The Armour Archive

I'd like to get a book on the Oakeshott Typology on swords but don't know the title of the book.
Help?

Aren't you on your Honeymoon? If so, why are you posting??!!!!

We don't leave for Hawaii until Thursday.

The typology is in several of his books. He first developed it in Archaeology of Weapons but he substantially revised it subsequently. Records of the Medieval Sword is probably the fullest iteration.

Niall, I own both of the above if you'd like to have a preview.

K

That would be great if you can bring them to an event one of these days

The question then remains, when will Klaus get off his ass and go to an event? That might not be until October Crown...

It may be for me too. Let's say Oct Crown for sure then.

Records of the Medieval Sword: ISBN-13: 978-0851155661

or The Sword in the Age of Chivalry: ISBN-13: 978-0851157153

RotMS is a better reference book for photographs, Sword in the Age of Chivalry is better if you're wanting to read about them.

In my opinion, for what its worth, RotMS is ok as a picture-book, but having handled quite a few of the swords in there, there are a few glaring discrepancies, and a lot of shortfalls in the data in it.

Would you be willing to share a bit of what you noticed? I have a copy of RotMS and would really like to know more about the weapons shown.

(Do excuse any typos, but my RSI is really giving me hell today.)
A lot of the discrepencies I've noticed are in the glasgow ones, but maybe just because I've spent too long staring at them all, whereas others I've mostly seen in passing.
For glasgow, there's a few cataloguing errors that might make it harder for a reader to do a search for them today - glasgow museums has changed its cataloguing so the swords listing "glasgow museum and art gallery" with a "(A.123)" (or whatever numbers) in it has changed. As a general rule, those formats will be listed so instead of A123 it would be "Glasgow Museums, A.1912.3" or A.772 would now be A.1977.2, and A.7654 would be A.1976.54.

shortfalls in the data should be obvious - no measurements of profile widths along the taper of the blades, no distal taper measurements, no centre of gravity in those examples with hilts, no proportions on hilt dimensions.
Sometimes, I keep looking at the book, and the rather fuzzy photography or illustrations and catch myself thinking "I should get accurate data for all the swords in here, proper studio photography, and write my own version of thi-NO! BAD ELMSLIE! BEHAVE!

Anyhow.

The Hamilton find, XVII.12, (Glasgow A.1973.7) is one that stands out
(wonderful story about that. it was unearthed by mechanical digger, as RotMS states. what it doesnt say is that it was found by a guy walking his dog, who, walking past the heaped earth bank, saw a reddish brown stick poking out the soil, and pulled it out to throw for the dog to catch. only what came out was'nt a stick, but the tang of the sword. Followed by the cross... Followed by the blade. Wish I could find things like that!)
Anyhow, it does'nt have "three fine stamped marks" - it's infact three sets of peircings that go completely through the blade, which have been capped with 6 yellow metal (latten, I think, could be gold but I very much doubt it) peirced caps, almost of the sort of shape you'd expect of a 5-spoked sportscar's alloy wheel. You can clearly see through the peircings, and there is a little bit of a void beneath each one. I've yet to work out if the peircings are a single hole with a shoulder edge, or 5 smaller holes on an indent.

The metal rain-guard described, likewise is not a rainguard/rainchape, but an integral shape in the forging/casting for the centrepeice of the cross.


The gorgeous XVa, Records XVa.2 - glasgow A.1989.15 (I so want to make a replica of that one...) is a bit odd. oakeshott makes reference to the two rainchape "shadows", but one of those really has disappeared from clear sight, the other is only the very slightest hint of a less patinated surface. the museum lists the date as younger than oakeshott does, and the dating it by the marks of a scabbard that arent there is really pretty spurious to me. partly, as from those swords that I have made and the plenty more that I've seen wit scabbards wearing over time, if the scabbard were in-situ to the point of decay, where that the metal had protected it, then the rest of the blade would've been much worse corroded than it is. So, personally, I rather suspect that oakeshott's dating is... iffy.

A couple of the others have details which have been missed: XIIIa.7 has an extremely unusual scarf-welding on the tang transition which is spectacularly ugly, and also very badly done. I rather suspect that one had its tang sheared off at some point in alexandria and was rehilted in the quickest and dirtiest fashion, as it was by then gathering dust in the hall of victories.

there's a few others, which I'm going to have to try to remember, and add to this later.