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The story of the Bamburgh Sword – one of the finest swords ever forged. In 2000, archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a sword. An unprepossessing length of rusty metal, it had been left in a suitcase for thirty years. But Paul had a suspicion that the sword had more to tell than appeared, so he sent it for specialist tests. When the results came back, he realised that what he had in his possession was possibly the finest, and certainly the most complex, sword ever made, which had been forged in seventh-century Northumberland by an anonymous swordsmith. This is the story of the Bamburgh Sword – of how and why it was made, who made it and what it meant to the warriors and kings who wielded it over three centuries. It is also the remarkable story of the archaeologists and swordsmiths who found, studied and attempted to recreate the weapon using only the materials and technologies available to the original smith.

The'Gladiatoria'group of German fencing manuscripts are several editions of a treatise on armoured foot combat, specifically aimed at duel fighting.Gloriously-illustrated, and replete with substantial commentary, these works are some of the greatest achievements in the corpus of late medieval fight books. These works have both tremendous artistic merit and incalculable historical value.In this remarkable full colour volume, authors Dierk Hagedorn and Bartomiej Walczak elegantly present their work on the copy of this treatise now in the Yale Center for British Art, including a reproduction of the manuscript, a full transcription, and translations into English.The work includes a foreword by Sydney Anglo which explains how the work shows a highly sophisticated pedagogical system of movement and applauds the editors for presenting the material in a clear and practical way.Additional essays discuss other aspects of the manuscript - including a tale of Dierk Hagedorn's adventures tracking down the manuscript.

Steels are a class of materials with multiple and complicated transformations; this is true even for steels of the basic cutlery industry. A damascus steel is a fascinating subject to study, rich in multiple facets, that appears in a first approach as a composite material artistically exploited. Damacus steel was developed in the first millennium AD in India or Sri-Lanka. Its reputation is related to its exceptional properties and to the moire pattern. A similar damask pattern could be obtained by forge-welding giving rise to controversies. Recent findings allow a better understanding of this pattern formation. This book presents firstly, observations of ancient blade samples examined with modern technologies such as electron microscopy. The features of many typical swords from different periods are discussed: Celtic, Merovingian, Viking and oriental wootz swords, Persian shamshirs, Japanese katana, rapiers etc. In the second part, microstructural observations at different levels of magnification are displayed and their interpretation is discussed in detail, thus revealing the secret of sophisticated forgings. One chapter is devoted to introducing the main transformations undergone by these steels during the forging processes. The book is intended for all those people interested in the history of science and more specifically to the metallurgists, to the archaeologists and all the researchers confronted with the problems of the expertise of the vestiges, to the blacksmiths, and to the collectors of valuable artistic blades. ORDER FORM See the author's website

“The history of the sword,” the author writes in his introduction, “is the history of humanity.” For centuries, the sword has been a symbol of power, strength, liberty, and courage. In the Middle Ages, the image of a sword was used to signify the word of God. Nearly every culture in history has forged blades from stone or steel to fight in times of battle and protect in times of peace.In this groundbreaking work, Richard Francis Burton, explorer, translator, scholar, and swordsman, draws on a wealth of linguistic, archaeological, and literary sources to trace the millennia-old history of the sword. From its earliest days as a charred, sharpened stick to the height of craftsmanship in the modern era, the sword has been the weapon of choice for warriors of all stripes.In eloquent, captivating prose, Burton describes:• Dirks• Daggers• Knives• Sabers• Cutlasses• The origin of the weapon• The weapons of the age of wood• The Copper Age of weapons• The Iron Age of weapons• The sword in ancient Egypt• The sword in ancient Greece• And moreNearly three hundred line drawings enhance Burton's richly detailed text. Any reader of history or student of weaponry will find this book a fascinating, highly enjoyable read.

'The history of the sword is the history of humanity.'With these words, British author, Victorian scholar, and world traveler Richard Burton begins his eloquent and exceptionally erudite history of the'Queen of Weapons.'Spanning the centuries and a wide range of cultures, Burton's rich and elegant prose illuminates the sword as both armament and potent symbol. For nearly all peoples of the world, the sword embodied the spirit of chivalry, symbolized justice and martyrdom and represented courage and freedom. In battle, it served universally as a deadly offensive weapon. Drawing on a wealth of literary, archaeological, anthropological, linguistic, and other sources, the author traces the sword's origins, from its birth as a charred and sharpened stick, through its diverse stages of development, to its full growth in the early Roman Empire. Recounting man's long association with this weapon, the author describes in brilliant detail: • The ages of wood, bone and born • The appearance of stone swords and exotic weapons such as the boomerang • The ages of copper and alloys such as bronze and brass — used in producing the long, narrow blades of rapiers • The Iron Age during which the Viking sword of carbonized iron took shape — a weapon whose form would set the standard for the next thousand years. Enhanced by nearly 300 excellent line drawings, the text provides an incredible wealth of detailed data about the sword and its variations: sabre, broadsword, cutlass, scimitar, rapier, foil, and a host of other arms, including dirks, daggers, throwing knives, flails, and much more. Military and social historians, scholars and students of weaponry, as well as armchair adventurers will find this volume a fascinating, abundantly illustrated and highly readable account of this potent symbol of power.

The standard reference on historical swordsmanship since its 1885 publication, this volume is still widely considered the definitive work on fencing history and the art of European swordsmanship. The author, Egerton Castle, traces fencing from its roots in the unschooled brawling of the Middle Ages to its latter-day precision and refinement, focusing particularly on the 16th-century development of the rapier and the weapon's popularity in Renaissance Italy, where Italian masters founded the modern art of swordsmanship.Envisioning the history of the sword as a history of humanity, the author proposes that the changes in modes of fencing corresponded to changes in manners. The rough, untutored fighting of the Middle Ages, for example, mirrored the supremacy of brute force in social and political life. The more subtle Renaissance era led to the ascendancy of the rapier and dagger, weapons of vicious elegance rather than sturdy brutality. Subsequent years saw a dwindling incidence of dueling, the decline of the sword to an article of gentlemen's apparel, and the reduction of swordsmanship to a courtly accomplishment akin to dancing.'The subject is full of interest,'the author notes in his Introduction,'not only for the fencer who looks upon his favourite pastime as a science, but also in a high degree for the novelist, the painter, the actor, and the antiquarian.'All will welcome the return of this abundantly illustrated and long-out-of-print work.