Conclusion

Summary

In this book I have sought to offer a broader understanding of the sword in the high Middle Ages, arguing for three interconnected, but distinctive ‘cultures’. Whilst recognising the importance and complexity of the noble culture of the sword, I have sought to get away from the modern preconceptions of them as purely high-status rarities, magical symbols of royal or knightly power, instead offering an alternative culture that places the sword in the hands of the middle classes. They used the weapon as a symbol of their aspirations for noble status, and their desire to participate in the masculine world, but where swordsmanship was, perhaps, as much an intellectual as it was a martial pursuit. Finally, I have argued that our own attempts to represent, interpret and understand the place and use of the medieval sword have resulted in a third ‘culture’ of the medieval sword, one that is played out on the movie and television screens, or at Renaissance fairs and historical fencing salles, where the need to get it ‘right’ is tempered by the desire for it to look or feel right, and the underlying fear that, in recreating medieval combat, someone might actually get hurt.

The sword of the high and late Middle Ages was every bit as special but also far more mundane than we have been led to believe. Whilst the sword of the Anglo- Scandinavian tradition of the early Middle Ages had been forged by smiths using knowledge that was arcane, verging on the supernatural, the sword of our period was a product of industrial processes: water-powered trip-hammers and blast furnaces. No longer the rare and treasured heirlooms of an elite group within a martial elite, we find swords in the hands of magnates and merchants, students, and soldiers. Where once they had been imbued with magical force, cursed, or carrying the power to grant victory, even the swords of the great heroes of the mythical past had lost much of their magical aura. Christianity too had cost the sword something of its power and agency. The belief that an object might have a destiny of its own, that it had power to act for the good or ill of those who possessed it, was a pagan one, that denied the supreme power of the Almighty. Victory in battle came from God. The sword thus became a vehicle for God's grace and power.