Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe: From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth CenturyHewitt, John
History
Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe: From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth Century
Hewitt, John
Armor; Weapons
A curious variety of the war-knife is in the collection of Mr. Roach
Smith, of which the single edge is straight, or nearly so, and the
point formed by a diagonal cut at the back of the blade. It is
believed, in its perfect state, to have measured upwards of thirty
inches; is of steel; and has on both sides a double line of the
channelling already noticed[91]. A weapon of similar form appears
among the Livonian antiquities now in the British Museum, and is
represented on Plate XIX. of Dr. Bähr's _Gräber der Liven_.
The LONG-BOW was another weapon of this era. Agathias, indeed, has
told us that the Franks used neither bow nor sling. But arrows
are expressly mentioned in the Salic Law; and, to reconcile these
conflicting testimonies, it has been suggested that the archery
of the Salic Law is that of the chase alone. _Poisoned_ arrows,
however, are here named, and the hunter does not ply his art with
poisoned shafts. "Si quis alterum de sagitta toxicata percutere
voluerit[92]," &c. Further on, a fine is fixed for him who shall
deprive another of his "second finger, with which he directs his
arrow:"--secundum digitum, quo sagittatur. At a later period, the
bow is especially commanded as a part of the soldier's equipment.
One of the capitularies of Charlemagne directs--"that the Count be
careful to have his contingent fully furnished for the field; that
they have lance, shield, a bow with two strings and twelve arrows,"
&c. According to the testimony of Henry of Huntingdon, William the
Conqueror reproached the English with their want of this weapon. The
Bayeux tapestry, however, seems to authorize the belief that they
were not entirely without it. (See the first group of Anglo-Saxons
in Stothard's XIV^{th}. plate.) The probability seems to be that,
while the Normans employed archers in large bodies, the English
merely interspersed them in small numbers among their men-at-arms.
The bow, at all events, was in use among the Anglo-Saxons: it is
frequently represented in manuscript illuminations, and arrow-heads
have been found in the graves. Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 in our Plate
are from Kentish interments. The first two form part of the Fausset
collection; the others, figured in the _Nenia Britannica_, were
found on Chatham Lines. The whole are of iron. Pictorial examples of
the Anglo-Saxon bow, arrows, and quiver may be seen in Cotton MSS.,
Cleop., C. viii., Claudius, B. iv., Tiberius, C. vi., and in the fine
_Prudentius_ of the Tenison Library. See also Strutt's _Horda_, vol.
i. plate XVII. Arrow-heads of iron have also been found in France,
Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Livonia. Figures 5 and 6 of our
Plate are examples from the cemetery at Selzen in Rhenish Hesse;
figs. 7 and 8 from Livonian graves. With the latter was also found
part of a quiver. The Abbé Cochet[93] has engraved and described
specimens found in France, and M. Troyon notices Swiss examples in
his paper in the _Archæologia_, vol. xxxv., and Plate XVII. Compare
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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