[Dan Kary]

Hi everybody,

I'm wondering what sort of evidence there is of weapons and armor entering the domain of a foreign culture and seeing use. Just as an example, there are lots of swords from (I think) Italy making their way to the armories of Alexandra (via Cyprus?). Were these just basically wall hangers or would these swords have seen actual use? I imagine that a Mamluk warrior in Egypt would be trained to use something like a kilij, or something else, and would prefer not to use an Italian sword.

I imagine that sometimes, when there were cultural clashes, weapons and armor would have been lifted from a battlefield and if you were poor you might take a foreign weapon and use it because you couldn't afford to have anything else - but surely it wouldn't be your preference, would it? Maybe it would happen that it would be carried around as a sort of trophy, but surely not the preference on the battlefield unless there was just a clear difference in quality between what you have and what you pillage.

Of course this is a different question than one culture adopting practices, weapons, etc. from another culture because of the perception that it is worth while. In these cases, its a slower creep and you see an evolution of arms and armor from outside influences. But maybe this is how the adoption happened - people importing or otherwise acquiring foreign weaponry?

Maybe I'm wrong about this - I kind of hope so, because it would be neat if adopting foreign weapons armor was common.

Thanks!

Dan

[Sean Manning]

[Matthew Amt]

I'd be a *little* careful. Yes, there was certainly trade and influence in all directions. But remember that most people fought people who lived very close to them, and were typically very similar, culturally. And of course we don't always know what the differences were, or how subtle they were. A Samnite *might* look at a helmet and say "Definitely Etruscan", while we look at it and shrug and say, "Probably Italian?" On the other hand, we might say, "This one is Etruscan, while this one is Samnite", while the Samnites and Etruscans look at us in confusion and say, "It's a helmet..."

The Romans are the popular ones to bring up, in a topic like this. And sure, with more and more contacts with cultures farther and farther away, something at one end of the empire could look bizarre to someone at the other end. SOMEtimes! Items found in distant places can be surprisingly similar. But most of what they used was *Roman*, even if derived from something from Gaul or Spain, etc. An early Imperial legionary is not actually carrying a "Spanish" sword or "Gallic" helmet, they are distinctly Roman items with distant foreign ancestors.

Similarly, yes, Scandinavians love imported Frankish blades, but their swords aren't Frankish in style--they aren't using *foreign* weapons. (American cars have plenty of parts that aren't made in the USA, if I'm not mistaken.) English soldiers in the 16th century are carrying "Morris" or "Moorish" pikes, which probably had nothing to do with actual Moors.

Of course, once we get into those later centuries, it's a lot easier to determine exactly where an item was made, and whether it was made for domestic use or export, etc. How much of that do we want to call "foreign"?

So, yes, it's quite possible that someone could pick up a nice new sword off a battlefield that didn't look like the local ones. Might turn a few heads, might not. I'm not sure I'd say that was "common", though, again since more often you'd be fighting people who looked a lot like you. Or that battlefield loot was considered the property of your commander, or was scooped up by professional scavengers before you even finished the battle, or was piled up as a trophy or an offering to the gods, etc.

Bottom line, most of what we see in artwork or dig up as artifacts is going to align with local fashions, so using exotic weaponry couldn't have been all *that* common. We can see that it did happen, though.

I think I might have lost my train of thought somewhere in there...

Matthew

[Sean Manning]

[Dan Kary]

Thanks for the responses. I have two things to add for consideration, upon a bit of reflection:

I think it is an interesting philosophical question, similar to the ship the Theseus problem, when one weapon can be attributed to one culture or another. Sean's point about Albions is interesting. There is decoration on their Type XIX blades (except the Doge) which I think is from an Italian design (from a sword that went to the armory of Alexandria), which might be especially well suited for the Condottiere, and maybe the Machiavelli, but they have it on the Kern. But maybe it's not that implausible that such a blade made it to Ireland and then had the hilt made by an Irish smith. Would it an Irish sword or an Italian one?

I think that the term "fetishizing" is probably a good one to talk about foreign kit in many cases. I find it really implausible, from my own intuitive perspective, that you'd adopt kit that you weren't trained to use when you had access to kit you were trained to use. The (or some?) exceptions, of course, would be is that if you didn't intend to use it and it was for decoration, if you couldn't access kit you were trained in, or that you planned to train to use that kit (I imagine this would be very uncommon depending on the time/place).

[Ryan S.]

I think that it depends on what you consider a culture. I think the reason why English and French kits were so similar, was because of the cultural exchange. This is especially true if there is a lot of trade and other cultural exchange between two cultures. Now we have a lot of global culture and everyone has the same drinking glasses from Ikea.

I am not sure when it happened, but at some point almost all sword blades were produced mainly in a few centers of production. The hilts were then made locally. So we have a lot more variety of hilts than blades. I think stylistically, warriors would have preferred their own culture’s products. However, if something was obtainable and practically better, then they would adapt it. Tactics and technology have to be considered. For example, does the one culture know how to maintain and repair the item?

I think it is important to differentiate between collectables and trophies and actually using the armor and weapons.

[Dan Kary]

[Sean Manning]

[Ryan S.]

[Dan Kary]

I just watched a video of Matt Easton's (his videos are something I really enjoy and highly recommend) and he pointed out something interesting on this - in the middle ages, looting didn't work in the way that you'd just pick over a battlefield and keep what you wanted. Apparently, everything was collected, then sold off, and then the money distributed by the commanders to the men in the army. If you pocketed anything then that would be illegal and considered theft.

What does this mean? Well, if he is right, then it might mean that if you wanted that Mamluk kilij (or whatever), then you couldn't just take it. You'd have to buy in a sell off. I'm not sure that anybody is going to do that, other than the rich, and I'm not sure they are going to do that for any purpose other than as a showpiece.

What do you think?

[Sean Manning]

[Dan Kary]

[quote="Sean Manning"]
I think you are trying to find rationalizations for a pre-existing conclusion, and you are stuck on this "found on the battlefield" scenario. quote]

Sorry, I'm just a bit confused. Is my pre-existing conclusion that the use of foreign kit wasn't common? If this isn't it, could you tell me what conclusion you're referring to? I also thought I "unstuck" the scenario by saying it seems like it didn't happen. Or did you mean that I'm stuck because I'm not considering other possibilities for how foreign kit got into people's hands? If that's what you mean, I promise I will consider other possibilities (actually I promise this anyways).

It's certainly interesting about distributing the goods as payment so I guess it could get into a lot of hands that way. Also about craftsmen making them and the selling of them could bump up the number of foreign kit users. I'm just wondering: how common all that would be? Maybe I need to rephrase the question. Let's say you took 100 soldiers from an army...how many of them would have foreign kit? I admit that's probably a bad question because it would depend on the location, the time, etc. but maybe it's a start? Certainly fashion (or the desire to look like your buddies, as you put it, Sean) is too.

[Anthony Clipsom]

As has already been said, are we talking foreign with the meaning from a different state or foreign meaning from a different culture or military tradition. Sean is more an expert on this than me, but there is plenty of evidence of an international trade in arms and armour in medieval Europe. Dealers bought up stuff where it was plentiful (perhaps a war zone, perhaps a centre of manufacture) and shipped it to where there was a demand. So, for example, the accounts of the Duke of Norfolk in the Wars of the Roses period show him visited by Flemish arms merchants and obtaining sundry items from stock. In that sense, a good number of Norfolk's retainers could find themselves with foreign war gear.
To take another example, medieval Scotland does not seem to have had a particularly strong armaments industry. As an ally of France, shipments of armour were a common diplomatic gift to the King and aristocracy. Continental arms were also commercially traded up the North Sea from Flanders and probably from the Hansa. There was also a lively but illegal trade in arms from England. So, a great many Scots gentry and burgesses probably had some foreign kit.

[Dan Kary]

[Ryan S.]

[Dan Kary]

I don't have anything additional to add, really. I just wanted to say thanks for the insight, Ryan (and to everybody else too). There is a lot to think about and I think you're probably right that it is impossible to say how common it was. There are so many factors here - proximity, trade, fashion, usability, time period, cultural attitudes, and so on. On the one hand, I was wondering if it would be head turning if somebody was wearing foreign kit (because it was uncommon), but on the other hand, that might be the point of wearing foreign it!

[T. Kew]

[Ryan S.]

[T. Kew]

Sure - but a short wide double edged sword and a long narrow one also function differently. A heavy sword functions differently to a light one. There is huge internal variation between both 'swords' and 'messers', so I'm very hesitant to conclude that the number of edges was some sort of overriding major difference in someone's preference for their sword.

[Sean Manning]

In late medeval and early modern Europe, there was a strong culture of having a variety of weapons if you could and using the best one for the task. Cavalry often carried several swords, a lance, a striking weapon, and a bow or firearm, and sixteenth-century infantry were expected to be able to make themselves useful if someone gave them a rotella and told them to break into the hole in that house. Their usual weapon might be a bill or a pike, but that was the wrong tool for the job.

If someone in 13th century England decided he liked a Turkish bow (whatever that meant exactly) better than a longbow or a crossbow, he had plenty of time to learn how to use it, because it was not very exotic and because he did not go hunting or warring every day.