I have always found the "Seax of Beagnoth" to be an interesting piece & wondered how it handled as well as all those wonderful questions we will never know the answer to like "who is Beagnoth?, why did he want it?, why did he drop it where he did?, etc. Thank you for the video brother & thanks to your friend for letting you do the video on it as well.
Those pumpkins didn't stand a chance! Great video as always! I'm really looking forward to handling that seax, I have nothing comparable to it in my collection. The sword that comes closest would be my Massai Seme, which is even more extreme than the seax, with a leaf blade that's 7.3 mm thick at the widest point and hasn't much of a handle to speak of. That results in a PoB of 240 mm on a 567 mm blade / 700 mm total length and the feeling that you're swinging a light battle axe or mace rather than a sword. But funnily enough I have the exact equivalent of the Gaddhjalt in my croc skin kaskara. Same type of blade and same Pob, only a few hundred g lighter. I'll have to input my African swords in the dynamics calculator over the holidays....
That Seax is an absolute UNIT of both a chopper/cutter AND piercer! Holy bejeezus, it's a beast!🤯 I can only speak from my own experience handling my Skrama, and sure mine is just a large bush knife, but it's absolutely beautifully balanced and the chopping/cleaving power? Oh it's terrifying! I would NOT wanna be on the wrong end of it😰🙅🏻 And it's only 240mm long and the blade is 4.2mm thick, still the best knife I've ever purchased! 😄 Anyway, another supreme video! Keep on keeping on brother 💪😄 Oh and loved the greatcoat and hat in the beginning, real classy!👌
Aaaah Albion... as you know I fancy myself a bit of a "viking guy" I love weapons from the dark ages. There's just something about them, like a classic muscle car. Sure maybe newer designs are technically better, faster with more bells and whistles, more agile and refined, balanced. But there's just something about a sword like the ones you have here. They're... hmm mm.... what's the word I'm looking for here? Savage? No... imposing? Cool! they're f#@king cool lol 🤘💀like classic muscle cars they were only really concerned with one thing, packing as much power into it as can reasonably be controlled. The design of the seax is really interesting it's kind of ass backwards getting thicker rather that thinner. Seems clear to me that it was to maximize the heft and give a relatively short blade a huge amount of cleaving power. I sometimes wonder if the clipping of the point was a modification of a old design. There's a machete cold Steel makes that's supposed to be a northern European design that if you were to give a clipped point would look very similar to a broke back seax. And now you got wondering if the spike hilt was for poking through mail? Maybe right? Love albions viking swords hopefully I'll own one, one day. Im hopeing matt easton will include a viking sword in the royal armories line some day that would be cool. My HT 9th.c is a lonely boy lol. We need more decent budget viking swords on the market! hanwei is like the only company doing it right imo. The new windlass langeid is pretty cool hopefully we get more stuff like that soon. Great video as always Andy! Nice cutting brother! Long comment lol
I wonder about the rather slow evolution of swords. All these changes took dozens, sometimes hundreds of years. I wonder why that was the case. According to my logic, there should have been like this: a few battles and duels (maybe even just a few practice fights using wooden dummy swords) and then someone came to the conclusion that something needed to be changed. But maybe back then people didn't see the problem with the sword itself. They believed that something had gone wrong because of bad tactics, bad weather, bad luck, or the will of the gods... And the sword itself is good just the way it is.
Wouldn't you use something like the long seax if you were a butcher? But I think that they are like the later messers, in the sense that they were tools that were adopted for fighting. Here's a speculation on my part: falchions were just the evolution of the seax for war.
So, I cannot speak to if the longseax was used for butchery specifically. We do know they were used for war; in some cases we have longseax blades fitted on 'sword' hilts, so if it may have originally grown out of a domestic design, it certainly was produced as an entirely adapted martial design by the end of its use ~late 10th century. While there has been lots of conjectural points of evolution, between single edged pre-medeival blades such as longseax, and other blades such as the wide knives of the baltics, the development of Falchions appears to be independent, occurring in Southern France or Northern Italy, after more than 200 years of any appreciable single edged swords being popular in European militaries. Speaking of which, let me make a quick post about those big knives...
@@dlatrexswords "...after more than 200 years of any appreciable single edged swords being popular in European militaries" Yea, I don't know enough, but this sounds so strange to me. I know of sabres being adopted in the East, and I always saw falchions being a separate evolution, but I didn't expect to hear that they sprang out of nothing (i.e. not a previous blade).
If you search for pattern welding. The technique used by saxons and vikings, to make swords. You will find it being passed off as Damascus steel by unscrupulous youtubers.
There is a lot of confusion over what is or is not Damascus steel, as the definition of it has changed many times historically, and continues to be used in different contexts depending on who is talking (e.g. knife makers vs. swordsmiths). Anyone interested in the topic I would encourage to check out my good friend @IPostSwords who is a founding member of the Wootz society. However in very short I would encourage everyone to drop the term Damascus, and instead use either "Pattern Welded" or "Crucible Steel", as both are types of striped steels which did have the term applied, but are created via entirely different processes. While pattern welding did reach a zenith during the migration period in Europe, there are a small number of crucible steel blades that are known as well, likely produced from trade steel.
I have always found the "Seax of Beagnoth" to be an interesting piece & wondered how it handled as well as all those wonderful questions we will never know the answer to like "who is Beagnoth?, why did he want it?, why did he drop it where he did?, etc. Thank you for the video brother & thanks to your friend for letting you do the video on it as well.
Those pumpkins didn't stand a chance! Great video as always! I'm really looking forward to handling that seax, I have nothing comparable to it in my collection. The sword that comes closest would be my Massai Seme, which is even more extreme than the seax, with a leaf blade that's 7.3 mm thick at the widest point and hasn't much of a handle to speak of. That results in a PoB of 240 mm on a 567 mm blade / 700 mm total length and the feeling that you're swinging a light battle axe or mace rather than a sword. But funnily enough I have the exact equivalent of the Gaddhjalt in my croc skin kaskara. Same type of blade and same Pob, only a few hundred g lighter.
I'll have to input my African swords in the dynamics calculator over the holidays....
That Seax is an absolute UNIT of both a chopper/cutter AND piercer!
Holy bejeezus, it's a beast!🤯
I can only speak from my own experience handling my Skrama, and sure mine is just a large bush knife, but it's absolutely beautifully balanced and the chopping/cleaving power?
Oh it's terrifying!
I would NOT wanna be on the wrong end of it😰🙅🏻
And it's only 240mm long and the blade is 4.2mm thick, still the best knife I've ever purchased! 😄
Anyway, another supreme video! Keep on keeping on brother 💪😄
Oh and loved the greatcoat and hat in the beginning, real classy!👌
You make swords look so fun. Thanks for all your hard work in making these videos. Hats off to you
That's not a knoife. THIS is a knoife!
Aaaah Albion... as you know I fancy myself a bit of a "viking guy" I love weapons from the dark ages. There's just something about them, like a classic muscle car. Sure maybe newer designs are technically better, faster with more bells and whistles, more agile and refined, balanced. But there's just something about a sword like the ones you have here. They're... hmm mm.... what's the word I'm looking for here? Savage? No... imposing?
Cool! they're f#@king cool lol 🤘💀like classic muscle cars they were only really concerned with one thing, packing as much power into it as can reasonably be controlled. The design of the seax is really interesting it's kind of ass backwards getting thicker rather that thinner. Seems clear to me that it was to maximize the heft and give a relatively short blade a huge amount of cleaving power. I sometimes wonder if the clipping of the point was a modification of a old design. There's a machete cold Steel makes that's supposed to be a northern European design that if you were to give a clipped point would look very similar to a broke back seax. And now you got wondering if the spike hilt was for poking through mail? Maybe right?
Love albions viking swords hopefully I'll own one, one day. Im hopeing matt easton will include a viking sword in the royal armories line some day that would be cool. My HT 9th.c is a lonely boy lol. We need more decent budget viking swords on the market! hanwei is like the only company doing it right imo. The new windlass langeid is pretty cool hopefully we get more stuff like that soon.
Great video as always Andy! Nice cutting brother! Long comment lol
11:00 Sword and seax, the precursor to rapier and dagger🤣
I wonder about the rather slow evolution of swords. All these changes took dozens, sometimes hundreds of years. I wonder why that was the case. According to my logic, there should have been like this: a few battles and duels (maybe even just a few practice fights using wooden dummy swords) and then someone came to the conclusion that something needed to be changed. But maybe back then people didn't see the problem with the sword itself. They believed that something had gone wrong because of bad tactics, bad weather, bad luck, or the will of the gods... And the sword itself is good just the way it is.
Wouldn't you use something like the long seax if you were a butcher? But I think that they are like the later messers, in the sense that they were tools that were adopted for fighting. Here's a speculation on my part: falchions were just the evolution of the seax for war.
So, I cannot speak to if the longseax was used for butchery specifically. We do know they were used for war; in some cases we have longseax blades fitted on 'sword' hilts, so if it may have originally grown out of a domestic design, it certainly was produced as an entirely adapted martial design by the end of its use ~late 10th century.
While there has been lots of conjectural points of evolution, between single edged pre-medeival blades such as longseax, and other blades such as the wide knives of the baltics, the development of Falchions appears to be independent, occurring in Southern France or Northern Italy, after more than 200 years of any appreciable single edged swords being popular in European militaries.
Speaking of which, let me make a quick post about those big knives...
@@dlatrexswords "...after more than 200 years of any appreciable single edged swords being popular in European militaries" Yea, I don't know enough, but this sounds so strange to me. I know of sabres being adopted in the East, and I always saw falchions being a separate evolution, but I didn't expect to hear that they sprang out of nothing (i.e. not a previous blade).
the clip point design on the Langseax probably originated as a simpler drop pointed knife with a tip broken off by accident
Dapper
If you search for pattern welding. The technique used by saxons and vikings, to make swords.
You will find it being passed off as Damascus steel by unscrupulous youtubers.
There is a lot of confusion over what is or is not Damascus steel, as the definition of it has changed many times historically, and continues to be used in different contexts depending on who is talking (e.g. knife makers vs. swordsmiths).
Anyone interested in the topic I would encourage to check out my good friend @IPostSwords who is a founding member of the Wootz society. However in very short I would encourage everyone to drop the term Damascus, and instead use either "Pattern Welded" or "Crucible Steel", as both are types of striped steels which did have the term applied, but are created via entirely different processes.
While pattern welding did reach a zenith during the migration period in Europe, there are a small number of crucible steel blades that are known as well, likely produced from trade steel.