Medieval Mystery: A Swiss Baselard from the depths of the Thames w

So next up in the Royal Armouries windlass line that I have been working on for the last couple of years is IX 2638. A glamorous number but doesn't really represent how special this sword is. So at first sight you might think ah it's a one-handed arming sword Matt, you might even think 15th century and you'd be correct. However there's something very very surprising about this sword and it's one of the reasons that I chose it as one of the swords to replicate in this first batch of six. And at this point it would be good to remind you that these are replicas, very very close replicas. I am not aware of anybody who has taken as many measurements of these swords and photographs of the details and been through this many prototype stages to get to what you look at now. So this is a functional carbon steel bladed very very close replica. I can't say exact of course because these are handmade, these aren't CNC made, these aren't milled, these are handmade hand forged swords. But they are down to very very close tolerances, very close to what you find in the Royal Armouries. So when you look at this sword in the online collection or actually go and visit the sword itself, what you hold here will be what that sword was like when it was new. So why was it that I was so drawn to this sword from the outset? And this is before I handled it. When I handled it I became even more drawn to it. Well quite simply, yes it is a one-handed arming sword, we'll talk about the hilt in a second. But if I unsheathe it, and again this is a wood lined leather covered very nicely stitched bronze shape at the end. When I unsheathe this sword there's one thing you might immediately notice about it and that is that it has an offset hilt. You might think well that's a that's a bit weird, that's a bit wonky. It's for a very specific reason and the reason is that this is a single edged sword. Now I'm not going to go as far as to say that this is unique, I'm actually not sure of any comparable example from any other collection in the world that survives like this. But you'll notice that has an offset grip and the edged part of the blade, the cutting portion of the blade, projects forwards. Now this makes it functionally quite like a falchion. You have a blunt back edge and a sharpened front edge and not only is it like a falchion in that sense but also in use perhaps. But the blade cross section is also quite similar to some falchions as well in that it is a very shallow and relatively thin, it's about four or five millimeters if I remember correctly at the base of the blade. So it's a fairly thin and fairly flexible and you'll notice it's got a lot of distal taper so it becomes really quite thin up here so it flexes in the second half of the blade. But it's a relatively thin and very shallow, very acute edge angle. This means that this particular sword, and of course it's quite broad as well with a fairly bulbous even all the way up to the tip, it's not a particularly acute tip. So unlike lots of swords in this period which were quite narrow and quite pointy for penetrating armor and getting between gaps in armor, this is a sword which is really specialized towards the cut. Not to say you can't thrust with it, of course you can thrust with any pointy bit of metal and certainly against unarmored or lightly equipped opponents this point is still going to be highly effective. And remember it's quite thin and flat so it's going to shear through, cut through things fairly easily and it is pointy. And also it has a false edge down to here. False edge means a bevel added on the back what's otherwise a blunt wedge section blade and it has a bevel on the back just like the original, exactly the same proportion, same weight, same length, same distal taper, same flex, same pointer balance, all the same as the original. And bear in mind once again these are handmade, they're not CNC so there will be tiny variances between each example. They are all handmade like the originals were forged by hand but nevertheless they're being kept to very close tolerances and will be as close as is humanly possible really to the original in the museum. Now I am not going to hide the fact that I absolutely fell in love with this sword. Out of the batch of six swords that we selected for or that I selected for replication, this was the one that I liked it but it really really grabbed me. I absolutely adore this sword and the replica is no different. This is absolutely gorgeous in the hand. Now I had to make a few creative choices because the original was missing its grip. So the grip which weighs about 50 grams incidentally which and with accounting for the missing grip on the original this weighs the same as the original. I had to make a few decisions about this grip. First of all you'll notice that the tang in the blade is offset on the original sword so we had to of course replicate that and we have done here with the correct projection of cutting edge and in fact the the quillons the cross guard is slightly asymmetrical as well and we've replicated that and these little curled over ends. I'll talk more about that in a second but this grip you'll notice that it had to one detail we had to get right was it had to meet this rather thin cross guard. The cross guard doesn't isn't very bulbous at the center like some swords of this period are so therefore we knew or could make an educated guess that this was quite a flat grip at the point that it met this cross guard. Equally we had the pommel remaining on the original and they're very attractive sense stopper bulbous sense stopper quite short sense stopper style pommel octagonal and so there are a couple of things there. First of all we knew that the grip should meet this in a flush way and we knew it should meet the pommel in a flush way. Now this has two interesting effects. First of all because the grip gets thicker as it goes down it really locks your hand in place and keeps a good grip on the sword but secondly because the grip is so flat where it meets the cross guard it gives you absolutely superb edge alignment. Now anybody who cuts things with sharp swords will know that when you combine a broad thin flat blade with an acute edge geometry and a flat grip that locks and indexes that edge this is going to be a fearsome fearsome cutting sword and despite the fact it looks like an arming sword the way it performs and the way it handles is an absolute beast of a cutter so i think this is going to be a popular one for the for the cutters out there. The cross guard as mentioned it's got a fairly subtle shape it does actually have a slightly a sort of softened hexagonal section so you notice we have rounded it slightly because although it is hexagonal it doesn't really have sharp edges on the original so we've chosen to emulate that and it's got these really quite dainty and carefully formed little hooks at the end. As has been mentioned in regards to other swords if an opponent's blade were to slide down your blade it does lock that in there and prevent it helps control their blade and helps prevent their blade from sliding off the end of the guard and it looks good as well and functionally it means that if you're wearing this and hitting the end here you've got a large surface it's not going to dig into you or hurt you or anything like that so it's good for you bad for the opponent and the pommel as well i'm particularly fond of it's got i think it's got very very nice proportions obviously the blade is carbon steel and peened at the end completely functional real sword and i'm so delighted with how this has come out i think that this is going to be super super popular sword particularly as i say for people who enjoy cutting things like tatami mats i think this should perform really really well and this is really what this sword is built for it's built for cutting awesome sword now the original of this sword in the royal armour is catalogue number ix2638 was purchased by them in 1984 on the open market and it was reputed to have been found with the castillon horde of swords coming from the river dordogne in france which was discovered in the 1970s and that was a horde of 80 swords which are possibly associated with the battle of castillon that's an ongoing research project but it was an unprecedented find in the river in the riverbanks preserved by the low oxygen content of the riverbanks and the the mud there that preserved them the organic material on them had gone that no scabbards no grips but the metal the steel of them have been preserved extraordinarily well and looking at the original example it does seem to match the other castillon horde swords if that's the case then we know that this sword was found in france and it has a possible association with the very end phase of the hundred years war it could be english it could be french we don't know which and equally it's possible that it slightly postdates that and in terms of typology it absolutely therefore could be used worn at the side of a french or an english relatively high status middle to high status person in this period so would go with a lot of people who are involved with reenactment or hemo or living history for those kind of periods with those interests and what a fantastic sword how often do you find a sword that looks like this with these proportions single-edged built for chopping i absolutely love this one as you can probably tell