13th century sword mystery

[Jim McDougall]

Lee, it is wonderful to have you posting on this, and of course most appropriate to have you here on this topic!!!

At first I thought this Smithsonian reference was to the Witham swords, which though newsworthy over a period of time, occasionally have been brought to the fore rather sensationalizing the 'mysterious' inscriptions. However, this seems clearly a separate case.

It seems Oakeshott included mention and drawings of some of these 'inscriptions' in his "Archaeology of Weapons", and that he was somewhat of the opinion they were acronyms probably of sacerdotal or other religious significance.

What is interesting is that these apparent acronyms or otherwise sequenced letters and interpolated either glyphs, symbols and perhaps flourished letter characters indeed defy any sort of reliable interpretation.

In the discussion of such inscription on a presently concurrent thread, under "Odd Sword", attempts are made to decipher the letters into some tangible order of translation. Again, it is difficult to determine exactly which alphabet, or combination thereof, might be employed.

I think what we need is a "Rosetta Sword" !!!

In the case of many Italian blades from Brescian regions, with makers Caino and Picinino in particular, there were alphabetic letters used in groupings, but often in repetitive fashion, and reductive in letters removed progressively in some cases. Also, often second lines were using the same letters though shuffled into anagram style groupings.

Obviously this practice defied any tangible acronym decoding, and suggests the letters may have been given numeric or other values or used in symbolic sequencing. The truth remains unknown. What is known is that the practice seems to have been employed in other centers, and in particular may have been filtered either to or from Spain.
While it is tempting to note that Germany certainly must have copied this practice in kind, as of course they spuriously used many Spanish and Italian markings and motif...it is important to recall that this mysterious practice seems present in degree in Frankish weapons earlier and somewhat on these English swords.

A remaining and possibly significant factor is that of the Kabbalah, and the use of gemetria, that is the use of alphabet characters with numeric value and various symbolism representing Kabbalistic dogma and esoterica.
It seems as I understand that the use of acronyms in Hebrew were often pronounced in some degree as words.

Though not suggesting that this particular blade, nor the inscriptions on the others mentioned might be associated to Kabbalist words or phrases, it is worthy to note as possible source of influence.

Again, thank you for adding this Lee,

Best regards,
Jim

[Lee]

Courtesy of a new member, here is a much less polluted link to the same inquiry that includes progress to date!

[Ian]

Thanks Lee. An interesting observation that these swords were distributed widely in Europe and possibly had a single manufacturing source/workshop. That may explain why the particular script has proved so elusive to identify--where was this purported workshop?

Mysterious mystical swords indeed.

Ian.

[Jim McDougall]

thanks

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

I think it also peculiar that the M is probably upside down.

I think a grouping of all the excavated swords in this broad category would enhance our knowledge immensely. Unfortunately I have a hotel and 17 businesses to run not to mention a new railway to construct. Perhaps someone from our panel of experts could attempt this task...? I suggest the right location could be on the European...

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Ian]

Given the extensive European content that has appeared in this thread, I have copied it from the Ethnographic Forum to the European Armoury as well. Lee, Jim, Ibrahiim and others have made some very intriguing observations and posted several links that may be of interest.

Ian.

[Jim McDougall]

This was a good move to bring this thread and the concurrent thread titled 'odd sword' to the European forum given the subject matter, which decidedly focuses on these European blades and their inscriptions.

At this point I think it is important to consider some of the perspective which is important in approaching this most arcane and often even occult related subject matter with the understanding of these curious inscriptions and their ever elusive meanings. The term 'polluted' pertaining to some references to the descriptions and references to these indeed 'mysterious' inscriptions perhaps well describes the unfortunate posture often taken toward much of the investigation and research concerning these kinds of topics.

Descriptions and news pertaining to old swords and these 'mysterious ' inscriptions are of course rendered sensationally in the media, and allude to all manner of sometimes almost bizarre notions and suggestions. Most academic and scholarly works typically avoid including the terms magic or occult in discussing inscriptions on blades such as these. However, most of these same mediums will recognize the reference to many of these inscriptions and acrostics in various letters and groupings as 'sacerdotal' or religious invocations.

Indeed, many of these apparent groupings of letters and sometimes included symbols or devices, particularly crosses, have been compellingly revealed to have been just that, religiously oriented. This is of course clearly reminiscent and profoundly associated with the crusades and the fact that swords and weaponry were most often closely associated with and directly connected to the Church.

However these practices of using letters in acrostic groupings, as well as the use of symbolic devices has been held to have roots in the pagan use of runes and invocations to their gods for strength and protection in battle.

While this would of course well explain the well known and plausibly suggested use of these inscriptions from religious standpoint, it is important to note that in the Middle Ages, as suggested in one article within the link Lee noted, there were few who would differentiate between religion, science and magic.

The well known sciences of today had not yet been developed, and along with the well established fiber of religion, practices such as alchemy (later chemistry); astrology (later astronomy) and magic, strongly associated with superstition and other metaphysics fluourished.
The largely illiterate population while hugely uninformed on these of course, could very distinctly relate to symbols and devices.

Even blacksmithing and the forging of swords and weapons was considered magical, and these men were regarded with great caution though of course recognized as quite essential. It would seem quite natural that these weapons would temporally or in decoration be imbued with talismanic powers, whether religiously oriented or as noted, amalgamated with other occult or esoteric associations.


It is with these things in mind that I hope that members and readers here alike, might join together in looking further into our understanding of these particular blades in these two threads, as well as into the entirely fascinating study of the swords of these times.

While many often scoff at the idea of including occult or mystical matters in the study of weapons and their decoration and embellishment, in my view it is profoundly held that.....we do not need to believe in or approve of the beliefs or symbolic meanings being investigated, but it is absolutely essential that we try to understand what the people who made and used these weapons believed.

Best regards,
Jim