The Migration Period sword was a type of

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

popular during the

Migration Period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...

and the Merovingian period of

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early Eu ...

(c. 4th to 7th centuries AD), particularly among the

Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...

. It later gave rise to the Carolingian or Viking sword type of the 8th to 11th centuries AD. The blade was normally smooth or showed a very shallow fuller, 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 in length and in width. The tang has a length of 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 Scandinavian

Germanic Iron Age The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavian Peninsula, Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain, roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Northern Germany, Poland, the Net ...

( Vendel period).

Names and terminology

There is no single term that can be reconstructed as having referred specifically to the late Roman '' spatha'' in

Common Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bra ...

. There are a number of terms and epithets which refer to the sword, especially in Germanic poetry. * ''*swerdan'' "cutting weapon" (whence

). ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...

'' has the compound ''wægsweord'' (1489a) referring to a pattern-welded blade (the ''wæg-'' "wave" describing the wave-like patterns). A ''mære maðþumsweord'' "renowned treasure-sword" (1023a) is given to Beowulf as a reward for his heroism. The same sword is called a ''guðsweord'' "battle-sword" later on (2154a) * ''heoru'' (''heoro'', '' eor''), tentatively associated with the name of

Ares Ares (; , ''Árēs'' ) is the List of Greek deities, Greek god of war god, war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for ...

(identified with Teiwaz) by

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

* ''maki'' (''meki'', ''mækir'', ''mece''; also ''hildemece'' "battle-sword"), found in Gothic as well as in Old English and Old Norse, perhaps related to the Greek μάχαιρα; in any case, Gothic ''meki'' in Ephesians 6:17 translates this Greek word. The compound ''hæftmece'' in Beowulf, literally "hilt-sword", presumably describes a sword with an exceptionally long hilt. Slavic '' mьčь'' is usually regarded as a loan from the Germanic word. Terms for "blade", "point" or "edge" which ''pars pro toto'' (“part for total”) could also refer to the sword as a whole include *''*biljo'' "splitter, cleaver" (West Germanic only); a ''bill'' could be any bladed tool, especially farm implements such as scythes or sickles; the compound ''guðbill'', ''wigbill'', ''hildebill'' "battle-blade" refers to the sword, but also the simplex ''bill'' is used. Heliand (v. 4882) has ''billes biti'' "sword-bite". The Hildebrandslied has a parallelism establishing ''bill'' and ''suert'' as synonyms (v. 53f. ''suertu hauwan, bretun mit sinu billiu'' " e shallhew t mewith issword, lay elow with isblade"). * ''*þramja'' "edge, blade", perhaps Tacitus' ''framea'' "spear, lance", but Old Norse ''þremjar'' means "edges, sword blades" *''*agjo'' "edge". * ''ord'' "point" * ''*gaizo-'' meaning "cutter", the normal term for "

spear A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable materia ...

", but in the early period may also have referred to the sword (see

Bergakker inscription The Bergakker inscription is an Elder Futhark inscription discovered on the scabbard of a 5th-century sword. It was found in 1996 in the Dutch town of Bergakker, in the Betuwe, a region once inhabited by the Batavi. There is consensus that t ...

) From the testimony of

Germanic mythology Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon paganism#Mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. O ...

and the

Icelandic sagas The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

, swords could also be given individual names. Examples include the magic sword of Högni, named ''Dáinnleif'' after the dwarf Dáinn (''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

''), ''Skofnung'' and ''Hviting'', two sword-names from the '' Kormáks saga'', '' Nægling'' and '' Hrunting'' from ''Beowulf'', and ''Mimung'' forged by Wayland the Smith.

Early development

Roman spatha

The ''spatha'' was introduced to the

Roman army The Roman army () served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 1453), including the Western Roman Empire (collapsed Fall of the W ...

in the early imperial period by Germanic

auxiliaries Auxiliaries are combat support, support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular army, regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties ...

. The earlier ''

gladius ''Gladius'' () is a Latin word properly referring to the type of sword that was used by Ancient Rome, ancient Roman foot soldiers starting from the 3rd century BC and until the 3rd century AD. Linguistically, within Latin, the word also came t ...

'' sword was gradually replaced by the ''spatha'' 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 the '' scutum'' had been abandoned and the ''spatha'' had replaced the ''gladius''. An early find of Roman ''spathae'' in a native Germanic context (as opposed to Roman military camps in Germania) is the deposit of sixty-seven Roman swords in the Vimose bog (3rd century). The ''spatha'' remained in use in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

and its

army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

. In the Byzantine court, '' spatharios'' (σπαθάριος), or "bearer of the ''spatha''", was a mid-level court title. Other variants deriving from it were '' protospatharios'', ''spatharokandidatos'' and ''spatharokoubikoularios'', the latter reserved for

eunuchs A eunuch ( , ) is a male who has been castration, castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2 ...

. One of the more famous ''spatharokandidatoi'' was

Harald Hardrada Harald Sigurdsson (; – 25 September 1066), also known as Harald III of Norway and given the epithet ''Hardrada'' in the sagas, was List of Norwegian monarchs, King of Norway from 1046 to 1066. He unsuccessfully claimed the Monarchy of Denma ...

Krefeld type

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 at Gelduba castle,

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

(Gellep grave 43). The military burials at Gelduba begin in the late 1st century with the establishment of a Roman camp in

Germania Inferior ''Germania Inferior'' ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed ''Germania Secunda'' in the 4th century AD, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Cl ...

, and they continue without interruption throughout the period of withdrawal of Roman troops and the establishment of early Frankish presence in the mid-5th century. The Krefeld type ''spathae'' 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.

Merovingian period

A native industry producing "Germanic swords" then emerges from the 5th century, contemporary with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The Germanic spatha did not replace the native

seax A ''seax'' (; also sax, sæx, sex; invariant in plural, latinized ''sachsum'') is a small sword, fighting knife or dagger typical of the Germanic peoples of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages, especially the Saxons. The name comes f ...

, sometimes referred to as ''gladius'' or ''ensis'' "sword", but technically a single-edged weapon or

knife A knife (: knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least Stone Age, 2.5 million years ago, as e ...

. 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 as

grave good Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a corpse, body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into an afterlife, or offerings to gods. Grave goods may be classed by re ...

s, the vast majority of the 6th- to 7th-century graves have a seax and/or a

, and only the richest have swords. Swords could often become important heirlooms.

Æthelstan Ætheling Æthelstan Ætheling (; early or mid 980s – 25 June 1014) was the eldest son of King Æthelred the Unready by his first wife Ælfgifu of York, Ælfgifu, and was the heir apparent to the kingdom until his death. He is first mentioned as a wi ...

, son of king Æthelred, in a will of c. 1015 bequeathed to his brother Eadmund the sword of king

Offa Offa ( 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death in 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of ...

(died 796), which at that time must have been over 200 years old.

Gold hilt spatha

The gold hilt spatha was a very rare and prestigious type of sword in the later 5th century. Specimens are known mostly from Alemannia ( Pleidelsheim, Villingendorf), but also as far afield as

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

( 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. One of the "Franconian" examples is the sword of

Childeric I Childeric I (died 481 AD) was a Frankish leader in the northern part of imperial Roman Gaul and a member of the Merovingian dynasty, described as a king (Latin ''rex''), both on his Roman-style seal ring, which was buried with him, and in fragm ...

(died 481), recovered from his tomb at

Tournai Tournai ( , ; ; ; , sometimes Anglicisation (linguistics), anglicised in older sources as "Tournay") is a city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia located in the Hainaut Province, Province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies by ...

. Some authors have suggested that Childeric's sword was a "ceremonial sword" not intended for combat, perhaps produced for the occasion of his burial.

Ring-sword

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 the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

, in the 6th and 7th centuries. They were found in Vendel era Scandinavia, Finland and in

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or early medieval England covers the period from the end of Roman Empire, Roman imperial rule in Roman Britain, Britain in the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. Compared to modern England, the territory of the ...

as well as on the Continent (

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...

, Alemannia, Langobardia). These swords were prestigious, prized possessions, probably reserved for kings and high nobility. The ring is interpreted as a symbolic "oath ring". The design appears to have originated in the late 5th century, possibly with the early Merovingians, and quickly spread to England (from the earliest phase of Anglo-Saxon presence) and Scandinavia. The

poem uses the term ''hring-mæl'', literally "ring-sword" or "ring-ornament", 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 the pagan period, as ring-swords disappeared from the archaeological record with Christianization, by the late 7th century. Examples include: *Continent **the Beckum ring-sword, dated c. AD 475–525, found at Beckum, Germany **Wünnenberg-Fürstenberg, grave 61, 6th century **the Schretzheim sword, found in tomb 78 in the Schretzheim Alemannic cemetery, Dillingen, Bavaria, dated to between 580 and 620 AD. The sword is a rare example of a blade inscribed with an Elder Futhark inscription, four runes arranged so that the staves form a cross shape. *England **the Kent (or Dover) ring-sword **

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeology, Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wea ...

ring-sword **the Chessel Down II (Isle of Wight) ring-sword), early 6th century ** Staffordshire Hoard k543, a silver sword ring fitting of fixed type, among the treasure found near Hammerwich, Staffordshire. Thought to be associated with one of the older pommel-caps in the hoard, the piece has been dated to the early 6th century. Pommel-cap k711 also displays characteristic damage caused by the installation and later removal of a ring fitting in antiquity, like the pommel-cap from the Snösbäck ritual deposit in Västergötland. *Scandinavia **the Snartemo sword, found 1933 in tomb 5 at Snartemo,

Vest-Agder Vest-Agder (; "West Agder") was one of 18 counties (''fylker'') in Norway from 1 January 1919 to 31 December 2019, after it was merged with Aust-Agder to form Agder county. In 2016, there were 182,701 inhabitants, around 3.5% of the total popul ...

, Norway, dated to c. 500 AD. **Vendel ring-sword, found at Vendel,

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

, Sweden, 6th century. **the Vallstenarum sword, found in

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

, provides an important indication of the spread of the fashion. The sword was made in the early 6th century, and a ring was added only later, around 600 AD, damaging part of the existing hilt decoration. File:Spada longobarda.jpg, Replica of a Lombard ring-sword, Civico Museo Archeologico di Bergamo File:Arte longobarda, pomello di spada, VI-VII sec, forse da italia.JPG, Lombard art, sword pommel, 6th–7th century File:Gutenstein warrior.jpg, The 7th-century Gutenstein scabbard, found near Sigmaringen,

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

, Germany shows a warrior in wolf costume holding a ring-sword File:Ringknaufschwert 1.JPG, Anglo Saxon ring sword (6th century) File:Ringsvärd Eura merovingertid.jpg, Finnish ring sword (7th century) from Pappilanmäki, Eura

Transition to the Carolingian sword

In the 8th century, Frankish sword smiths increasingly gained access to high quality steel imported from Central Asia, where a

crucible steel Crucible steel is steel made by melting pig iron, cast iron, iron, and sometimes steel, often along with sand, glass, ashes, and other fluxes, in a crucible. Crucible steel was first developed in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE in Sout ...

industry began to establish itself.David Edge, Alan Williams: Some early medieval swords in the Wallace Collection and elsewhere, Gladius XXIII, 2003, 191-210 (p. 203). 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 the '' Ulfberht'' type) emerges by the turn of the 9th century.

References

*Elis Behmer, ''Das zweischneidige Schwert der germanischen Völkerwanderungszeit'', Stockholm (1939).0 *H. R. Ellis Davidson, ''The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England: its Archaeology and Literature'', Oxford (1962). * * Vasilev, Vladimir (2018
The role of the ring-swords from Early Medieval Europe.
- STUDIA IURIDICO– HISTORICA, Vol. 7, year VII, Blagoevgrad. /in print/; (in Bulgarian) * Vasilev, Vladimir (2024
Ring-sword in Early Medieval Europe.
- Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM), Anno 5, Fascicolo n. 17 (marzo 2024), Storia Militare Medievale, Roma, 2014, pp. 35-56.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Migration Period Sword Ancient European swords Medieval European swords

Sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...