Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/98

 The locket mounts display on the front face the two patron saints of Essen, St. Kosmas and St. Damian, and on the reverse side the inscription: .

If this wonderful sword, or at least its mountings, were executed in Germany, either at the time of Otto III or Henry II, the town of Trèves or Ratisbon might either have produced them.

Such applied arts in the Xth and XIth centuries then flourished in Trèves under Archbishop Egbert, 977-993, rendered with a strong Byzantine influence, or at Ratisbon under Abbot Ramvold von Emmerau, 979-1001. If Italy was responsible for the mounting of this sword, either Venice or Monte Casino might have been its birthplace. Works produced there likewise show Byzantine influence, such as is in the designs of foliage and animals conjoined with the leaves on this scabbard. There is the possibility that it was made in Constantinople, and either looted from there or sent as a present by the Empress Theophano to one of the German emperors, afterwards to be presented by them to the Abbess of Essen.

We have given more space to the consideration of the Essen sword than to the other weapons of this time, partly because we appreciate it as the most important of its period extant, and certainly the most complete in all its parts.

Of the lance or spear of the lower order of soldiery we have already briefly spoken. The long-hafted weapon of the nobility, in fact the gár of the thegn, for all types of war spears were known by that name, we can but divide into two classes, the lance or spear and the javelin. Some finely decorated spear-heads exist, overlaid with typical Norse designs in silver and copper; the most elaborate of these with which we are acquainted are to be seen in the museums of Copenhagen and Bergen. In the British Museum are a few decorated heads, but less rich in appearance, as they chiefly rely on concentric rings of silver and copper around the haft socket for their adornment.

There are heads of a certain type of hafted weapons found occasionally in England, though they are believed to be of foreign type, two of which we illustrate. The use of such spears must have been exclusively for fighting on foot. They closely resemble in construction the spetum of the XVth and XVIth centuries, although the lateral blades or lugs are not so formidably developed, suggesting that these projections were made rather with the idea of catching the blow from a sword or axe than for use as auxiliary blades, for the purpose of wounding.