page_title: Viking sword
section_title: Notable examples
hierarchical_section_title: Viking sword / Notable examples
caption_attribution_description: English: A detailed drawing of a viking age sword from the early 9th century found at Sæbø in the west of Norway. The swords is kept at Bergen Museum with the object number B1622. Original caption: Fig. 1. Haugfundet Sværd fra Sæbø i Hoprekstad, Vik i Sogn. B. M. No. 1622. 1 a. Sværdet i 1/4. 1 b. Tværsnit af Kingen. 1/1. 1 c. Øverste Del af Klingen mit indlagte Tegn. 1/1. 1 d. Indlagt Mærke paa Klingens anden Side. 1/1.
context_page_description: The Viking Age sword or Carolingian sword is the type of sword prevalent in Western and Northern Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
  The Viking Age or Carolingian-era sword developed in the 8th century from the Merovingian sword and during the 11th to 12th century in turn gave rise to the knightly sword of the Romanesque period.
context_section_description: The Sæbø sword, a 9th-century type C sword  found in 1825 in a barrow at Sæbø, Vikøyri, in Norway's Sogn region. The sword is notable for its blade inscription, which has been interpreted as runic by  George Stephens (1867), which would be very exceptional; while Viking Age sword hilts were sometimes incised with runes, inlaid blade inscriptions are, with this possible exception, invariably in the Latin alphabet.
  One of the heaviest and longest extant swords of the Viking Age is dated to the 9th century and was found in Flå, now kept at Museum of Cultural History, Oslo, at a total length of 102.4 cm and a mass of 1.9 kg.
  Sword of Saint Stephen: A 10th-century sword of Petersen type T with a walrus-tooth hilt with carved Mammen style ornaments. On display as the coronation sword of Hungarian king Saint Stephen in the Treasury of St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague.
  Lincoln sword (River Witham sword): A sword dated to the 10th century, with a blade of German/Ottonian manufacture classified as  a Petersen type L variant (Evison's "Wallingford Bridge" type) and hilt fittings added by an Anglo-Saxon craftsman, was recovered from the River Witham opposite Monks Abbey, Lincoln in 1848.  Peirce (1990) makes special mention of this sword as "breath-taking", "one of the most splendid Viking swords extant". The Lincoln sword is also remarkable for being one of only two known bearing the blade inscription Leutfrit (+ LEUTFRIT), the other being a find from Tatarstan (at the time Volga Bulgaria, now kept in the Historical Museum of Kazan). On the reverse side, the blade is inlaid with a  double scroll pattern.
  The Sword of Essen is a  10th-century sword preserved at Essen Abbey, decorated with gold plating at the close of the 10th century.
  The Cawood sword, and the closely related Korsoygaden sword, are notable in the context of delineating "Viking Age swords" from derived high medieval types; these swords fit neatly into the "Viking sword" typology, but Oakeshott (1991) considers them derived types dating to the 12th century.
caption: Drawing of the Sæbø sword and its inscription from Petersen (1919).
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