| Migration Period Sword | |
|---|---|
 Germanic type ring sword –France, 6th century | |
| Type | Sword |
| Place of origin | Northwestern Europe |
| Production history | |
| Produced | 4th century – 7th century |
| Variants | Krefeld type, Alamannic type, Frankish type |
| Specifications | |
| Length | c. 70–80 cm (28–31 in) blade |
| Blade type | straight, smooth or with shallow fuller, double edged |
| Hilt type | short guard, large pommel, ring hilted variants |
TheMigration Period sword was a type ofsword popular during theMigration Period and theMerovingian period ofEuropean history (c. 4th to 7th centuries AD), particularly among theGermanic peoples. It later gave rise to the Carolingian orViking sword type of the 8th to 11th centuries AD.
The blade was normally smooth or showed a very shallowfuller, and often had multiple bands of pattern-welding within the central portion. The handles were often of perishable material and there are few surviving examples. Blade length measured between 28–32 in (710–810 mm) in length and 1.7–2.4 in (43–61 mm) in width. The tang has a length of 4–5 in (100–130 mm) long. The blades show very little taper, usually ending in a rounded tip.
Surviving examples of these Merovingian-period swords have notably been found in the context of the ScandinavianGermanic Iron Age (Vendel period).
There is no single term that can be reconstructed as having referred specifically to the late Romanspatha inCommon Germanic. There are a number of terms and epithets which refer to the sword, especially inGermanic poetry.[1]
Terms for "blade", "point" or "edge" whichpars pro toto (“part for total”) could also refer to the sword as a whole include
From the testimony ofGermanic mythology and theIcelandic sagas, swords could also be givenindividual names. Examples include the magic sword ofHögni, namedDáinnleif after the dwarf Dáinn (Skáldskaparmál),Skofnung andHviting, two sword-names from theKormáks saga,Nægling andHrunting fromBeowulf, andMimung forged byWayland the Smith.
Thespatha was introduced to theRoman army in the earlyimperial period by Germanicauxiliaries. The earliergladius sword was gradually replaced by thespatha from the late 2nd to the 3rd century. From the early 3rd century, legionaries and cavalrymen began to wear their swords on the left side, perhaps because thescutum had been abandoned and thespatha had replaced thegladius.[4]
An early find of Romanspathae in a native Germanic context (as opposed to Roman military camps in Germania) is the deposit of sixty-seven Roman swords in theVimose bog (3rd century).
Thespatha remained in use in theByzantine Empire and itsarmy. In the Byzantine court,spatharios (σπαθάριος), or "bearer of thespatha", was a mid-levelcourt title. Other variants deriving from it wereprotospatharios,spatharokandidatos andspatharokoubikoularios, the latter reserved foreunuchs. One of the more famousspatharokandidatoi wasHarald Hardrada.[5]
An early type of recognizably Germanic sword is the so-called "Krefeld-type" (also Krefeld-Gellep), named for a find in late Roman era military burials atGelduba castle,Krefeld (Gellep grave 43).
The military burials at Gelduba begin in the late 1st century with the establishment of a Roman camp inGermania Inferior, and they continue without interruption throughout the period of withdrawal of Roman troops and the establishment of earlyFrankish presence in the mid-5th century.
The Krefeld typespathae appear in graves from approximately the 430s through the 460s.In these graves, the exalted prestige of the sword is not yet fully developed, and some of them are surprisingly poor. They rather seem to still continue the tradition of military graves of the Roman period, of warriors buried with their personal weapon, the presence of a sword perhaps indicating service in the late Roman army.
Six Krefeld type swords are known from Francia, four from Alamannia, and another two from England.
A native industry producing "Germanic swords" then emerges from the 5th century, contemporary with thecollapse of the Western Roman Empire.The Germanic spatha did not replace the nativeseax, sometimes referred to asgladius orensis "sword", but technically a single-edged weapon orknife.It rather establishes itself, by the 6th century, at the top of the scale of prestige associated with weapons.While every Germanic warrior grave of the pagan period was furnished with weapons asgrave goods, the vast majority of the 6th- to 7th-century graves have a seax and/or aspear, and only the richest have swords.
Swords could often become important heirlooms.Æthelstan Ætheling, son of kingÆthelred, in a will of c. 1015 bequeathed to his brotherEadmund the sword of kingOffa (died 796), which at that time must have been over 200 years old.[6]
The gold hilt spatha was a very rare and prestigious type of sword in the later 5th century.Specimens are known mostly fromAlemannia (Pleidelsheim,Villingendorf), but also as far afield asMoravia (Blučina).
An "Alamannic type" is distinguished from a "Franconian type" based on scabbard mounts and hilt design by Quast (1993). A total of 20 examples are known, ten of each type.[7]
One of the "Franconian" examples is the sword ofChilderic I (died 481), recovered from his tomb atTournai.Some authors have suggested that Childeric's sword was a "ceremonial sword" not intended for combat, perhaps produced for the occasion of his burial.[8]
The ring-sword (also ring-spatha, ring-hilt spatha) is a particular variant of the Germanic migration period swords.Ring-swords are characterized by a small ring fixed to the hilt (not to be confused are Late Medieval to Renaissance Irish swords with ring-shaped pommels, also known as "ring-swords").
Ring-swords came into fashion in the last phase of the Migration period (or the beginning of theEarly Middle Ages, in the 6th and 7th centuries. They were found inVendel era Scandinavia, Finland and inAnglo-Saxon England as well as on the Continent (Saxony,Francia,Alemannia,Langobardia).[9] These swords were prestigious, prized possessions, probably reserved for kings and high nobility. The ring is interpreted as a symbolic "oath ring".[10]
The design appears to have originated in the late 5th century, possibly with the earlyMerovingians, and quickly spread to England (from the earliest phase ofAnglo-Saxon presence) and Scandinavia. TheBeowulf poem uses the termhring-mæl, literally "ring-sword" or "ring-ornament",[11] and scholars who interpret this as referring to this type of sword can point to it as one indication that the Beowulf poet was still drawing from an unbroken tradition of thepagan period, as ring-swords disappeared from the archaeological record with Christianization, by the late 7th century.[12]Some 80 examples of ring-hilted swords have been found in Europe, 14 of those in Finland. First phase swords with a loose ring have only been found in Kent, England, whereas second phase is prevalent on the continent, especially in France but also in Sweden, Finland (six examples) and Italy.[citation needed]
Examples include:
In the 8th century, Frankish sword smiths increasingly gained access to high quality steel imported from Central Asia, where acrucible steel industry began to establish itself.[17] The earliest types of "Viking swords" according to the typology of Petersen (1919) are dated to the second half of the 8th century, while the "Viking sword" proper (and notably theUlfberht type) emerges by the turn of the 9th century.
