Seax
Encyclopedia
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
or cutting tool. The name of the roofer's tool, the zax, is a development from this word. In modern archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
(and further in this article), the term seax is used specifically for the typically large knives that were worn by men in the 5th to 11th century, in the region roughly enclosed by Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
and Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
. In heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
, the seax is a charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
consisting of a curved sword with a notched blade, appearing, for example, in the coats of arms of Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
and the former Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
.
Description
Amongst the shape and construction of seaxes there is a lot of variation. The most frequent characteristics are:- A tang in the centerline of the blade, inserted into an organic hilt (wood, horn)
- A large single edged blade
- The blade is worn horizontally inside a scabbardScabbardA scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, knife, or other large blade. Scabbards have been made of many materials over the millennia, including leather, wood, and metals such as brass or steel.-Types of scabbards:...
attached to the belt, with the edge of the blade upwards.
In Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the following types are defined for seaxes between roughly 450 and 800 AD, in chronological order:
- Schmaler Langsax (narrow long seax)
- Kurzsax (short seax)
- Schmalsax (narrow seax) – Often have braided bands or snakeSnakeSnakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
s engravedEngravingEngraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
in the blade, and frequently include metal bolsters and pommels. Both the edge and the back are curved towards the tip, which is generally located above the centerline of the blade. - Leichter Breitsax (light broad seax) – Similar to narrow seax, but frequently lack metal hiltHiltThe hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard,grip and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillons. A ricasso may also be present, but this is rarely the case...
parts, and have simpler decorations on the blade, such as parallel linesParallel (geometry)Parallelism is a term in geometry and in everyday life that refers to a property in Euclidean space of two or more lines or planes, or a combination of these. The assumed existence and properties of parallel lines are the basis of Euclid's parallel postulate. Two lines in a plane that do not...
. Both the edge and the back curve towards the tip, which is generally located at the centerline of the blade. - Schwerer Breitsax (heavy broad seax) – Have simple decorations on the blade if any, and long single-part organicOrganic matterOrganic matter is matter that has come from a once-living organism; is capable of decay, or the product of decay; or is composed of organic compounds...
hilts (>20 cm). Both the edge and the back curve towards the tip, which is generally located at the centerline of the blade. - Atypischer Breitsax (atypical broad seax) – Same as heavy broad seax.
- Langsax (long seax) – Blades are 50 cm or longer, often with multiple fullers and grooves, patternwelded blades, and long hilts similar to broad seaxes. The edge is generally straight, or curved slightly towards the tip. The back either curves gently, or with a sharp angle towards the tip, which is located below the centerline of the blade.
The general trend, as one moves from the short to the broad seax, is that the blade becomes heavier, longer, broader and thicker. Long seaxes, which arrived at the end of the 7th century, were the longest of the seax. These were narrower and lighter than their predecessors. Initially, these weapons were found in combination with double-edged swords and were probably intended as side arm. From the 7th century onwards, seaxes became the main edged weapon (next to a francisca
Francisca
The francisca is a throwing axe used as a weapon during the Early Middle Ages by the Franks, among whom it was a characteristic national weapon at the time of the Merovingians from about 500 to 750 AD and is known to have been used during the reign of Charlemagne .Although generally associated...
), sometimes in combination with small side-knives.
The rest of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
(except for parts of Scandinavia) followed a similar development, although some types may not be very common depending on location. In England long seaxes appear later than on the continent and finds of long seaxes (as opposed to knives) remain very rare in comparison to finds of swords throughout the period.
Another typical form of the seax is the so-called broken-back style seax. These seaxes have a sharp angled transition between the back section of the blade and the point, the latter generally forming 1/3 to 3/5 of the blade length. These seaxes exist both in long seax variety (edge and back parallel) and in smaller blades of various lengths (blade expanding first, then narrowing towards the tip after the kink). They occurred mostly in the UK and Ireland, with some examples in Germany around 8th-11th century. Some examples have patternwelded blades, while others have inlays of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
, etc.
Unlike swords from the same period, many examples of Seaxes hint at having long grips, suitable for two-handed use. This would've allowed greater force to be put behind blows, supporting the notion that such weapons were secondary, for use following the loss of shield and spear .
Additional information
A seax in modern times is often called scramasax or scramaseax, from scrama "wound" (cf. German Schramme "flesh wound", Dutch schram "scratch") and sax (cf. German Sahs "dagger"). However, as the word scramasaxi is only used once in early medieval literatureMedieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
(in Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
), the general use of the term when referring to all short knives of this type is erroneous. The Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
may have derived their name from seax (the implement for which they were known). The seax has a lasting symbolic impact in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
counties of Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
and Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, which both feature three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem.
Reference in culture
- In the epic poem BeowulfBeowulfBeowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, Grendel's mother uses a seax when fighting Beowulf and later Beowulf uses a seax to nearly hack a dragon apart as it dies. - The scramasax is one of many knives in the GBA game Final Fantasy Tactics AdvanceFinal Fantasy Tactics Advanceis a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. A spin-off of the popular Final Fantasy series, the game shares several traits with 1997's Final Fantasy Tactics, although it is not a direct sequel. The player assembles a clan of characters, and...
. - The game Breath of Fire IIIBreath of Fire IIIis a role-playing video game developed and published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation console as part of the Breath of Fire series. Initially released in Japan on September 11, 1997, the game was later released in North America and Europe in 1998. It is the first game in the franchise to...
features the scramasax near the start of the game. - The PSX console role-playing game Vagrant StoryVagrant Storyis a Japanese-developed console role-playing game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. The game was released in 2000, and has been re-released through the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles eleven years later...
features the scramasax as a type of knife. - Eternal Darkness: Sanity's RequiemEternal Darkness: Sanity's RequiemEternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a psychological horror action-adventure video game released for the Nintendo GameCube. Developed by Canadian developer Silicon Knights and originally planned for the Nintendo 64, it was first released and published by Nintendo on June 24, 2002 in North America...
character Anthony is given a scramasax for personal defense early in his chapter. - In John Flanagans'sJohn Flanagan (author)John Flanagan is an Australian fantasy author. She lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband. Her best known work is the Ranger's Apprentice novel series, which is about a boy named Will who is taken as an apprentice Ranger to the grim and mysterious Halt. They meet up with many new people,...
Ranger's ApprenticeRanger's ApprenticeRanger's Apprentice is a series of fantasy novels written by Australian author John Flanagan. The first novel in the series, titled The Ruins of Gorlan, was released in Australia on 1 November 2004 and in the United States on 16 June 2005. As of 2011 all eleven books have been released in Australia...
series, the saxe knife is the primary duty knife of the Rangers. It is also employed by the Skandians for both battle and everyday use. - In World of WarcraftWorld of WarcraftWorld of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
, a scramseax item can be made through the secondary profession Archaeology by collecting fragments from the Vrykul race.
See also
- FranciscaFranciscaThe francisca is a throwing axe used as a weapon during the Early Middle Ages by the Franks, among whom it was a characteristic national weapon at the time of the Merovingians from about 500 to 750 AD and is known to have been used during the reign of Charlemagne .Although generally associated...
- Kragehul lance
- Migration Period swordMigration Period swordSwords of the Migration Period show a transition from the Roman era Spatha to the "Viking sword" types of the Early Middle Ages....
- Migration Period spearMigration Period spearThe spear together with the sword, the longsax and the shield was the main equipment of the Germanic warriors during the Migration period and the Early Middle Ages.-Terminology:...
- Seax of BeagnothSeax of BeagnothThe Seax of Beagnoth is a 9th century Anglo-Saxon seax . It was found in the River Thames in 1857, and is now at the British Museum in London. It is a prestige weapon, decorated with elaborate patterns of inlaid copper, bronze and silver wire...
- Zax (tool)
External links
- The Anglo Saxon Broken Back Seax (myArmoury.com article)
- Regia Seax
- British Museum:Seax of Beagnoth