How to hold a Viking Sword – The Archaeological Record

This is my most important video yet about how to actually hold and use an early medieval sword. In a good number of my videos I have explained why I think that with single-handed swords and early medieval viking age swords in particular, the pommel was an integral part of the grip. I think that is because this is the only way that I can fully extend the sword, that I can make the sword an extension of the lower arm. Something which is actually not possible if you fist clamp the grip and then try to bring forward the point. It also says in late medieval combat treatises that long point, which is the position where you completely extend the sword, the blade's point, that long point is the heart of the art. It is the core of swordsmanship. A lot of people say that late medieval treatises cannot actually be applied to early medieval combat and because there are no comparable sources from that era, there was not a martial art or a particular refined art of swordsmanship that would compare to what we see in later sources from say the 14th or the 15th century. This is a bit like saying that there was no proficiency in sailing with the vikings, they just built these wonderful ships and then boarded them and left the shore intuitively trying to get from A to B. That is of course pretty naive an assumption. Much rather, I argue that if you have an elaborate tool, then this tool was developed to meet the requirements of a particular craft, which of course was in existence first. So that means if we look at tools, and the sword definitely is a very refined and elaborate tool, then that does tell us something about the craft, the proficiency, the skills that were required to actually use them. Any tool that was ever invented and developed by men was supposed to be a labor-saving device. It was designed to fit human anatomy, say the human hand, and it also is bound to the laws of physics because we live in the nature and the physical world that surrounds us. So if you're using say a screwdriver, then there's a specific way to actually use it correctly so that it does work as a labor-saving device. Yes, you could use a screwdriver like this or like this, but that requires a lot of effort. A lot more effort than using it with what I would like to call a precision grip, where the tool becomes an extension of the arm. So this is the to actually use a screwdriver, you all know that. The same goes for cutting whatever, a slice of bread for instance. You pick up a knife and yes, you could fist clamp the grip and then cut the loaf of bread. However, it's a lot more precise and also, if you have proficiency, also more effortless to use a precision grip that is actually related to the one that I just showed with my screwdriver. This grip makes use of the thumb. So the thumb in conjunction with the index finger, the bent index finger, this is what allows for precision. Also think about writing for instance. Yes, you can grab a pencil really hard and fist clamp it and then you can write, but you will note or you all know that if you actually hold it in the way a pencil is supposed to be held, then writing with precision is much easier. And that is what tools are designed for. They're supposed to be labor-saving devices. You need some proficiency to actually use them with precision, but if you have learned these according skills, then this tool makes sense in your hand. And the very same is true for a sword like this one here. Now intuitively, most people when you look at say a stall at a Renfe event or some medieval event and people pick up swords, then usually intuitively they fist clamp it like so, like an action figure. That's why I call this the action figure grip. However, as I said, it is intuitive. It is not precise for the very reasons I just lined up. Namely, if you want to use something that is pointing forward like say a screwdriver or a knife, you need a precision grip. Now I know that a lot of people still insist that fist clamping a grip using the so-called hammer grip is appropriate to swords. Not if you actually want to extend them, but then again, what is a hammer grip anyway? So if you pick up a hammer, you can hammer a nail in by actually clamping the grip, the shaft of the hammer like so, and then hit the nail. But it's a lot less precise and less promising than letting the hammer do the job for you. And the moment you actually strike, there's some kind of extension here too. So even with a hammer, you're not using what people usually refer to as the hammer grip. When intuitively gripping a sword, picking it up and fist clamping it like so, like a lot of modern people do when they first pick up a sword, then this is absolutely of no relevance to how these implements were used in history. Martial arts is designed to actually replace instinctive responses by martially sound ones. So in a given combat situation, you are supposed to do what you should do, not what your instincts tell you. That's the very reason why there is any training. If we could just simply trust our instincts, we wouldn't need any training and could just go for it. And there's a lot of things that are in fact very counterintuitive when it comes to refined martial arts and using the refined tools that are left from history, from the days when people were still fighting with swords. And one of them is what Stephen Parmen, author of The Book of Martial Power, a very recommendable book about martial arts, calls the power paradox. Namely, that power should feel effortless. He says that true power feels and actually should be effortless. And secondly, that which feels like powerful exertion is not. Yeah, that definitely sounds counterintuitive. He says that if, say, you throw a blow, you strike a sandbag, and it feels like a really, really hard hit because you can feel it all through your fist and through your body, then it actually was not because all that you felt was pressure coming back to you. You felt the resistance of the sandbag. Only if you strike the sandbag and it feels like you're not doing anything but lift the sandbag, then that's actual martial arts. That's true power. And that only comes if, in fact, you train a lot and you know how to use your tools with proficiency. Like, as I said, you can write by holding a pencil like so, but it's not efficient. And the same goes for a refined tool as the sword. Now, is there any evidence from, say, archaeology that supports my ideas? Well, in 2019, Sue Brunning published this book about early medieval swords, The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe. Very recommendable book. And amongst other things, she shares with us some observations that she made with early medieval swords. And this is There are a couple of videos that are online that you can see where she explains in detail some of her observations. And these wear patterns that she saw, that she noticed on swords are so typical for early medieval swords that she would actually like to call them signature marks on swords. So, what are these wear patterns? Now, Sue has noticed with a lot of early medieval swords that there is an area on the pommel, actually on the top of the pommel, but only on one side, that is quite worn off. And then one of the surfaces of the pommel is also more worn out than the opposing one. And she concludes that this must have been caused by the interaction of the bearer of the sword, the owner of the sword, and his weapon. And I completely agree. Now, she suggests that this may have been caused by people being girded with their swords and resting their hand on the sword pommel as they walk about, as they sit in the longhouse or whatever. And this may well be true. There are some images from period iconography, which actually show that kind of situation. Here is one from a Karelian manuscript. However, when I saw the images and read about these wear patterns in her book, I instantly thought about my sword. My sword has copper alloy fittings, so they're hollow cast fittings. And because they are of bronze, they do leave a mark on my hand after fighting. After a long weekend of training and of fencing, I wanted to show you the marks that were left on my hand, the stuff that was left by the sweat having reacted with the bronze fittings of my viking sword. And because I hold the sword like so a lot, so this is one of the positions, only one of the positions, was one that I use a lot, so the sword moves like this very often. There is a lot of contact here, where it's now all shiny. And all these shiny parts, they are polished by my hand. And here you can see that the hand is full of the oxide products produced by sweat abrasion and the brass or the copper alloy of the pommel. Yeah, so apparently that means that all the bronze that is on my hand now is no longer on the hilt. So of course I was wondering if the oxides on my hand were indeed rubbed off from those specific areas on the pommel, which Sue Brunning has identified as specific wear patterns on early medieval swords. And I wanted to know if this was indeed caused by the way that I use a viking sword or an early medieval sword to that end. And plus I ran an archaeological experiment in Haithabu in the summer of 2019 and I'm going to share the results with you now. We're here at Haithabu at the summer market and we're going to run a little archaeological experiment. Only a few weeks ago Sue Brunning of the British Museum, she's a curator at the British Museum, published a book on the sword in northern Europe in the early middle ages and it's a really recommendable book. There was one detail which I found particularly thrilling and that is Sue discovered a particular wear pattern on early medieval sword hilts. This is an irregular wear pattern and she says it's so typical that you could actually call it a signature and look for specifically when you examine early medieval swords. She was looking at swords from about 500 to 1100 and consistently she could find that wear pattern on the hilts. More notably on the earlier swords because they tend to have softer materials to make up the hilt like sometimes there's organic material sandwiched between layers of metal and then in the viking age most hilts would consist of either bronze but mostly mild steel or iron so you don't see that much wear pattern on these swords. However, viking swords oftentimes are inlaid with non-ferrous metals that work so and one method to do that is to cut very fine grooves into the surface of the iron and then you put thin wires into these grooves which slightly stand proud of the groove and if you when you hammer it all down it's going to make for a really nice shiny surface showing that particular pattern and if continuously polished or filed or whatever then as the material on top wears off you will see the iron below so it looks like black stripes between the between the inlays. This is a way that you can determine wear on viking age swords too. She actually noted specifically two swords which are at the museum here in Aitabu as well and she also made a illustration of this typical wear pattern so interestingly it usually is the top of the pommel but not symmetrical it's the very top and then the side of the top this is not a viking age hilt here this is an iron age hilt but she found the same patterns on the viking sword hilts too with some of the swords the side of the pommel is polished flat too. What caused that wear? Possibly because people were constantly wearing the swords girded that maybe textile rubbed off part of the metal but I have my doubts because first off textile would rub through long before you would lose material on your hilt and in an age where clothing was so important you would probably not wear something on your body continuously in such a fashion that it constantly produces a hole in your costume plus the way that I reconstruct how you suspend at least viking age swords the the hilt stands proud of the body so there's not really really any touch and that would not change even if I wore some armor which was very rare at that age anyway and if we look at iron age swords they would sit further up here same thing you don't really get in touch with the top of the pommel which is supposed to be part a part that is particularly worn out on those swords so if it's not girding the sword running around with a sword then the only other sensible option is of course using the sword and that does not necessarily mean that people were constantly fighting they were probably like with any craft constantly training and practicing what they did like we know from the later middle ages from the 1250s that Scandinavian warriors trained or professional warriors were admonished to train twice per day so that's that these are pros now with viking warriors we have no idea how much they actually trained and I assume that this would vary depending on who we are actually looking at but if it's a martial art then you can expect that they have sufficient and constant training so we don't really know what their training looked like or what their fighting looked like but we have material from the later middle ages at a time when people have the means and both the idea to convey technical knowledge by putting it down in manuscripts around 1400 onwards that's when these fechtbücher appear and they show a very refined art of fencing interestingly they say this is an old art and one of the oldest fact books that says this was not invented by our master this has been found and made many centuries ago so there's a sense that martial arts is very old and of course we know that their anatomy and the physics were the same too so humans are really good at using stuff using tools there's a reason why when we for instance insert a key into a lock we do it like so so we have this kind of hand position we don't do it like this if you if you cut a slice of bread you do it like this you don't do it like so so we can look at how we use implements and this is the basis for our combat reconstruction and so now we're going to run an experiment i brought a particular black marker which i'm going to put onto my sword hilt this is a marker that actually rubs off if you polish it a little bit let us see if our ideas on Viking combat actually hold any water because if they would produce that kind of wear pattern then that would be awesome and show we're actually on the right track okay so you can see here now that i have covered the complete hilt with this nasty black crayon marker half an hour's fighting you can see wear patterns on this hilt most of the crayon was rubbed off at the side of the pommel and it's one side specifically so it's asymmetrical if you look at the other side there's not much taken off so most of it went here and here and then also if you pay attention this flat side of the pommel was used less so it's not here it's on this side yeah which is perfect which perfectly matches Sue Brunning's observations you can see that a lot a lot of the paint went into the ball is it called the ball of the hand so it's the bottom of of the palm here that's where most of the paint went it's because basically this cutting motion that all of you know when you cut some bread that's how you hold a cutting implement so this is some great confirmation for my ideas and now we actually do have archaeological evidence for how warriors in the viking age or in the early middle ages used their swords in combat however remember that the wear patterns discovered by Sue Brunning are asymmetrical so they're only on one side of the pommel if swords of the early middle ages were symmetrical then it wouldn't matter if I held my sword with this edge down or with that this edge up you could just change grip and thus that would make for a symmetrical distribution of wear patterns on the pommel but that is not the case and the reason for this is viking age swords or early medieval swords were not symmetrical they had a true edge by default and what is sometimes called a short edge or false edge and it was not arbitrary how you actually picked up the sword and how it was worn in the scabbard now Sue has quite correctly pointed out in her book that with some of the early section midsection swords you have a more decorated side so that would be the show side so that would be the side that was worn towards the viewer if the sword was in its scabbard and girded and thus when the warrior drew his weapon then it would usually be with one specific side downwards and the other side upwards but in addition to ornamentation creating a show side of a sword there are in fact ergonomic reasons why you want to tweak the ideal of the perfect symmetry of sword design so symmetrical hilt design was the aesthetic ideal of the day however let's not forget that the gripping hand the connecting point between the body and the weapon is by no means symmetrical you always have a finger side and a thumb side if you completely extend your weapon so there's an unequal distribution of body parts on the hilt of the sword it's asymmetrical and if you just think about your standard kitchen knife that knife is usually of an asymmetrical design too because of the gripping hand because the gripping hand is asymmetrical the same goes for sabers sabers in fact do have a more ergonomic hilt design than swords so what the craftsmen of the age apparently did was while trying to upkeep that ideal of symmetry they tweaked the design creating the illusion of a symmetrical sword but they improved the functionality increased the functionality by slightly tweaking it and think of think of a saber when i show you a few strategies of historical craftsmen when they designed the perfect sword that created an illusion of symmetry but in fact was optimized for the gripping hand so the first strategy is to move the pommel further to the side so that when you grip the sword there's more space on the finger side so on this side of the pommel and a little less space here because you don't really need it there in fact on the thumb side the corner of the pommel can in fact be quite inconvenient because here's always this big muscle at the base of the thumb so you need a little more space here and you don't need so much space here so by shifting the pommel to the finger side you improve the functionality of the sword and this is exactly what they did you do see that on a number of swords take a look at these two swords which are from around Hellebuy they're type v swords and it's totally obvious that the pommel is not sitting on the central axis of the sword it has been moved to the side and it's two swords from about the same area from about the same period they are exactly the same type so it's very unlikely that this is accidental there's another sword in Hellebuy museum in the viking museum Heidabu and this is a carolingian type which was found in a grave mount boat burial and this sword once you have spotted how asymmetrically the pommel is mounted to the tang then you cannot ignore it anymore so this is one of the strategy and there's only three examples of swords that I showed to you there is clear indication that this was done on purpose when the sword was mounted by the craftsman there is one specific very very beautiful pommel that is a mid-saxon pommel very remarkable piece extremely fine and superb craftsmanship when you look at the bottom side of the pommel you do see that the opening for the tang which is very precisely made perfect rectangular opening it's moved to one side and it's also twisted this is mirrored in the decoration the decoration already tries to cover up that this sword is not meant to be symmetrical only supposed to look symmetrical but it was actually designed to be a perfect weapon so when this pommel was mounted on a sword that made for a pommel that was set to one side so it was out of the central axis and at the same time it was also twisted to determine handedness and thus increased functionality of that sword that is the reason why with early medieval swords we see the wear marks on the pommels only on one side of the pommel so we have asymmetrical wear marks wear patterns on the hilts caused by the warriors actually practicing and fighting with their swords and they are asymmetrical because the swords were asymmetrical you