ANTI-ARMOR SWORD? Italian Sword from Oakeshott's Records of the Medieval Sword

Today we're going to be looking at a medieval sword last featured in Records of the Medieval Sword by Hewitt Oakeshott, and here it is in the flesh. Hey folks, Matt Easton here, Scholar Gladiator, and I'm here at Olympia Auctions because there's a sale coming up on the 25th and 26th of June 2025, so check out the catalogue down below and you can see all of the amazing things that you could have. So this is a sword that is featured in Records of the Medieval Sword by Hewitt Oakeshott, so I presume that Hewitt had his hands on this. Now it was in a private collection, I think it's been in a few private collections over the years actually, so it's not been in public sight, but it's in public sight now thanks to Olympia Auctions and my channel here, because I've got it in my hands and I'm sharing it with you all around the world. So this is up for auction at the end of June, so it will almost certainly end up in private collection again, so I don't know when we'll next see this. Now, I know that various of my friends have also got a chance at various points to see this sword, so it's been through private hands but it has been shared with people. I've managed to take a bunch of measurements and statistics of it here today and I'm going to stick them for free down below so you can have those stats, you can share those around. Now one of the things that's first up, well let's describe what it is. So Hewitt Oakeshott and indeed the auction catalogue for this auction describe it as an early 15th century arming sword. Is it that? I think it might be a bit later than that. The reason I say that is because this is a type 18 blade, I would say more than a type 15. Obviously Hewitt Oakeshott's typology is open to interpretation and I would say that he wasn't that consistent some of the time with his own estimations of which categories to put things in, and these are a modern, the problem with any typology is it's a modern creation, so clearly the medieval people making medieval swords didn't think about putting things into typologies. So is this a type 15? Is this a type 18? Personally I'd say it's a type 18 and it is an arming sword, definitely, and it has a later coin inserted into it, or is it a later coin? Yes, I think it is a later coin, but the fact is that I would personally date this probably into the, a little bit later, into the 1400s maybe. So maybe, you know, 1420, 1430, 1440, this kind of date. I think it is probably pre-1450 but I don't think it's necessarily from the beginning of the 14th, beginning of the 15th century rather, beginning of the 1400s. I think it's probably a little bit later than that, but anyway, that's by the by and very much a product of people's own interpretations and views. Now, apart from describing what it is, I should first of all describe how it feels, because obviously you watching that on screen can't actually really guess that. So this is a sword which I would say is heavier than it looks. It weighs 1680 grams, 1680 grams. That makes this, and it's got a 79 centimeter blade, okay, so for its size that makes this quite a heavy sword. What does that mean? I don't know what that means, but what we can say is it's got a relatively thick blade and that's what confers its extra weight. I'll put the stats down below, but off the top of my head the blade thickness is 7.4 millimeters at the base of the blade down to five and a half millimeters at the middle of the blade down to about 3.9 millimeters near the tip, so that's nearly four millimeters up here. Some modern replicas are four millimeters down at the base of the blade, so that is a thick blade, seven and a half down to five and a half down to four, basically, millimeters. That is a chonky blade, okay, and it's got no hollow grind, so this is a flattened diamond cross-section, okay, so they're completely flat bevels, single bevel to an edge, slightly bowed out edges, so there's quite a lot of meat in this blade. So actually it's not a huge surprise that it weighs 1680 grams and it also has a fairly large pommel, which of course helps balance the sword, and the sword actually has quite a pleasant balance point. Again, I'll put all the stats down below, but that's a fairly large wheel pommel with a large recess in each face. Now what's interesting is we've got a coin on that face, you can see in there, and putting coins in the recesses of wheel pommels is not massively unusual, we find it on other swords as well, and on this face we can see the remains of some adhesive material, pitch, something like that, which would have held something in that recess, which has presumably been lost over time. Another interesting detail about this sword is it still has the wooden grip, and obviously most medieval swords don't still retain their original medieval wooden grips. This one is hugely wood-wormed, but it's still there, because you've got some loss of material, you can actually see the tang inside as well, but it's really nice to be able to see the shape of the grip and to be able to hold the original grip. Obviously it would have had a covering over it of perhaps cord, leather, fabric, we don't know, but it would have had a covering over it. So this is an arming sword, this was an arming sword presumably held by you at Oakshot some decades ago and put into records of the medieval sword. It is almost certainly Italian, we can presume that from its form, this form of quill on end with the little turned out tips which prevent things sliding off the end when you're parrying. We do see that in other places, we see it in France and England and Germany, but it is particularly common on Italian swords it has to be said, and of course we've got that clue of the coin. So overall most people have concluded that this is probably a northern Italian sword of circa 1400 to 1450, it's quite difficult to place it exactly in there. And it is a chonky arming sword. Now why should it be chonky? So you have to bear in mind that at this time knightly swords like this, and this is a knightly quality sword, have to be able to withstand being bashed into plate armour, okay. So by 1400 we have full plate harnesses, great bassinets and bassinets with aventails, you know you've got spaulders and pauldrons of various sorts, solid breastplates and cuirasses, so people are fully encased in steel. So this isn't going to go through that armour, but it is going to hit that armour regardless of whether you're aiming for gaps or just bashing someone, these weapons of this time do have to be able to withstand that sort of abuse. In addition they are fighting against other weapons such as pole axes and large spears and maces and things like that, so they have to be fairly robust and this is a robust sword. In terms of optimum use, what you're aiming to do with this is predominantly use the point into gaps against plated opponents, but against people who aren't wearing full harness and aren't wearing heavy armour, it's still a very useful cleaving weapon and that's one of the beauties of the type 18 designer blade, because you've still got these bowed out good cutting edges but with an acute and quite thick and reinforced and strong point for jamming through and hopefully bursting male links in things like the gussets underneath the armpits. So an impressive and formidable war sword, battle sword really, not particularly nimble, pretty heavy for its size but very very strong, very very durable and as always it's always an honour and a pleasure to get my hands on a sword which I've seen for many decades in records of the medieval sword or any of the other of Oakshot's works to finally see it. So I've taken a bunch of photographs, I've taken the stats, I'll put those down below and a link to my Pinterest where you can see more photographs of this and thanks a lot to Olympia Auctions for letting me get my hands on it. There's some interesting details you might see in the photos to do with delaminations and things like that, so go and feast your eyes on those, but thanks to Olympia Auctions. Check out the sales catalogue down below even if you're watching this video after the sales happened you can still look at the nice things in the catalogue and thanks a lot for watching the channel, I hope I see you back here really soon. Cheers folks!