Chapter 7 THE EVOLUTION OF THE LEAF-SHAPED SWORD

WE have seen that the Alpine people were the earliest inhabitants of the mountain zone, west of the Hungarian plain, and that they had arrived there at an early date, bringing with them from the east the custom of living in pile-dwellings and the germs of agriculture. Whether they were living also in Hungary seems uncertain, though it is possible that they dwelt in the ring of mountain land that surrounds the plain.

Nordic folk had arrived in both areas by 3000 B.C., coming, it has been suggested, from the Russian steppes. It is also more than probable that fresh invaders from the steppes arrived about 2200 B.C., especially in the Hungarian plain. Thus, though the population of the whole of the area, which we have termed the Celtic cradle, was to some extent alike, there were considerable differences, both in the proportion of racial elements and in the methods of life, between the people of the mountain zone and the inhabitants of the plain.

FIG. 8.

GROOVED ITALIAN DAGGER

FROM CASTELLANO, NEAR

RIPATRANSONE.

Though members of both the Alpine and Nordic races inhabited the mountain zone, and are found living together in the same villages, they appear not to have intermarried, at any rate to any considerable extent, for at a much later date we find skulls both of the long-headed and the broad-headed types, but few if any which show evidence of mixed ancestry.[260] The evidence obtained from the cemetery at Hallstatt, which dates from 1000 years or more later, seems to point to the same conclusion.[261]

Now the Alpine people, as we have seen, are thrifty, steady, hard-working tillers of the soil, patient but lacking in the spirit of adventure. The Nordics, on the other hand, are strong, active, courageous and adventurous, devoted to the horse and accustomed on its back to drive bands of cattle over the grassy steppes. If we may judge from the views of many of their modern representatives, they despise menial work, such as ploughing the land or digging the soil, just as they prefer cattle and beef to sheep or mutton, and have a contempt for fish-eaters and vegetarians. The Nordic also has a natural instinct for governing and administration.

As I have shown elsewhere,[262] if two such peoples come into contact, and settle down together, there can be but one result: the Nordic becomes a lord and his people a privileged nobility, while the Alpine becomes eventually a serf. With a strong racial exclusiveness, or, as we call it to-day, colour prejudice, the Nordics decline to take wives from the subject class, and, though irregular unions may in time take place, marriage is strictly forbidden. In this we have the germs of the caste system so well known in India. Similar objections to such inter-marriages are a marked feature of the Briton throughout the empire. This custom has given rise to the strict marriage regulations, which existed until lately among all royal and many noble families in Europe, and among the descendants of the Visigoths in Spain. The marriage laws of Athens and Rome seem to imply a similar point of view. Another steppe-folk, entering a mountain zone filled with an eastern Alpine population, issued a similar edict, which they credited to their tribal god.[263] Thus in the mountain zone Nordic and Alpine lived together, apparently in harmony, as lord and serf, never intermarrying and rarely, if ever, mating with one another.

FIG. 9.-RIVETED DAGGER-HILT

FROM FOSSOMBRONE.

In the plain, however, the Alpines seem to have been absent, or at any rate few in number. Here we may well imagine the Nordics continued their nomadic existence, driving their cattle from one pasture to another. Thus the population tended to divide into two groups, the people of the mountains and the people of the plain.

When the first group of Nordics arrived in this region, both they and their Alpine predecessors were ignorant of metal, but a few centuries later implements of copper began slowly to penetrate the whole area. Perhaps these arrived from the east, up the Danube valley, either from Hissarlik II. or from those ?gean merchants, who, as we have seen, were trading for Transylvanian gold, or taking copper axes to the Tripolje folk. Or it may be that other ?gean folk had by this time reached the head of the Adriatic, and were making their way thence to the mines of the Erz-gebirge and the amber coasts of the Baltic. It is probable that both lines of trade began fairly early in the third millennium, and the general course of the latter route can be traced in outline from Fiume, along the eastern foothills of the mountain zone towards Linz, where the Danube must have been crossed in dug-out canoes; thence it continued through the Elbe gap, and on by various routes, indicated by the distribution of flat celts, to the amber coast.[264]

One thing is clear, and that is that metal reached the mountain zone from the east and not from the west. It was at one time believed that when metal first appeared in the western Mediterranean, the Rhone valley was the main line of approach into Central Europe.[265] This we now know was not the case,[266] for that valley was thickly wooded, and the inhabitants of most of it remained in a neolithic state until many centuries after metal had become known in Switzerland.

FIG. 10.

LEAF-SHAPED

SWORD.

After the destruction of Hissarlik II. communications from the east seem to have ceased for a time; the irruption of the steppe-folk appears to have interfered with trade, especially by land, over the north ?gean and Euxine areas. Perhaps, too, after the arrival of fresh hordes of steppe-folk into Hungary trade by the other route may also have ceased for a time. There is some evidence that this was the case, but in due course it was resumed, and was at any rate in full swing again long before 1600 B.C., though, judging by the type of weapons found, this trade was rather with Italy and the west than with the ?gean and the eastern Mediterranean.

We have seen in an earlier chapter that the people of the Mediterranean had developed a type of dagger of a somewhat triangular form, made first of all of copper and subsequently of bronze. This dagger, as we have seen, frequently had concave sides, perhaps at first as the result of constant grinding, and thus attained an ogival form. We have noted also that the breadth of the butt diminished as the length of the blade increased. Sometimes, especially in North Italy, the sides remained straight, and grooves were cut in the blade parallel to the sides. The object of these grooves, which were three, five or even more in number, was not in the first instance a question of ornament, though in time it became the motif of an elaborate decoration. In the first instance it had a severely practical value, for a dagger so grooved, thrust into the body of an enemy, could be more readily extracted than one of which the whole surface was smooth. This grooving began with the straight-sided daggers, but was afterwards applied to those of ogival form.

The people of the Mediterranean race were, as we have seen, rather short and of slight build, and their daggers were relatively small. They were not used very frequently, we may imagine, in open warfare, but were more usually employed to stab an enemy in the back, a custom not yet obsolete in some Mediterranean lands. The handle was of bronze, often handsomely chased, and sometimes decorated with thin plates of gold. Such handles were riveted on to the blades, and so long as the butt of the latter was wide and the blade not too long, this method of attachment proved satisfactory. But, as we have seen, the tendency was for the butt to diminish in breadth and the blade to increase in length, which suggests that open combat was becoming more fashionable or more necessary, and that a greater reach was needed. The narrowing of the area of attachment, and the lengthening of the blade, threw an ever increasing strain on the riveted joint, which must have become more and more ineffective. Still, the Mediterranean peoples up to the last, except in the ?gean area, continued to use this long dirk, or rapier, with riveted handle.

FIG. 11.

BRONZE HILT OF

LEAF-SHAPED SWORD.

But the trade with Hungary carried these daggers from Italy into Central Europe, and the Nordic inhabitants, both of the plain and of the mountains, were good customers. But being big men, with large hands and accustomed to meet their foes face to face, they demanded larger and larger daggers, and this demand was met, as such a demand always is, by an adequate supply. Thus we find these weapons, closely resembling those in use in the Mediterranean basin, especially in its western half, becoming increasingly common in Hungary, and growing to greater and greater dimensions. Plate IV. shows five daggers found in Hungary: the two first can be matched both in Greece and Italy and elsewhere in the Mediterranean region, the third in Italy only, the fourth in the northern part of that peninsula, while the fifth is rare outside Hungary, and I have only been able to find one parallel, from Bondo in the Grisons.[267]

The increased size of the daggers, which in some cases had grown to enormous proportions, as may be seen in Plate V., made the weakness at the riveted joint more apparent. The Nordics, fighters above all else, paid much attention to their weapons, and they set themselves to discover some way to overcome this difficulty. This led, as we shall see, to the evolution of the leaf-shaped sword.

During the bronze age there were several types of sword in use in various parts of the Old World. We have seen how the typical Mediterranean sword or long dirk developed by slow degrees in the west from the triangular copper daggers of Crete. In the ?gean and in Greek lands we find other types, which seem to be derived from swords of Asiatic origin, and which had an independent development in Mesopotamia or Egypt; some, too, may have been derived from the copper daggers of Cyprus.

But there is one type or group which stands apart from the others. In many examples the blade narrows rapidly near the butt, then expands slowly till it reaches its greatest breadth about two-thirds of the way down the blade; then it narrows more rapidly, then very quickly to the point. This gives a shape not unlike the leaf of the lanceolate plantain, a form not uncommon in other leaves; hence the name leaf-shaped sword. But many examples from this group, in other respects indistinguishable from those described, have sides which are nearly parallel, sometimes quite so. To these cases the term leaf-shaped is not so applicable. But the name is hallowed by a long tradition, and so it will be well to retain it for the whole group.

FIG. 12.

TANG, WITH FLANGED EDGES,

SHAPED TO FIT THE HAND.

Leaf-shaped swords may be divided into two sub-groups: those with bronze hilts or pommels, and those without. Owing to the beauty of their decoration, the types with bronze hilts have hitherto received the greatest amount of attention, and several arch?ologists have devoted pages to describing them and tracing out their evolution.[268] They are not, however, very common outside Hungary, and in all cases are much rarer than the other types. The details of their form lead us to believe that they are contemporary with some, in fact with most of the other types, and the elaborate decoration present in most cases shows us that they were an expensive and ornate form, used probably by the greater chieftains, while the other types were the cheap and plain weapons used either by the lesser nobles or by the rank and file.

The simpler type of sword has no bronze hilt, but in its place a long tang, usually but not invariably with flanged edges, and shaped to fit the hand. This tang is pierced by several rivet holes, in which the rivets are sometimes found adhering, and these rivets were used to secure on either side of the tang pieces of wood, bone or horn, which with it formed the hilt. In some cases such swords have been found with wood or horn still attached. These are obviously a cheaper form of hilt, and it is not surprising that such swords are more commonly found and more widely distributed than those with bronze hilts or pommels, notwithstanding that the latter have been more eagerly sought after by collectors.

It is partly because these types, which are all included in the Type II. of Naue,[269] are commoner and more widely distributed that I have selected them for special study in preference to the more ornate forms, but also for another reason. It has hitherto been usual to classify swords mainly by the shapes of their blades or their sections; for reasons which will become apparent as I proceed, I am proposing a new classification, based upon the shape of the butt of the blade, the portion, that is to say, which immediately adjoins the handle-shaped tang.

FIG. 13.-CONVEX AND CONCAVE BUTTS.

Now if we examine a large number of swords of these types, we shall find that these butts vary in form, some being convex and others concave. In Plate VI. I have placed them in a series of seven, and it would, perhaps, be possible to sub-divide them more minutely, and to give several variants of most of the types. For reasons, which will, I think, be apparent to anyone consulting the Plate, and which I give more fully below, I believe Type A to be the earliest of the series; Type G, on the other hand, occurs in the famous cemetery at Hallstatt, in the Salzkammergut, and as iron swords and implements were found in most of the graves there, we may consider these bronze swords as belonging to the very last phase of the bronze age in Central Europe. As the butts of the blades show a gradual transition from the form usual in the daggers with riveted handles shown in Plate IV. to the Hallstatt type, we may, I think, feel satisfied that we have placed our series in strict chronological sequence.

FIG. 14.

a. A SECTION NOT UNLIKE THAT

OF A SPEAR-HEAD.

b. A RHOMBOID SECTION WITH

CONCAVE SIDES.

A glance at Type A, especially as seen in full length in Plate VII., shows us at once that it is a transitional form, and that it has grown out of an ogival dagger, similar to those given on Plate V. The butt is of the same shape, being a flattened semicircle, with the horizontal radii considerably longer than the vertical. The upper part of the blade, too, is of the same form, and the parallel incised lines are survivals of the grooves already described. These show that the prototype was of ogival shape. In two points only does it differ from the ancestral form: the blade has been lengthened considerably, till its form is of rather an unnatural shape, while at the other end a tang, shaped to fit the hand, and with flanged edges, has been cast in one piece with the blade. Here we have a leaf-shaped sword, it is true, but with the greatest breadth relatively near to the butt, and the tang flanged and with rivet holes to enable the wooden or horn sides to be attached to form the hilt. The section is somewhat rhomboidal.

Now it has long been realised that swords of these types had been evolved somewhere in the Danube basin, and it has been suggested that this had taken place in the south Danubian region.[270] It becomes important, therefore, to determine whereabouts in the Celtic cradle these types originated. Details of the distribution of this and of other types will be discussed in the next chapter; here it will be sufficient to summarise. As far as I have been able to ascertain, six specimens only of this type are known, and one of these is so unlike the others that we must look upon it as a later variant. Of the five, one was found in the Friuli, at the head of the Adriatic, one in a tomb in Schleswig-Holstein, while the other three were found somewhere in Hungary. Of these the exact sites at which two were found are unknown, but the third is said to have been dredged out of the Danube near Buda-Pest.[271]

FIG. 15.

SPINDLE-

SHAPED

SECTION.

We may, I think, conclude from this that it was in the plain of Hungary, where the Nordic steppe-folk were living in relative purity, still leading, perhaps, a nomadic life, that these swords were developed. The origin seems to have been in the plain rather than in the mountain zone, though subsequent types have been found frequently in the latter. It is the Hungarian plain, then, we must consider as the centre of dispersal, and, as far as possible, Hungarian rather than other examples will be taken as the true types, of which others will be considered as variants.

Now that the tang for the hilt had been cast in one piece with the blade, and the attachment of the hilt no longer depended solely on the row of rivets at the butt of the blade, there was no necessity for this butt to be of so great a breadth. As a result we find in Type B the butt has become approximately semi-circular, with the horizontal and vertical radii equal. The flange on the sides of the tang remained, though in some cases it became lighter and not so sharply modelled. The blades of this type usually diminish gradually from below the butt to the point, but occasionally we find a slight broadening of the blade into the true leaf-shaped form. The numerous parallel grooves of Type A disappear, and in their place appear a few, generally three, narrow grooves, very close together, parallel to both sides of the blade, and dividing it into three almost equal strips. Towards the butt these grooves bend outwards to the edge, forming an almost perfect quadrant. Sometimes these grooves are combined into one, and result in sharp lines dividing the blade into three; in these cases the central third is much thicker than the two sides, and the section is not unlike that of a spear-head. Occasionally we find these parallel lines entirely absent, and the blade sloping to a median ridge, thus forming in section a rhomboid with concave sides; this variant is more common in the north, and seems to be a later local development.

FIG. 16.

THE CUTTING EDGE OF THE

BLADE BEGINS AN INCH OR

TWO BELOW THE BUTT.

Types C and D are at first sight very much alike, but a close examination of the critical part will explain the difference. We have seen how in passing from Type A to Type B the horizontal radii diminish until they equal the vertical; in Type C the vertical has increased until it exceeds the horizontal, and an oval butt has developed. The curves in this case seem to be nearly if not exactly those of an ellipse. The flanges on the tang are still present, but tend to disappear before reaching the point at which the butt passes into the blade. The blades of this type sometimes retain their parallel sides, but more often the breadth expands, usually about halfway between the butt and the point. The lines of parallel grooving are tending to disappear; they have been reduced as a rule to a single line on either side, and although these are sometimes found in the same position as in Type B, dividing the blade vertically into three equal strips, it is more often the case that these lines have been moved nearer to the edge, which in some cases they approach as close as fifty millimetres. The blades in this type are relatively flat and thin, but the thickness diminishes considerably outside the parallel lines. These lines, in fact, are only indications of the place where the diminished thickness begins abruptly. In other cases the section is spindle-shaped.

Type D, as has been noted, closely resembles Type C, but the curves of the oval, which were fairly true in Type C, have been much flattened. In other respects it differs little from the more developed examples of Type C. The spindle-shaped section appears to be more common.

FIG. 17.

SPINDLE-SHAPED SECTION

WITH MODIFIED EDGE.

In Type E the convexity of the butt has almost disappeared; the tang and the butt blend more thoroughly, which makes the junction a larger hollow curve than in the previous types. The sides of the butt are almost if not quite straight, and the only trace of the original convexity is to be found in the lower part of the butt, which terminates in a beak or nose. The flanges of the tang are tending to disappear, and in many cases are nothing but an irregular thickening of the parts nearest to the outside. This type, as we shall see, is widely distributed, and has developed many local variants, which can readily be recognised but not easily described. The blade in this type, especially in the west, usually displays the characteristic widening two thirds of the way down the blade, which has given rise to the term leaf-shaped sword. The lines parallel to the edge are always relatively near to it, in most cases very near, and the blades are usually flatter and narrower, though the spindle-shaped section still occurs.

Type F is that described by Déchelette as Proto-Hallstatt, and in many respects resembles Type G. The sides of the butt are straight or slightly concave, and the head of the tang expands into a T-shaped form. The flange has entirely disappeared and the rivet-holes in the centre of the tang are frequently, though not invariably replaced by a long slot. The conspicuous feature of this type and of Type G, though it may occasionally be absent from Type F, is that the cutting edge of the blade does not begin for an inch or two below the butt. The illustrations will explain this better than any words can do, but the point to note is that this portion, between the butt and the true edge of the blade, has a blunt edge, and gives the impression that something has been tied round it. It may be that at this spot leather bands have been attached, like the sword-knots of the modern swords and the leather loops of policemen's batons; by holding this leather loop the weapon is less likely to be snatched from the hand or lost.

Type G is the well-known Hallstatt type. In this the lines of the butt have become definitely concave, the tang is thinner and always without flanges, and terminates in a semi-hexagonal finial; the rivets, which are usually found attached to the tang, are much smaller. The blade is rather narrower than in most of the preceding types, but the widest part is characteristically two-thirds of the way down the blade. The parallel groove is close to the edge, and the edge ceases before reaching the butt, as in the case of Type F. The section is spindle-shaped, with a decided modification at the edge.

Some examples of Type G found in the west, especially in the British Isles, vary in some details from the specimens found in Hallstatt. This is especially the case with regard to the shape of the finial. But speaking generally this type must have survived for a long time with relatively little change, since it appears first in the oldest graves at Hallstatt, while it is believed to have remained in use in this country until the introduction of iron swords in the fifth century.

There are certain local variants of all or most of these types, and it would be an interesting task to trace these out in all their ramifications. To do so here would lead us too far away from the main lines of our thesis, nor would it be easy to draw correct deductions until drawings of all such swords found throughout Europe were available. Here I must content myself with tracing out the broad lines of the evolution of the leaf-shaped swords, and leave it to others to work out the local varieties.

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