"And he said to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: put each one your sword on your thigh, go through the camp from gate to gate and back, and kill each one his brother, each one his friend, each one his neighbor."
(Exodus 32:27)
The history of weapons. So, today we continue our journey into the world of medieval swords. And we will start it with a short introduction. Until now, unfortunately, we have people, well, how would it be more "tolerant" to call them … "sick" seems to be the most accurate definition, stubbornly asserting that all that mass of artifacts that is known to historical science and is the basis for dating history as such is … a forgery. That is, a fake sword from the grave in Sutton Hoo, and all those swords that passed through the hands of Petersen and Oakeshott, that the manuscripts (tens of thousands of folios!) Are also fake, like the drawings in them depicting these same swords, and finally, obviously, effigii are also fakes - gravestone sculptures of the deceased knights. But here's the interesting thing: most of the manuscripts are signed and dated by their authors. And they could not have known that some knight in arms on a miniature in his book will give an oak tree somewhere in Yorkshire at that very time, and a statue will be sculpted from it in exactly the same armor and with the same sword, and even and they will put a year on it. And that exactly the same would then be found at the bottom of the Thames. It is physically impossible to write so many books, cut down thousands of statues, and even bury so many swords in the ground and throw them into rivers, or, on the contrary, keep them carefully on the walls in knightly castles and cathedrals. And most importantly - why? After all, separately all these manuscripts, artifacts and effigies do not prove anything and do not affect anything.
Our president over there found, for example, one (1) textbook in which “there was no Battle of Stalingrad,” but what does this prove when there are many textbooks in which she writes in great detail? Someone lost their appetite because of this, someone lost their salary, or, on the contrary, was it raised? Of course not. Just knowing history has very little effect on our real life, does not even teach us anything, judging by experience. And if so, then who could have thought of cutting down thousands of statues, writing thousands of manuscripts, forging swords and armor. And most importantly - why? To prove to descendants, and quite close to us in time, that the Middle Ages was? Yes, but why are we going to prove it to someone? Well, it was and it was, and I … will go and "booze". Did not have? Even better: I will also “booze” or I will go to work at the dacha, because “it was - it was not” does not affect our life in any way.
But if you don't rave in this way, it turns out that both the miniatures from the manuscripts and the artifacts of swords complement each other perfectly. But this was in the past material, and today our story is about medieval swords that can be seen on the hips of the effigium! Since they have been discussed at VO more than once, it makes no sense to repeat myself. I will only say that since the burial shroud was the only clothing of both a noble seigneur and the very last poor knight, in order to distinguish one from the other, it was just the effigies that were invented - gravestone sculptures of the deceased, sometimes much higher than human growth.
They are shown on them with the smallest details, and - most importantly, what we see in the effigies exactly corresponds to what is depicted in medieval miniatures. That is, the history of medieval costume and knightly weapons can be fully studied using them, supplementing it with cross-reference to illustrations in manuscripts. The latter, however, are older than gravestone sculptures, the fashion for which among the knights also did not appear immediately.
Now let's look at the effigies themselves. Indeed, they deserve it, and it is worth looking at them, and very carefully. After all, then they will be able to tell us a lot …
And before the appearance of purely "white armor" another 10 years …
