A ''seax'' (; also sax, sæx, sex; invariant in

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

ized ''sachsum'') is a small

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 ...

fighting knife A fighting knife has a blade designed to most effectively inflict injury in close-quarters physical confrontations.Burton, Walter E., ''Knives For Fighting Men'', Popular Science, July 1944, Vol. 145 No. 1, p. 150Hunsicker, A., ''Advanced Skills ...

dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...

typical of 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 ...

of 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

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 ...

, especially the

Saxons The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

. The name comes from an

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

word for "

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 ...

". In

heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and genealo ...

, the ''seax'' is a charge consisting of a curved sword with a notched blade, appearing, for example, in the coats of arms of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

and the former

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

Etymology

''seax'' and

Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...

''sax'' are identical with

Old Saxon Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...

and

Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

''sahs'', all from a

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 ...

''*sahsą'' from a root ''*sah, *sag-'' "to cut" (also in

saw A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, Wire saw, wire, or Chainsaw, chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws. Saws began as serrated materials, and when man ...

, from a PIE root *sek-). ''Scramaseax'' or ''scramsax'' () is sometimes used for disambiguation, even though it is not attested in Old English, but taken from an occurrence of ''scramasaxi'' in

Gregory of Tours Gregory of Tours (born ; 30 November – 17 November 594 AD) was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours during the Merovingian period and is known as the "father of French history". He was a prelate in the Merovingian kingdom, encom ...

' ''History of the

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

''. The name of the roofer's tool, the '' zax'', is a development from this word.

Description

Amongst the shape and construction of seaxes there is a great deal of variation. The most frequent characteristics are: * A tang in the centerline of the blade, inserted into an organic hilt (wood, horn) * A large single-edged blade * The blade is worn horizontally inside a

scabbard A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, dagger, knife, or similar edged weapons. Rifles and other long guns may also be stored in scabbards by horse riders for transportation. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring ...

attached to the belt, with the edge of the blade upwards In the continental Germanic area, the following types are defined for seaxes between roughly 450 and 800 AD, in chronological order:Schmit, Georg
Die Alamannen im Zollernalbkreis
. Retrieved 16 July 2008. * Narrow long seax * Short seax * Narrow seax – Often have braided bands or

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

engraved Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an inta ...

in the blade, and frequently include metal bolsters and pommels. Both the edge and the back are curved towards the tip, which is generally located above the centerline of the blade. * Seax brokeback modern

Light broad seax – Similar to narrow seax, but frequently lack metal hilt parts, and have simpler decorations on the blade, such as

parallel lines In geometry, parallel lines are coplanar infinite straight lines that do not intersect at any point. Parallel planes are planes in the same three-dimensional space that never meet. '' Parallel curves'' are curves that do not touch each oth ...

. Both the edge and the back curve towards the tip, which is generally located at the centerline of the blade. * Heavy broad seax – Have simple decorations on the blade if any, and long single-part organic hilts (>). Both the edge and the back curve towards the tip, which is generally located at the centerline of the blade. * Atypical broad seax – Same as heavy broad seax. * Long seax – Blades are or longer, often with multiple fullers and grooves, pattern welded blades, and long hilts similar to broad seaxes. The edge is generally straight, or curved slightly towards the tip. The back either curves gently, or with a sharp angle towards the tip, which is located below the centerline of the blade. The general trend, as one moves from the short to the broad seax, is that the blade becomes heavier, longer, broader and thicker. Long seaxes, which arrived at the end of the seventh century, were the longest of the seax. These were narrower and lighter than their predecessors. Initially, these weapons were found in combination with double-edged swords and were probably intended as side arm. From the seventh century onwards, seaxes became the main edged weapon (next to a francisca), sometimes in combination with small side-knives. The rest of Europe (except for parts of Scandinavia) followed a similar development, although some types may not be very common depending on location. In England long seaxes appear later than on the continent and finds of long seaxes (as opposed to knives) remain very rare in comparison to finds of swords throughout the period.Gale, David (1989) ''The Seax'' in ''Weapons and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England'' Oxford, England: Oxbow Another typical form of the seax is the so-called broken-back style seax. These seaxes have a sharp angled transition between the back section of the blade and the point, the latter generally forming 1/3 to 3/5 of the blade length, exactly like a large version of a modern clip-point blade. These seaxes exist both in long seax variety (edge and back parallel) and in smaller blades of various lengths (blade expanding first, then narrowing towards the tip after the kink). They occurred mostly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with some examples in Germany around the eighth to eleventh century. Some examples have pattern welded blades, while others have inlays of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

, etc.

References

External links

The Anglo Saxon Broken Back Seax
(myArmoury.com article)

British Museum:Seax of Beagnoth
* Andrew Thompson

3 October 2011
The Thegns of Mercia
{{Knives Medieval European swords Old English Saxony Migration Period Knives Germanic weapons Military knives Machetes

Etymology

Description

See also

References

External links