Medieval version of these suspensions tend to have slings both in front of and behind the body, so its not always possible to place a single picture from a single angle in this typology. If you can see the front slings, the rear slings are usually hidden, and vice versa.
Edit: On MyArmoury, Harry Maniakis found a study of sword belts in art from England: Albert Hartshorne, "The Sword Belts of the Middle Ages," The Archaeological Journal 48 (1891) pp. 320-34 https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/ar ... cfm?vol=48
Edit: See also Names for Scabbard Parts (2019)
Type A-0 ThisNameForRent (mid-15th century? - just two examples known): The scabbard is attached directly to the fauld of the pair of plates and hangs at an angle.
Claude Blair's favourite example was a painting of Sabbatai bringing water to King David: Konrad Witz the Elder, Heilsspiegelaltare, Kunsthalle, Basle (Blair pl. 33). How a Man Shall be Armed suggests either type A-0 or type U-0: "And then hange his daggere upon his right side. And then his shorte swerde upon the lyfte side in a rounde rynge all nakid and pylle it oute lightli."
Generally, this seems a very rare solution used by some men in harness.
Type A-1 Sancho IV of Castille (~1200-1330?): A short 'female' belt splits where it meets the front edge of the scabbard. The wide half wraps around the scabbard and is stitched to itself, the narrow half runs diagonally across the scabbard and meets a long, 'male' belt which is wrapped around the scabbard and stitched closed at the back edge. About a hand's width separates the two belts where they wrap around the scabbard. The male belt is buckled or laced though the female belt. The Z-shaped leathers at the throat of the scabbard can be seen in art.
This was very fashionable around the year 1300 and then fell out of fashion in the early 14th century. How early can it be found?
Type A-1a Maciejowski (mid 13th century?)
Roland Warzecha has a post on this type on the Dimicator Patreon
Type A-2 Naumberg (~13th century?) A short female belt is split and laced through the scabbard cover in a complicated system creating an X-shape on the front face of the scabbard. A long male belt is wrapped around the scabbard some distance below the throat. The male and female belts are buckled or laced together.
The scabbard of Fernando de la Cerda is a good example. Carol van Driel-Murray briefly talks about this style in her study of the scabbard leathers from Leiden.
Many of the donors at Naumberg Cathedral (built from 1213 to 1250) hold swords with this kind of belt.
Type A-6 Codex Manesse: Roland Warzecha has a post on this type which seems to use a strap slide
Type A-3 Westminister/Verona (c. 1329-c. 1380?): The locket has rings at the front and back edges. These can be on the same axis or offset with the ring on the front edge higher and the ring on the back edge lower. A band around the scabbard a handsbreadth or more below the locket has a ring on the back edge. The short female half and long male half of a belt end in rings which pass through the rings on the scabbard; an additional sling runs from the band to the belt somehow.
I don't know of any artwork which shows these, but many people copy the silver gilt scabbard fittings of Cangrande della Scala (d. 1329) in Verona and the silver scabbard fittings found on a sword blade at Westminister Bridge in London in the 18th century.
(Note: the wood and leather components of the Westminister scabbard are reconstructions, it spent 400 years in the Thames)
The old soldier with a long baselard in Altichiero's Passion of St. Lucia in Padua wears it in a Type A-3.
Type A-4 Paduan (1380-1480?): A waistbelt is buckled around the waist. Two slings run from different spots on the back edge of the scabbard to a single spot on the waistbelt at the small of the back. The tip of the waistbelt is threaded through a short strap hidden on the back of the scabbard near the throat, providing a third point of contact.
This appears as early as 1380 in Altichiero's paintings in Padua, but it is very rare through the first half of the 15th century (<1% of scabbards in art). I don't know of any surviving examples from any period, and I don't know if it ever becomes common. Tod Cutler has YouTube videos where he talks about how awesome these are, but it does not look like people in the late 14th/early 15th century agreed, at least not outside the Venice/Padua area.
(The Paduan Picture Bible from around 1400 shows this system)
Most scabbardmakers have made a few of type A-4, but I have trouble finding more than two clear depictions in art.
The warrior saint on the Trinity Altarpiece from Edinburgh by Hugo van der Goes (d. 1482) wears is sword in a type A-4. Note that his mittens of plate hang on a strap over his sword, and that the back slings seem to join together before they reach the waist belt, making a Y shape.
Mac's unsourced St. George shows two converging slings but not the belt or the hidden strap
Type A-5 thisNameForRent (1440-1480): from a waist belt, on three slings. Two of these touch the back of the scabbard a hand or more apart and converge at the side back or the small of the back, the third runs from the throat of the scabbard towards the wearer's right hip. The Montefeltro Altarpiece by Pierro della Francesca is a good example, so is the brass of John Cherowin (d. 1441). This seems to be a rare solution in the 15th century.
The Bruges copy of Jean Froissart's chronicle (BNF Français 2643) also shows this solution on page 292r.
The Getty Fior di Battaglia may be showing an A-5 or an A-4 in this picture, its hard to tell in a tiny sketch and only one sling to the belly and one to the small of the back are visible. So it could also be similar to the system in Dürer's Knight, Death, and the Devil (first watercolour 1498, printed 1513).
The Paduan Bible Picture Book seems to show it or something similar. Suspensions with "the tip of the sword lifted off the ground" (rule of the Francs-Archers) are often associated with Saracens in art from the 14th and early 15th century.
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Are the features of the different types clear? Can you widen my date ranges for any of these or give other examples? Do you know of any angled suspensions ~1300 to ~1500 which I am missing? Are there regional differences as well as chronological ones? Can you suggest names for the styles which just have numbers? Swords worn upright or tilted slightly forward will be part of a later post.There are some funky solutions in art from the mid to late 15th century, but I ran out of steam before I could start collecting and sorting artwork.
