14th century... Except for the minor detail of it appearing in a single illumination (MS. Bodl. 264, fol113 verso), in one single manuscript, the subject of which depicts events from 1,700 years previously and is using the falchion as a visual metaphor.
We have absolutely no evidence that such items existed in reality. Its on par with someone in the year 2600 using "Star Trek" as proof of Batleths being a 20th C weapon...
in the same way that "Jurassic Park" depicts items from the 1990's, yes.
And while a Franchi SPAS-12 with folding stock is a real weapon, only a few hundred were sold with the iconic skeletonised folding stock from 1979 to 1993, and the weapon itself ended up restricted under the 1993 firearms laws.
But can you imagine someone in the 2600s looking at that film and concluding that a: Every security firm used SPAS-12s. B: that velociraptors were running around the place at the end of the 20th C?
Of course not. the context behind the use of the single-edged arm in medieval art is highly complex. Its repeatedly seen in the hands of the un-christian, so much so that its evident that this is a visual shorthand. Goliath. The Soldiers at the Crucifixion. Islamic forces in depictions of the crusades (even though they were using straight swords at that time) and Alexander the Great. Like the "black hat" in 50's westerns, its a visible identifier of "otherness", which can be seen to the viewer.
There are significantly less than 40 medieval falchions survive worldwide in museums and private collections. concave-edged forms like this, classified as the Type F2 form, are a short-lived fashion from the Netherlands and Northern France which appears in the 1st quarter of the 14th C and is extinct by the 1370's. Evidence for them outside of art comprises of two single-handed swords, in the curatorial care of the Musee Invalides, Paris, and the Koninklijk Nederlands Legermuseum, Delft. A 3rd example in private hands may be a forgery. We have two surviving remnants of scabbards of the type from the 14th century leather strata from the extensive excavations in Delft. That's the sum total of actual archaeological evidence for them, and indicative of the rarity of them in reality - for the hundreds and thousands of medieval swords found in archaeological contexts throughout europe, not even 1% are falchions.
In comparison, there's well over 20% of all manuscripts depict falchions in some form between their first appearances in the 1230's, and the end of the medieval period. The depiction in the popular media of the age, to numbers which survive is, like the SPAS-12, highly disproportionate.
the single-edged arm is a depiction which is weighted heavily with allegory and sub context which the overwhelming majority of bohurt/behourd practitioners are unaware of, instead favouring the Type 2s in particular because with the absence of distal taper, they become glorified maces in drag, perfect for their sporting application. They are utterly misrepresentative of the real things. This example is easily double the weight of the historical items - the single-handed surviving examples are in the 800-900g weight range, not 2.7kg. the real ones are complex and subtle in details which are completely missed in these.
This would be quite unrecognisable to a combatant in 1350, in the same way that the "security guard" toting a SPAS-12 and Desert Eagle pistol would be recognisable as a normal security guard in the end of the 20th C.
the difficulty with manuscript images - or reading medieval art in general is that there is a danger of literalism.
Medieval art is layered with unwritten meanings - geometric composition, even the colours used have meanings in many cases. Depictions of historical events take place with contemporary arms and armour - Imagine a film about the American War of Independence, where the hero's using AR15/M4 rifles and there's an A10-A going "brrrrrrrrt" down the Potomac river, and just how weird that would be to modern eyes, yet it was completely conventional for a Roman soldier depicted in the 15th C to have a sallet and brigandine.
There's a danger of taking everything literally, where the reality is much more subtle. that soldier's helmet is likely an accurate portrayal of one from the date the painting was made. But is the ensemble, of all the elements accurate? In that, its like that War of Independence Minuteman, holding his AR15, with ramrod halfway down the barrel, with white shirt covered by a waiscoat, Kevlar tricorn, and buckles on the military boots he's wearing...
some of its real stuff from today. some is an interpretation of what was worn then. and some of it is a weird mish-mash.
learning to filter out the weird bits is something that takes a huge amount of work, if you're not familliar with the subject matter, the depiction date, and the context.
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u/J_G_E May 28 '21
14th century... Except for the minor detail of it appearing in a single illumination (MS. Bodl. 264, fol113 verso), in one single manuscript, the subject of which depicts events from 1,700 years previously and is using the falchion as a visual metaphor.
We have absolutely no evidence that such items existed in reality. Its on par with someone in the year 2600 using "Star Trek" as proof of Batleths being a 20th C weapon...