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J.D. Crawford
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 Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2011 6:03 am Post subject: |
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| Craig Peters wrote: | | J.D. Crawford wrote: |
It certainly is tempting to see a progression in these 'Brazil Nut Family' pommels. Take the picture below where I've arranged Oakeshott's pommel types B1, B, A, N, and O in roughly historical order, spanning Viking times to the early 14th century. |
JD,
I have a question. When do the pommel types B1 and B first begin to appear on swords? The reason I ask is that it's not totally clear to me that the B type pommels predate the "A" type. I know for certain that we start to see Type "A"s at least as early as the 10th century. Is there clear evidence that B pommels are older than this? |
Craig, you're abolutely right that I have simplified things to make a good story. I'm glad you asked this question so politely before trashing the whole theory. B, B1, and A did co-exist for many years; B1 even apears in sculptures as late as 1220. However B1 is thought to have arisen from earlier Viking forms. This is shown nicely on page 18 of Pierce's 'Swords of the Viking Age'. Here, what Oakeshott would call B1 is a late simplified form of Petersen's type X, which started in the 9th century. The same figure shows the classic Brazil Nut 'type A' arising about a century after type X, along side those late X (B1) forms. On the other end, I tend to believe that type A pommels with a stronger outward curvature (such as in Sword of St. Maurice Turin) survived more frequently in actual high medieval swords and transitioned to type N. Details like that are highly speculative (given the problems with dating swords and the number of surviving examples), but I would argue that the overall trend from Viking age Brazil Nut predecessors, thorugh early medieval B and A, to high medieval N and O, is likely real. -JD
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Jeremiah Swanger
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| Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2011 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Craig Peters wrote: |
JD,
I have a question. When do the pommel types B1 and B first begin to appear on swords? The reason I ask is that it's not totally clear to me that the B type pommels predate the "A" type. I know for certain that we start to see Type "A"s at least as early as the 10th century. Is there clear evidence that B pommels are older than this? |
I think Oakeshott mentioned in the Sword in the Age of Chivalry that the "Brazil Nut" and the "Tea Cozy" pommel types emerged at roughly the same time...
"Rhaegar fought nobly.
Rhaegar fought valiantly.
Rhaegar fought honorably.
And Rhaegar died."
- G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sat 15 Jan, 2011 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| Jeremiah Swanger wrote: | | Craig Peters wrote: |
JD,
I have a question. When do the pommel types B1 and B first begin to appear on swords? The reason I ask is that it's not totally clear to me that the B type pommels predate the "A" type. I know for certain that we start to see Type "A"s at least as early as the 10th century. Is there clear evidence that B pommels are older than this? |
I think Oakeshott mentioned in the Sword in the Age of Chivalry that the "Brazil Nut" and the "Tea Cozy" pommel types emerged at roughly the same time... |
Definitely Jeremiah, and at that time (1964) he emphasized the difference in geographic distribution of tea-cozy in Western Europe and Brazil Nut in Central/Eastern Europe. I think that time line still holds if you only consider the later simplified (one-piece, undecorated) forms of the tea cozy, and not the earlier Viking age forms that had the same shape. I'm not sure if the geographic distribution still holds - in the original version of SAC Oakeshott did not consider finds in Finland which included late form tea cozy pommels.
However, Oakeshott made a number of errors in SAC that he tried to correct later in his carreer (It's important to read the appendix in SAC). I think many of them stem from his original bias to draw a clear line between Viking Age swords (Wheeler's I-IX) and his own scheme. His categorization schemes also seem to be biased by whether the owner / maker of the sword was a Pagan or Christian (for example, he tends to go by inscriptions to settle the matter, even though his scheme is supposed to be based on blade form). This resulted in awkward and rather silly questions like whether the sword in Fig. 14 (which has a tea cozy pommel and a type XII blade) is a Viking age X sword or a medieval XII sword. Later he realized that there are no such clear distinctions and dated this sword to the Viking age. In this he was heavily influenced by Leppaaho, who showed that Viking and early medieval forms co-existed in 11th century Finland
I think that Geibig's classification scheme for early medieval swords is more accurate and objective because it is based on measurements rather than intuition. See: http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_geibig.html It looks like Geibig placed tea cozy pommels before brazil nut pommels, at least they come first in his scheme, but unfortunately I do not read German and there is no English version of his work so I cannot comment further. I would love to know what he thinks.
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Tim Lison
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| Posted: Sat 15 Jan, 2011 9:13 am Post subject: |
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| Luka Borscak wrote: | This is a very interesting project! I can't wait to see the sword finished, or even progress pictures.
Cocked hat pommels might be included in this picture too, but they would have to stand side by side with the N type probably, considering their dating, not between these types. Actually it would be nice to see such a picture with all the tea cozy, brazil nut, cocked hat, N and O types and their variants. These types look like a one big family with quite a bit of variation and a nice time span, from 10th to 13th or even 14th century...
P.S. Now I have a, very unhealthy and bad for me, need to build up a collection of all of them... Noooo...... |
Luka has a great point here. The upward curve at the ends of type e pommels do seen to have a lot in common with the upward turn of the type o. If you take the middle "bump" out of a type e, you have something similar to type o. I'm attaching a picture of a sword with a type e pommel that has a lot in common with a type o.
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sat 15 Jan, 2011 9:31 am Post subject: |
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Great find Tim - that's a beauty. Definitely a transitional form between latter day cocked-hat and N/O in line with Luka's point, and what a great blade. Somebody should also replicate this one. 
One could also include lobated pommels in these pommel progressions - starting with Viking ones combined with straight upper guards and ending up with the outward curving single piece types seen on erly medieval swords like the Cawood sword and later Scottish examples. The common element between all these medieval forms (brazil nut, cocked hat, lobated) is that the pommel curves away from the hand, apparently for more comfortably handling.
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Jeremy V. Krause
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| Posted: Sat 15 Jan, 2011 12:23 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Time,
That's a hand-and-a-half example isn't it? Very impressive. Where did you find it?
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Tim Lison
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| Posted: Sat 15 Jan, 2011 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Jeremy V. Krause wrote: | Hi Time,
That's a hand-and-a-half example isn't it? Very impressive. Where did you find it? |
This one is from a Czerny's catalog. Looks like a type XIII to me. The grip is clearly big enough to use hand and a half but the blade seems short. I'm sure you could really choke up on this one and do some pretty bad damage in the cut. It has silver inlay in the blade too, it's a bit hard to see but it seems really well done. A very nice sword. Perhaps someone should have this made someday...
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 5:53 am Post subject: |
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Here's a similar long-handled type N warsword (middle) from an old Sotheyby's catelog.
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Jeremy V. Krause
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 8:18 am Post subject: |
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Nice find J.D.,
Do you own this catalogue? If not where can I find them- either in print or on the web.
The blade form on that war sword- at least the top of it- is intyereting in that the fuller is quite thin. It shows how historical examples can fall outside of our formal catagories.
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 8:25 am Post subject: |
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| Jeremy V. Krause wrote: | Nice find J.D.,
Do you own this catalogue? If not where can I find them- either in print or on the web.
The blade form on that war sword- at least the top of it- is intyereting in that the fuller is quite thin. It shows how historical examples can fall outside of our formal catagories. |
Not JD, but I do own the catalogue. You can find more pics and info on the sword in this post: Early Great Sword. The catalogue itself can be found on Ebay from time to time.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 9:16 am Post subject: |
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Thanks Chad for the link. I knew you had talked about that sword somewhere but did not remember where.
There's a great wealth of information and futher illustratrions on very similar type N pommel warswords in Marko Aleksić's article (possibly even this same sword, I'm not sure). He also has a book on Medieval swords of South Eastern Europe - Craig Johnson obtained a copy and says it is quite interesting.
-JD
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Tim Lison
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 11:58 am Post subject: |
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Good one! I'm posting another N pommel type XIII sword. It's nice to see some pictures of these odd styles. Sometimes it's hard to find any...
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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Heh, heh, I know that one well Tim - its here in my town at the ROM. Also love the long-bladed A pommel and triple fullered XIII that flank it.
Note the high cup shape on that one - that's what Aleksić calls N-b. He calls the flatter wider ones (like the one in Sotheby's) N-a. Some N-a examples get pretty close to O.
Here's another nice N with a shorter handle, posted elsewhere on myArmoury: http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/pic_geibig15.jpg
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Tim Lison
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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Nice! I had thought about doing the type A as a repro from that photo. Any idea when Craig will snd some progress shots?
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sun 16 Jan, 2011 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Tim Lison wrote: | | Nice! I had thought about doing the type A as a repro from that photo. Any idea when Craig will snd some progress shots? |
Nope, and considering the commission is only 3 months old I don't want to pester him anymore. I know he's working on it but I think he's waiting for something more camera friendly, besides being busy making a living. Craig, if you are listening backstage, you can hear your fans chanting 'A & A, A& A', A & A in the concert hall...
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Mon 31 Jan, 2011 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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'At last', after all the academic preamble, some pictures from Craig for me to show. 
There are a number of them, so I will spread them out a bit. Excuse me if I wax poetic, and don't ask me any technical questions - save those for Craig. First, some early blade pictures:
Picture #1: the big, nasty blade makes its first appearance, belched forth, as it were, from the deepest pits of Morgoth's fiery pits. (Yes, I know this is based on a real historical sword, its not a fantasy sword, but there's something about it from the start that made me think of the baddies of middle earth, especially the Witch King. And yes I know, the Witch King came much later 'historically' than Morgoth, but he could have had a magic sword from an earlier age, right?).
Picture #2: A first tease, revealing the shapely bare shoulders of the partially finished blade.
Next sequence; the making of of the cross.
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Tue 01 Feb, 2011 9:21 am Post subject: |
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Here is a very interesting sequence that shows -I think- the actual sequence of forging the cross. What is particularly interesting here is that Craig is not just showing us progress shots, but the actual steps of making it! I particularly like the colorful action shot of hammering the cross over the anvil.
Hopefully Craig will have time to explain these steps.
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Tim Lison
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| Posted: Tue 01 Feb, 2011 9:46 am Post subject: |
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Alright, I'm reeeeeealy envious right now. First that beautiful type X from A&A and now this..? Your collection is really looking good! I'm excited to see some more pics of this one, the blade looks great.
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Craig Johnson
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Tue 01 Feb, 2011 9:57 am Post subject: Guard |
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| J.D. Crawford wrote: | | Hopefully Craig will have time to explain these steps. |
Happy to
Doug is correct this is a series of bits as we are forging the rough for the guard. The piece starts out as a bit of square stock and then is tapered for the arms and set for the wider section that will have the pass through for the tang. (Have some pics of that I will send to Doug as quick as I can.) the piece is hammered on an old belt driven power hammer we have. (Save the elbows  ) and then is tuned up, straightened and evened out by hand on the anvil. You leave it attached to the core stock as long as is convenient so it is easy to handle and one does not need tongs. Nothing wrong with tongs but as an old smith once told me the secret to smithing is get your brain out of the way and do it the easy way.
Let me know if any one has any questions.
Best
Craig
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Tue 01 Feb, 2011 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Tim Lison wrote: | | Alright, I'm reeeeeealy envious right now. First that beautiful type X from A&A and now this..? Your collection is really looking good! I'm excited to see some more pics of this one, the blade looks great. |
Well Tim, I can't seem to reel them in as fast as you do, so I have to milk them for all they're worth.
Next class in Professor Johnson's 'How to make a Sword' 101: CHISELING THE GUARD OPENING
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