![]() When Byrhtnoth draws his own sword, he slashes. The Battle of Maldon records that Byrhtnoth’s nephew Wulfmær was “slashed by the sword.” In the same poem Eadweard swings his sword so savagely that he kills his enemy on the spot. As a result, for the early Middle Ages prior to the Norman Conquest, we tend to see a lot of swords with relatively little profile taper – types X and Xa in the Oakeshott typology – and a lenticular cross section, built primarily for cutting, but also capable of thrusting.įrom the literature, cutting appears to be the primary use of these weapons. Against leather or cloth armour, a very sharp sword is an asset – leather or cloth armour is a relatively soft target, and, while it can absorb a great deal of force, both the cut and thrust would penetrate it. Striking through leather armour is very different than striking a coat of mail, which it itself very different than striking a coat of plate. The type of blow will therefore be determined by the type of armour the opponent is wearing. The slice requires a sharper sword than a cut, and a thrust does not require a very sharp sword at all. So, the first factor to consider in when it comes to the sharpness of a Medieval sword is what kind of blow the sword will be used for. Therefore, the sharpness of the blade is a determining factor in the effectiveness of the slice. Again there is force applied, but, as a slice does not involve a percussive impact, it has less force than found in a blow. The slice, on the other hand, operates primarily through shearing. If a sword blade is too sharp when it hits a hard target, the edge can take additional damage that could have been prevented. This becomes very important when it comes to dealing with armour – hard metal armour has enough resistence to deliver force back into the sword, and the sharper a blade is, the thinner its edge is, and the more (BRITAL) it becomes. While the blade strikes the target, the target strikes the blade with equal force. However, it is important to remember Newton’s Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The sharper the blade, the greater the concentration of force upon impact, and the more powerful and damaging the blow. On a very basic level, in a cut or thrust, the power of the blow is generated by the mass of the blade and the velocity with which it impacts the target. The sword is used in three types of attack: the thrust, the cutting blow (striking with the edge of the sword in a swing), and the slice (drawing the edge of the sword with pressure against the target). So, when it comes to the sharpness of Medieval swords, the real question is, “how sharp did a Medieval sword need to be at any given time?” To answer this question, we need to examine the physics of a sword blow and what this means in terms of penetrating armour. Determining the sharpness of a Medieval sword must usually be done through deduction, using the literary evidence, armour of the time, and blade type to figure out how sharp the sword needed to be. Swords used in battle survive primarily as archaeological finds, with the edges so corroded that any indication of the original sharpness is long lost. The Oakeshott typology is particularly useful as, particularly in the early Middle Ages, it is next to impossible to determine the original sharpness of the sword through surviving examples. This is one of the reasons that when talking about Medieval swords, it is best to use Oakeshott’s Typology – with no fewer than 22 different categories of sword blade in use from 1000 to 1500, it is far more useful in understanding how swords developed and how they were used. Indeed, it would be accurate to say that a full-out arms race existed between bladesmiths and armourers in the Middle Ages, with armour developing to counter the latest weaponry, and bladesmiths modifying their swords to match. The “longsword” of the 15th century judicial duel, which was a cut-and-thrust weapon designed for unarmoured combat, was very different from the “longsword” of the 14th century knight, which was a thrusting weapon built to puncture plate armour. The reality was that from the very beginning, the form and function of Medieval swords was fluid and in constant development. The problem lies with the question – there is an underlying assumption that when it comes to how they are used, Medieval swords can be generalized into a single category. It is one of those devilish questions that can confound people even today: how sharp was a Medieval sword? An analysis of edge sharpness during the middle ages
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