similar effective thrusts. Sometimes we see (and read of) the sword tucked up Ullder the right armpit and used like a lance. Before dealing with the various kinds of pommels and crosses, one thing about these sword-blades needs to be said: the variations in their form for the most part are very subtle, especially between Types XII and XIV; Fig. 95. "TIle Victory of Humility over Pride", from the "Jungfrauenspiegel", c. many surviving swords can1200. not be pigeon-holed into a type at all, because the shape of 路their blade's outline has been changed either by corrosion or by grinding. Where such blades bear smiths' marks or inscriptions it is possible sometimes to classify th~m, but there are not many which are furnished with these aids to analysis. Another thing to remember is that certain typesparticularly XIII and XIV-lasted for a very long time. In the last two decades of the fifteenth century, for instance, Type XIII became very popular again, so much so that many old blades of the early fourteenth century were re-mounted in fashionable hilts; and Type XIV is found in the mid-fifteenth century. Generally there are clear enough differences in these later swords to distinguish them from their predecessors of the same type, but it all adds to the confusion. Inscriptions on hilt or blade are the best guide to period, for the styles both of the content of the inscription and the form of the letters composing it changed with the years. The styles of these inscriptions are as many and as varied as the styles of pommel and cross, but there were certain basic trends in fashion by which they can be classified. The first style to come into use after the old Viking iron inlays was the insetting of small iron letters in the manner of the "Homo Dei" inscription in the Dresden sword. There is a small group of swords with inlays of this kind on each side, the last blades to be marked with a smith's name until the sixteenth century. On one side of each blade is the phrase + INNOMINEDOMINI + and on the 212
other the name + GICELINMEFECIT+. "Gicc1in" is perhaps a variant spelling of the name ]o.celin, ~hi~h in the .Mi~dle Ages had .many spellings, such as Gozclm or Glzelin. Nothing 1S known of hi~, ~f course' he stands in the same shadow as Ulfberht and Inge1m; his only ~emorial this group of blades, so far only five in number.l Unlike the products of the other two wor~shops,. all had the same inscriptions, the name on one side and the lllvoc.atlon on the other, and all are of Type XI. A hitherto unknown spec1men (and the fUlcst of them all) is beside me as I write. It was acquired (~ot alas by me) hi circumstances of extreme good fortune, a collector s dream all too seldom realizcd. A friend of mine bought some books in Shaftesbury during the spring of 195 8. While he was waiting for them to b.e ~rapped up he noticed a bundle of nineteenth-century swords stlckmg out of an umbrella stand in a gloomy corner. Being interested in swords of all periods, he had a closer look-and saw in the middle the black nutshaped pommel and straight cross of what was appare~tly a mediaeval sword. He asked the price of the bundle and was given a figure not unreasonable for fourteen nineteenth-cent~ swordsit worked out at about 75. 6d. each. After an appropnate and wellacted pause for thought, the cash changed hands and the bundle went into his car, whereupon he drove out into the country a little way, then stopped and disentangled the black sword from its unworthy neighbours. Little imagination is needed to appreciate his unholy joy when he gazed upon what he had got. Even then he did not realize he had quite such a rare and beautiful weapon Fig. 96. Zoomorphic heads: (plates 6c, 8b and figs. 96 and 9 8). a.Jrom the cross of the twelfth'.~ Some weeks later he brought it to me century "ShaJtesbury" sword, b. from' a pommel of the sixth for a thorough examination. At that century found in a grave at Finnestorp in Sweden. time the inscription was illegible, though 1 Three from Germany, one from Finland and recently one from E~gland. The Finnish example was found in a late Viking grave of c. IIOO, a fact which was imparted to me in the course of a private correspondence by the finder, Dr. Jorma
Leppaho of Helsinki. 213