Arms and Armor 15th Century Two-Handed Sword

This two-handed sword from Arms & Armor is closely based on an original in the Wallace Collection. It has a blade of 6150 high carbon steel with a final tempered hardness of about 50 HRC. The crossguard and fish-tail pommel are steel and it has a hardwood grip. The grip was finished in a traditional, high-quality manner by binding it in finely stitched leather which was heat shrunk with applied beeswax to create a long-lasting grip binding.

This very large sword is a fearsome weapon of medieval warfare and its long and broad cutting blade give it impressive reach and grievous striking power. The long grip gives plenty of leverage and the fishtail pommel affords a comfortable hand grip even at the very tail end of the sword.

Arms & Armors reproduction of the Wallace Collection A474 sword weighs slightly less than the original (the original is 6.37 lbs). Dated to 1450, the sword is probably English in origin due to the close resemblance of its hilt to a cache of English swords unearthed in the River Dordogne near Castillon. A notable find which included some eighty swords, the Castillon Group B swords had straight crossguards with spherical tips coupled with fishtail pommels or similarly elongated or flared pommel shapes.

These English swords were probably being sent upriver in a barge from the then English stronghold of Bordeaux as part of a resupply for garrisons at Castillon or Bergerac. Of the eighty swords none had dimensions as grand as Wallace A474 seen here, but the hilts are an uncanny similarity. These swords on the supply barge were likely gathered from various sources and re-hilted by a cutler – with a potential benefactor preferring this efficient, yet dignified form for the hilt.

The foundering of the resupply barge may have been a disaster for the Castellan of an English-held castle, but it preserved a great time capsule of mid 15th century swords for Arms and Armor archaeology.