32. The Middle Ages’ Most Popular Sword
The European knightly sword, also known as the arming sword, was developed from the Viking sword and traces its roots back to the Roman spatha. The transition from the spatha-based Viking sword to the knightly sword went through the intermediate phase of the Norman sword of the ninth and tenth centuries. It witnessed a simplification of the pommel to a disk or hazelnut, and the growth of the Viking sword’s spatha hand guard into a full cross guard – the main visually distinguishing feature of both the knightly sword, and its successor, the longsword.
The knightly sword was double-edged, usually with a 28 to 32-inch blade, although some had blades of up to 39 inches. It featured a single-handed cruciform hilt that gave it a distinctive cross shape. It was the most popular European sword from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. Knightly swords were then edged out by the longsword, and relegated to the role of secondary weapons or sidearms – hence their other name, the “arming sword”.
Related: 12 of History’s Deadliest Swords.