one. I've seen nothing in medieval artwork that suggests that the artists were significantly concerned with realism to the point of illustrating movement or flex with movement in this manner. Besides, a bent sword from a hard-contested fight is something that seems consistent with chivalric literature.

I have a hard time with the bent sword / flexing sword theories only because I've never seen either of these represented in medieval art. edit: of course that's not saying much :D

Come to think of it, are there other examples of bent/broken weapons in 14th century art? Certainly we see copious amounts of broken armor (Maciejewski springs to mind), and plenty of discarded or dropped weapons, but broken or bent weapons? Does anyone have a good example?

The artist would no doubt be befuddled that 550 years later people would be puzzing over his illustration.

A Freudian would likely say that the sword is bent to reflect the decreased potency of the victim. :p

I think the artist probably just didn't like the line that a straight sword would have made, and having perhaps heard of a curved sword, made a line that flowed more smoothly into the sword on the far right

From what I have seen of art from this period, weapons are depicted in a very static, uniform nature with very little devation from convention. I suppose this is because the weapons are, with few exceptions, not the focus of the illustration, but rather set pieces around the characters depicted.

The artists don't seem to be trying to present a photograph of the event with a high level of realism; at least not in the way that we would having grown up in a graphic heavy era. In some paintings it seems that the illustrator might as well have used a stamp, because all of the swords/axes/spears look the same. In others there is much variety, but only to imply a throng while only actually sketching out a few foreground figures.

I think the answer is simple, the painter was an european with a small, fourth hand knowledge of how a middle eatern/african would be looking or what he could be handling as a weapon.

As in many other cases, e.g. teh case of medieval Bestiaria often when depicting imaginary or real beasts that were said to be existing in african/asian contexts, the european painter would have to resort to unreliable tales, where reality would mix with wild fantasies.

So probably the king is depicted according to the idea an european could have made himself of people living in the other part of the world, in the same imprecise way as it was made for african and asian animals.

This would explain the strong facial features of the King, who was likely intended by the painter as an african, as well as the curved shape of the blade, meant to be a scimitar: this latter surely echoes the tales of saracens, who were probably described as having curved blades.

Having never seen a real one the painter simply designed as curved an european blade.

Greetings All. My first post here after much lurking.
Just thought I'd add this image of Saracens attacking with curved swords to the discussion. Perhaps this was a European artistic convention of the time, even though straight swords were the norm in the Middle East?

http://www.publicsafety.net/image/knight_3.jpg

Victor