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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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 Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 1:29 pm Post subject: The lenght of a seax |
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i wanted to know the lenght of a seax because i read that the eax were 40 to 50 cm.
So, is it true?
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 1:40 pm Post subject: Re: The lenght of a seax |
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| Etienne Hamel wrote: | i wanted to know the lenght of a seax because i read that the eax were 40 to 50 cm.
So, is it true? |
What kind of seax? From what era? They ranged from small utility knives (2-3 inch blades) to fully sword length.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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some kind of ''war seax''
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Etienne Hamel wrote: | | some kind of ''war seax'' |
That's very vague. A war knife or one of the sword-length specimens? Please try to give us enough information to answer your question.
I suspect that, as with many types of weapons, an average length range may be hard to establish, given the data available and the wide variety of weapons made.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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More like a war knife i should say...But anyway, something enough long to be qualified has a war knife. (if you know what i'm talking about)
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Nathan Robinson
myArmoury Admin
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Jared Smith
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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It seems like a lot of the modern reproductions (appearing to be intended as war knifes) fall between 17 to 24 inches long (430 mm to 600 mm including handle in the length.) I am wondering what the difference is between a scramaseax and a "seax?" Is seax just an abbreviation? I had the impression that the small utility knifes were scramaseaxs.
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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According to me it's all abreviation (sax, seax, scramasax, scramaseax).
But i can be out of the subject...
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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i found something for you Jared :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seax
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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From our feature article on the Anglo-Saxon Broken Back Seax:
| Quote: | The term "scramaseax" is sometimes used in modern descriptions of this weapon, but it occurs only once in an historical account. In his History of the Franks, Gregory of Tours describes how sixth century Frankish king Sigibert was assassinated by two young men using "strong knives commonly called scramaseax" (cultris validis quos vulgo scramasaxos vocant).
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ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Jared Smith
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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I suspect the abbreviation is the true case. Etymology exists behind some of the Gaul words (langseax being a long knife, hadseax being more of an intermediate tool-dual purpose knife, scram "meaning food" as in scramaseax might be interpreted as smaller.) I was hoping one of our migration era experts would chime in if there is any actual distinction.
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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And chad here's a clue : early seventh to early eighth century.
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Jeroen Zuiderwijk
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Sun 06 May, 2007 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, you'll need to be a bit more specific, it's a bit like asking the length of swords I'm currently working at an dutch 8th century frankish type langsax, similar to this one: http://1501bc.com/page/leger_museum_delft2/11260017.jpg. These have very specific dimensions: length blade 50cm, tang 15-20cm, blade width 38-45mm, max. thickness 5-8mm, straight or near straight edge, curved back starting at 1/3rd blade lenght from the tip, single or double fuller with surrounding lines up to the start of the curvature of the back, with or without damast inside the fullers, long wooden hilts of at least 20cm (definately no antler, on any original sax for that matter!). Saxes from different periods/locations are quite different, but also have quite specific dimensions, despite the great variation you find in saxes. Earlier saxes tend to be shorter, only towards the 8th century, they started to get up to sword lengths. The nordic langsaxes (straight back, curved edge near the tip), developed into single edged swords, some even longer then the double edged variants.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Mon 07 May, 2007 11:51 am Post subject: |
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| Etienne Hamel wrote: | | And chad here's a clue : early seventh to early eighth century. |
Is this somehow related to the hypothesis that late Merovingian/early Carolingian levies were trained according to Roman models and that the saxes were therefore interpreted as gladii-like swords?
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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| Posted: Mon 07 May, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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here is the types of blade that i found.
I talk about the ''E'' type
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Etienne Hamel
Location: Granby (QC) canada Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 443
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Jeroen Zuiderwijk
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Tue 08 May, 2007 12:59 am Post subject: |
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That's the so-called broken back sax. It's most common in Britain, but some examples also occur in Germany, Netherlands. They are as far as I'm aware, quite late: most I've seen are 8-11nd century. They occur both as shorter length blades, with the blade length (excl. tang) usually around 15-20cm in length, sometimes as small as 10cm. The blades usually get wider towards the tip. Here's a 9-10nd century example from London:
The longsax variants tend to have blades with lengths of around 50-60cm (excl. tang). They are basically stretched versions of the smaller variants, like the sax of Beagnoth. This one is dated 9-10nd century, although IIRC the examples from the Netherlands are 8th century.
Some intermediate lengths also occur, but I don't have any data on those.
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Johan S. Moen
Location: Kristiansand, Norway Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 259
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| Posted: Tue 08 May, 2007 4:50 am Post subject: |
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| Jeroen Zuiderwijk wrote: | | That's the so-called broken back sax. It's most common in Britain, but some examples also occur in Germany, Netherlands. |
As a sidenote, I have actually seen two scabbards for broken back seaxes from Norway(Trondheim I believe). I think they were of a rather late date. They also had makers marks on them that corresponded with marks on scabbards found in York.
Johan Schubert Moen
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Eric McHugh
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Tue 08 May, 2007 7:07 am Post subject: |
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While I don't have the data on that large seax in the British Museum, I did spend a lot of time photographing that seax. I estimate it is around 58-59 cm in the blade. The tang is a long single hand tang...say around 13-15 cm. There are a number of large two-handed seaxes in Stockholm that have blade length that range from 61-66+ cm with tangs that are 22-26 cm in length. These are massive warknives. Real shock troop sort of things.
In truth, pinning a seax length down is like asking, "how tall are trees?" There were small utility seaxes and big warknives (that could be called short swords or even swords).
Hope this helps to muddy the waters... 
Find me on Facebook, or check out my blog. Contact me at eric@crownforge.net or ericmycue374@comcast.net if you want to talk about a commission or discuss an available piece.
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Jeroen Zuiderwijk
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Wed 09 May, 2007 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| Eric McHugh wrote: | | While I don't have the data on that large seax in the British Museum, I did spend a lot of time photographing that seax. I estimate it is around 58-59 cm in the blade. The tang is a long single hand tang...say around 13-15 cm. |
The total length of the Beagnoth sax is 81cm, the hilt roughly 19cm. You can find some more detailed information here:
http://tinyurl.com/26srch
| Quote: | | There are a number of large two-handed seaxes in Stockholm that have blade length that range from 61-66+ cm with tangs that are 22-26 cm in length. These are massive warknives. Real shock troop sort of things. |
Do you have more information about these blades? I personally doubt that they were meant to be used two-handed. I think they were used a lot like ("burmese") dha swords (see examples: http://dharesearch.bowditch.us/SwordsFrame1Source1.htm), which have similar sized single edge blades, with similar length hilts. AFAIK, these are single handed swords as well. You see such long grips on saxes of all sizes (like the sax of Charlemagne). I personally find that for a straight grip without pommel or guard, you need a bit of extra length to get a good grip. And with 15-20cm, you can easily hold the blade in a handshake grip, without having to put your finger on the edge.
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This is a standard topic