[Lancelot Chan]

I found this page very informative.

https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/

[Dan Howard]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I don't doubt that some swords with higher steel content and good heat treatments, which though rare can be found from the late Halstatt period at least. My point was that they didn't, because they couldn't make anything like a late medieval longsword or rapier (not the same animal as a bronze age "rapier"). I stand by that. I think you are extrapolating beyond the available data when you make the claim that they could do anything that a smith in say, 1450 or 1550 could do. I'd really like to see some evidence that was the case

J.

[Dan Howard]

[Arne G.]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Mark Millman]

Dear Dan and Jean,

I think that part of your disagreement may be caused by an unstated question: To what degree was it possible reliably and repeatedly to produce good steel for swords? Pleiner's book indicates that for the swords he examined, the quality of steel was very variable, which suggests that bladesmiths could recognize good steel if they had access to it, but that supplies were not consistently available and may have been severely limited. In contrast, we know that by the late Middle Ages, high-quality steels were being reliably produced in Europe, and that they were consistently available to bladesmiths.

This is of course in contrast to the skill of the smith. The best smith working with unsuitable materials won't be able to achieve technically demanding results, while excellent materials will help mediocre craftsmen achieve a high general level of quality.

Best,

Mark Millman

[Jean Henri Chandler]

That is basically what I was saying.

By the high medieval there is a network of metallurgical industries between maybe ~2,000 towns and several hundred abbeys, some princely organizations and a few other entities. By the late medieval you have networks of contractors and subcontractors, and highly organized metal working industries particularly in the vicinity of certain towns (Milan, Brescia, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Barcelona) and many others in Bohemia, Sweden, Flanders, etc. where highly sophisticated mining and metal smelting operations were set up, with systematic quality control and oversight. Including large mining operations and true blast furnace complexes. Look at the manufacturing operations of just two families out of Augsburg alone, the Welsers and the Fuggers (both in Swabia and further away in the Alps and Carpathians) and you can see that they have already reached a level of output and sophistication in metal production (ferrous and copper / bronze) that would not be surpassed until the 18th Century.

Swords by this period were no longer any kind of major challenge to make, they were being produced by the tens of thousands in at least hundreds of polities. By the 15th Century the real money making export business was in armor, crossbow prods and increasingly, cannon and firearms which were gradually dominated by certain key manufacturing centers. But by this period, a four or five foot long piece of high carbon spring steel was not a notable production feat nor particularly expensive.

Rome is obviously a complex subject, and there were certain centers under Roman control by the late Republic where metalworking was more advanced and steely iron or true steel was produced (notably some places in Iberia and the Illyrian polity of Noricum). Roman swords could range from basically wrought iron to some examples (mostly pattern welded) which were effectively steel with a decent heat treatment. But they did not have weapons that matched the high medieval types either in terms of design or metallurgy.

It would be nice if someone did a truly systematic survey of medieval swords - there have been some but many were limited in scope and the data samples were usually small. We also know a lot more about how blades were made now so it won't be so confusing to find different types of metal in the same blade for example.

[Sean Manning]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Well the devil is in the details I guess.

I'll try to spell out my point in comparing Roman to late medieval swords a little more clearly.

In Alan Williams sample, I think we are still talking about too broad of a period (1000 AD to 1600 covers a very wide range of technology) and too small a sample. 12 swords per Century across the length and breadth of Europe.

I know that we have had durometer tests, and to a somewhat lesser extent, metallurgical analysis of one type or another of far more than 48 swords even for the 15th Century alone, and you do see considerably more consistency, and better than medium carbon steel with a basic heat treatment. Unfortunately we don't have all these individual tests conveniently aggregated, some are semi-secret I guess and I'm not sure if they can be shared here. As we have discussed, hopefully somebody will jump into this niche and do a proper survey. For now we have to jump fairly long distances between data points so there is always room for different interpretations. Here is mine.

Early Roman swords (Republican era) tend to follow a fairly narrow range of types, usually featuring relatively short, relatively stiff blades with usually organic hilt features, as typified by the various types of swords we call by the latin word gladius. From the early Imperial era onward the gradual introduction of the the type of swords we call 'spatha', particularly with Gallic and Germanic units: slightly longer, a bit more flexible, some more optimized for cutting perhaps. still typically featuring organic hilts with minimal hand protection. Still not really designed for parrying, in other words - the shield is still the primary defense.

We also know that the swords from this period with the best metallurgical properties were made rather laboriously by forge welding small pieces of higher carbon steel into rods which were then either forge welded or twisted together (or both) with lower carbon iron rods and etc. This could not be done on a very large scale, even with slave labor.

Frankish and Norse made swords start to have metal pommels from some time in the 7th or 8th Century through the third quarter of the 11th, and we can see some improvements in metallurgy particularly in some made of crucible steel in the region around what is now Sollingen. There are some swords with notable quillons toward the end of this period but they are still rare. Some of these swords are very well made with high hardness and good carbon content, some aren't.

It isn't until roughly the late 11th - early 12th Century that swords with proper quillons become commonplace. This too is when the type of geometrically based designs that Peter Johnsson talks about begin to proliferate. It is also, not by coincidence I think, at the same time when the earliest water powered forges began to spread through certain cities in what are now Spain and Italy, and soon across the alps into the center of the Holy Roman Empire.

It's at the end of this period when we start to see the Oakeshott type XII, XIIa and XIII swords, IIa being the first hand and a half type. And in this period we are seeing the iron industry producing much larger pieces of steel, and heat treating them more effectively. You don't have to spend hours building a rod out of 20 small lumps of steel, you can start with one big one.

By the 15th Century, we have basically all of the Oakeshott types from XII through XX, and hand and a half swords are ubiquitous enough that common soldiers are carrying them as sidearms, and swords as long as six feet are being produced in large numbers. In both cases, the sword itself is the primary defense. Both hand and a half and single handed swords are increasingly being made with complex hilt features to further exploit the defensive potential of the blade itself.

Also in the 15th Century, water powered blast furnaces and huge bloomery complexes can be found all over Europe. The water powered trip hammer is found in literally thousands of towns. Iron production has skyrocketed. Pieces of steel can be made so large that they are routinely making armor out of it. Entire breast plates and helmets - Augsburg has an export industry that specializes in producing heat treated steel armor which has the advantage of being thinner and therefore lighter. They are making crossbow prods and saws out of heat treated spring steel. In India they are even making steel bows and strange whip like weapons.



In this famous chart that is always going around, only three of the swords are estimated to be from the 15th -16th Centuries. You'll notice two of them, blades L and I, tested with edge hardness of up to 56 -58 Rockwell, considerably higher than modern 1075 steel which on that chart peaks around 51, (in some other cases up to 55).

I don't know the precise type of swords these were but if they are of the types used in fencing systems emphasizing parrying and defending with the weapon itself, which we know most systems from this era did, then I would assume that these weapons were springy to be sufficiently robust to parry or even to say, strike a buckler rim or an iron helmet.

Now again 2 swords in a 100 year time span is not enough to draw firm conclusions. But to be blunt, I think of the Roman army could have given their infantry or cavalry something like an Oakeshott XVa as a sidearm instead of a spatha type sword, I think they would have.

[Dan Howard]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Sean Manning]

Humh, that seems like it might be a good subject for a blog post around April.

Yes, the Romans in the first century CE already used spathae. They issued them to non-citizens and cavalry, which suggests that they thought they were not the best weapon for citizen infantry. They were in contact with cultures who used swords with iron handguards like the Parthians, but like Dan says, copying those swords would have been like the US Army adopting a Russian truck- empires don't borrow kit from their bitterest rivals. If I had to march as far and fast as a Roman legionary, without a lot of horses and mules and wagons to carry my kit because I was in a real army not a band of thugs, a 700 gram Mainz gladius would have one big advantage over a 1200 gram Oakeshott Type XV!

I did have time to write up a story of working blacksmiths encountering a hundred tons of iron smelted 2500 years ago. They did not say "man, that is so out of date" they said "cool, free iron! and some of this is really good stuff!"

[Graham Shearlaw]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I think he's got a very good point Sean. In fact respectfully, while I'm not myself any kind of expert on Ancient Rome, I believe if you tilt your perspective slightly, I think you'll remember that the Romans were possibly the greatest adopters of enemy kit in history.

How did the Romans win the first Punic war? Didn't they copy a captured Carthaginian quinquereme to use as the basis for the new Roman fleet?

Then look at the Marian reform itself, the big change that created the Roman Legionnaire we recognize today. Most of that kit was adopted from the foes of Rome in Iberia - the gladius "Hispaniensis", the pugio, the pilum, and some versions of the helmet were all adopted from tribes in Iberia from what I understand. The lorica hamata mail shirt (and some other types of Roman helmet) was adapted probably a bit earlier from the Gauls circa 3rd Century BC. Rome made these things her own, with improvements in design and manufacturing. But they were copied from the enemy. And quite quickly.

And then speaking of those Parthians and Sassanids and the other tribes of the Middle East, where so many great Empires have bogged down. Didn't the Romans copy the cavalry archers to create their new troop type, the Sagitarii? Later in the Imperial period the Clibinari ("oven men") armored heavy cavalry were certainly copied from the Sassanian Cataphract.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

This is an excerpt from a blog by Osprey publishing about their book, 'the Spatha' which I believe is essentially the conventional wisdom for us laymen on the subject of the use of the Spatha by regular Roman infantry. Granted I'm sure there are more sophisticated analysis to be found in the academy and I'm ready to learn different. Interestingly they mention problems with spathae breaking:

https://ospreypublishing.com/blog/The_Spatha/

The short sword continued as the sidearm of choice for Roman infantry throughout the 1st century AD and well into the 2nd. Meanwhile, the longer cavalry sword had even acquired a nickname: spatha (from the Greek spathe meaning a spatula or wooden weaving implement). Then, around the middle of the 2nd century AD, something rather interesting happened. A series of innovations in Roman military equipment culminated in a switch to the longer sword for all troops, along with an equally radical change to the side on which the sword was worn (from right to left), with a completely new type of baldric being introduced from which the sword was suspended. Why this should have been the case is not clear. No Roman writer saw fit to refer to any technical innovation or military reform that might have led to this, but the suspicion has to be that it reflected an evolution in the way that Roman troops fought in comparison to earlier times.

It is important to stress that this was not just a change from short sword to longer blade, but rather a return to the original longer sword, employed by both cavalry and infantry. In effect, the use of two lengths of sword between the reigns of Augustus and Antoninus Pius was an aberration, an experiment that failed. This becomes all the clearer when the blade lengths of two spathae found in a burial at Canterbury (655 mm and 695 mm) are compared with the earlier Delos sword. This reversion to a longer infantry sword nevertheless was not the end of the short sword. Archaeological finds demonstrate that spathae were vulnerable to breaking in combat and in a number of instances such broken swords have been found which have been given a new point and repurposed as short swords. These may indeed be the semispathae mentioned by the Late Roman writer Vegetius. Indeed, recent analysis of a spatha from Vindolanda, near Hadrian’s Wall, shows evidence of repeated damage to the edges of the blade, a clean fracture across the whole sword, and an attempt to reforge the sword into something else (perhaps a dagger – Alberti, M. and Bishop, M. C. forthcoming: Three new swords from Vindolanda, Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 20).

[Michael Beeching]

When I post this, please keep in mind that I do so from a conversational angle, as I am not properly educated in this matter to make an informed position:

I was under the impression that late in Rome's history, a significant portion of the army was in fact comprised of foreigners. These foreigners, who would likely be Germans or Gauls, were partial to longer swords. Such swords are certainly more suited to loose formations rather than the tight formations the Romans proper were famous for. I was also under the impression that the decline in the Roman empire was also synonomous with the decline in the Roman army. Having fewer soldiers on hand might contribute to equipping troops with longer swords in looser formations, and I also believe that spearmen became more common assets in the army as well. The spears, I have heard, were also broadly associated with the more defensive nature of the army's mission in its twilight years.

I am much more qualified to speak about general engineering principles:

Mechanically, the longer an implement is, the more leverage that can be applied to it. A short sword of poor quality will be much more durable than a long sword of poor quality, at least in a broad sense. Yes, if there is a grievous defect in the tang construction, etc, any weapon could fail very quickly regardless of the length. But, assuming uniform quality throughout the weapon, even with poor materials, the reduced amount of leverage, and generally flex as well, that can be applied to a short sword blade should help to contribute to the longevity of that weapon. So, even though there seems to be evidence (as given in other posts) of early swords featuring long blades with excellent metallurgy, would those have been uncommon? If they were in fact uncommon, an easy solution would have been to make shorter blades in an effort to reduce breakage. By the way, I will need to read Pleiner's book when I have the chance.

Otherwise, if you are an empire like Rome or are a well-organized power like Sparta, choosing intentionally to adopt a short weapon makes sense if you are tactically inclined to fight in packed formations. In fact, the same thing happens with the Landsknechts in Germany. The only long weapons that are well-inclined for packed formations are pikes and spears (though halberds should also be mentioned here), simply because they go in one direction only. A long cutting sword is a much better fit for the individual fighter in contrast.

The following is speculation:

...Perhaps due to the style of swords in the "ancient" period, especially when bronze and iron were in direct competition, long length just meant excessive weight. Many early iron, and perhaps even steel, weapons, were often made in the same patterns as bronze swords. If you incorporate a thick medial ridge into a sword and also give it impressive length, you have elected to make an unwieldy weapon, and I've not seen many examples of heavy pommels in use at this time. Producing a shorter sword, more akin to the bronze examples, helps to solve this problem. One thing I am relatively comfortable in stating is that, while the design of period weapons often matches the performance of the materials, with the advancement of material quality on a broad scale, the design of weapons also increased in general. The medieval sword is a very good example of this.

[Dan Howard]

I still don't see how any of this is relevant. We know for a fact that Romans and Celts used long swords. We know for a fact that the metallurgy of some of these was as good as anything produced in the Middle Ages. The only contention is a semantic argument about the meaning of "some".

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Henri Chandler]