Gilding on European Medieval Swords

[Lee]

On Oct 5 I made a presentation at the New England Bladesmith's Guild Ashokan Sword Seminar. The theme for the weekend was 'Gilding the Lily' and in keeping with that I decided to share some results from an X-Ray Fluorescence survey of my collection completed shortly before the Pandemic that I will also share here now. This technology allows nondestructive detection of heavier elements on or near the surface of an object.

[Lee]

Gilding over the forte and hilt elements is not unexpected in this timeframe. I have had concerns about the authenticity of this sword that I have had over a quarter of a century, so you can imagine how pleasing it was to find a feature invisible to the naked eye that a forger would have had no motive to put there.

The yellow-orange marks on the orientation sheet denote areas where gold was detected.

[Lee]

Swords from this era are generally regarded to have been austere plain steel and are rarely encountered in other than excavated condition.

[Lee]

In this timeframe very attractive overlay work in silver, copper and rarely gold may be found on hilts particularly from Viking infested lands. The brazil nut pommel suggests a more southerly origin for this example and would not be expected to feature such decoration.

[urbanspaceman]

Hey Lee. These are your swords??? You own an ULFBERHT?
This is where the name of the forum comes from? I've often wondered.
Thank-you for letting me see these.

[Lee]

Yes, indeed, even a blind squirrel occasionally gets a nut and after 40 years of seeking there may even be a small stash.

The website did start out especially focused on European Medieval swords. A lonely focus. Daydreaming at a particularly irrelevant (to me) lecture at a professional conference, I developed a desire to advise aspiring collectors that there was a wide variety of exciting artifacts worthy of their attention.

[Hotspur]

The main resource page is a bookmark I found through the Sir Clisto pages, so many decades ago.

I have studied here since.

A jewel.

[Reventlov]

Originally Posted by Lee

The website did start out especially focused on European Medieval swords.

I am still here for this at least! Thanks for sharing, very interesting and surprising to see this on the Ulfberht sword - so few hilts of this time show any (surviving) trace of decoration.

- Mark

[Triarii]

This is excellent. The kind of use of technology that takes us away from having to speculate, based upon other finds. Glad that your first sword turned out to be genuine. Love the shape - Oakeshott isn't my thing but it reminds me of the Wallace Collection late C14th A460 which I got my hands on a few months ago.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by Reventlov

...surprising to see this on the Ulfberht sword...

A big surprise for me as well, though I suspect more will be found as additional collections are surveyed with this technology. My survey was designed to disclose elemental variations associated with pattern-welding and iron inlays and I'll share those findings here in due course.

Originally Posted by Triarii

...but it reminds me of the Wallace Collection late C14th A460...

and also A462 in the same collection. I suspect the dating on my example above may range into the first half of the 15th Century. The discovery of the gold traces was indeed a pleasant and thrilling surprise!

[CSinTX]

That's awesome. And I'm sure a great feeling. Thanks for sharing this with everyone!

Could you share any closer pictures of the subject area on your first example?

[AHorsa]

What amazing findings Lee! Thank you for sharing and also from my site congrats that the sword shown first is authentic!

Best regards
Andreas

[cornelistromp]

Hi Lee, super interesting! Could you please tell me more about the technique used and what all the numbers mean?
The first sword looks good and authentic in the photo, in my humble opinion. What were your concerns there?

vbw, Jasper

[Lee]

Thank you Gentlemen!

The numbers on the 'maps' are the points where a reading was taken. I was using an Olympus Vanta handheld XRF device, so the 'points' measured are of about a quarter of an inch in diameter or so. This instrument will download a file of the device's interpretation that may be imported into a spreadsheet for manipulation (as well as the raw spectra data, should one have the skill to interpret that) and I can then note functional location and features and sort the array of readings by that, as the numbers label the lines in the spreadsheet.

It gets overwhelming quickly and the interpretations presented in this thread are merely "was gold detected - yes (a gold dot on the spot) or no. As I prepared this reply I returned to the spreadsheet to get the composition of the latten (medieval brass) of the inlay and then I noted that lead accompanied the gold where it was found. (Fortunately, the Internet led me to an academic paper explaining how this could improve adhesion of the gilding.) By the way, should you be curious, the latten was 65% copper, 34% zinc and 1% lead, rounding to the nearest percent. I will explain more about my methodology when I present my upcoming thread on elements associated with iron inlays and pattern-welding.

My concerns for authenticity arose from 1) I bought this sword in the late 1980s at a gun show in the US admittedly from a British dealer that I had dealt with previously and 2) a few bladesmiths of my acquaintance had expressed concern about what they felt was a lack of robustness of the tang.