The Cawood sword is a medieval sword discovered in the River Ouse near

Cawood Cawood (other names: ''Carwood'') is a large village (formerly a market town) and civil parish in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England that is notable as the finding-place of the Cawood sword. It was historically part of the West Ri ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by national parks, including most of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. It is one of four co ...

in the late 19th century. The blade is of Oakeshott type XII and has inscriptions on both sides. It most likely dates to the early 12th century.

Significance

The sword is notable as the best-preserved specimen of a small group of medieval swords with a type M pommel in the typology of Oakeshott (1964). This type of pommel is an apparently specifically British derivation of the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...

multi-lobed pommel. It is often found on tomb effigies of the mid 13th to mid 14th century in southern

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and northern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, but it may have been in existence since the 11th century. A very similar sword, likely from the same workshop, was discovered in Norway in 1888 while railway work was being conducted on farmland at Korsoygaden in

Stange is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Hedemarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Stangebyen. Other villages include Bekkelaget, Espa, Bottenfjellet, Ils ...

municipality,

Hedmarken Hedmarken (, ; known as ''Hedemarken'' until 2003) is a traditional district in Innlandet county in Eastern Norway. Hedmarken consists of the municipalities Stange, Hamar, Løten, and Ringsaker. In the past, it also contained the municipalitie ...

district.

Dating

The question of the date of these swords is of some importance for the absolute chronology of the development of sword morphology in medieval Europe. In 1964, Oakeshott stated that while both swords were "long believed" to date to the late 11th or early 12th century, suggested by the "Viking sword"-type pommel and the runic inscription on the Korsoygaden sword, they could not possibly predate the mid 13th century because of the style of the Cawood sword's inscriptions, and because the pommel type was not in fact in "Viking Age" style, but in a "late" British (

Danelaw The Danelaw (, also known as the Danelagh; ang, Dena lagu; da, Danelagen) was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian ...

/ Northern English) derivation of pommel shapes of the Viking Age."The Korsoygaden sword, long believed to date to be of late Viking date, is in fact a Type XII. The hilt is almost exactly the same shape as that of the Cawood sword (also a XII), which by the style of the inlaid inscriptions in its blade may be placed with some confidence within a period between perhaps 1240 and 1310. Certainly no earlier than the former. The runes on the Korsoygaden hilt might have been made at any time between 1000 and 1300 (not later). Thus, in spite of being found in a stone coffin with the remains of a circular shield, it seems likely that the Korsoygaden sword must be of c. 1240-1300, not of c. 1000." Oakeshott (1964:98). However, in 1991, Oakeshott revisited this opinion based on the style of the runic inscription on the Korsoygaden sword. The 12th-century date for both swords is based on this argument. This, i.e. the combined evidence from the Cawood and the Korsoygaden swords, are of "extreme importance" for the dating of swords and blade inscriptions of the 11th to 12th centuries. Oakeshott (1991) presents a group of eight swords, some of which were previously dated to c. 1300, which based on close morphological parallels to these swords must be reassigned to the period of c. 1000–1120. Oakeshott's date for the Cawood sword itself is now c. 1100–1150. This has consequences for the dating of

medieval sword blade inscriptions In the European High Middle Ages, the typical sword (sometimes academically categorized as the knightly sword, arming sword, or in full, knightly arming sword) was a straight, double-edged weapon with a single-handed, cruciform (i.e., cross-shape ...

, as the inscriptions on the Cawood blade are very typical of the "garbled" letter-group inscriptions on high medieval blades (tentatively transcribed as ✠NnRDIOnNnR✠ ⊕N［RSRDIGATON［I).

Ownership and display

The Cawood sword was kept at the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

until the 1950s and then sold into private hands. It was again on display in ''The Age of Chivalry'' exhibition at

Burlington House Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earls of Burlington and was expanded in the mid-19th century after being purchased by the British government. To ...

in 1987. It was acquired by the

Yorkshire Museum The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy. History The museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical Soc ...

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

in December 2007. Since 2017 it has featured as one of the key objects in the exhibition 'Medieval York: Capital of the North'.

References

Ewart Oakeshott Ronald Ewart Oakeshott (25 May 1916 – 30 September 2002) was a British illustrator, collector, and amateur historian who wrote prodigiously on medieval arms and armour. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Founder Member of the ...

, ''The Sword in the Age of Chivalry'' (1964). * Ewart Oakeshott, ''Records of the Medieval Sword'' (1991), 76-81.

External links

''The Cawood Sword''
at th
''History of York''
project
The Cawood Sword: The Finest Viking Sword Ever Found
*{{cite web, url=http://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/Page/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?ArticleId=10 , title=One thousand year old Viking sword comes home to Yorkshire , date=18 December 2007 , accessdate=21 December 2007 , author=Yorkshire Museum and Gardens , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080629094604/http://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/Page/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?ArticleId=10 , archivedate=29 June 2008 *Patrick Kelly

Medieval European swords Collections of the Yorkshire Museum Individual weapons Medieval European metalwork objects History of North Yorkshire Cawood