oak sih1

143

task force, led by the last of England's great Warlords, John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, was defeated by a well-organised and brilliantly lcd French army making decisive use of cannon on the field of battle for the first time.

The hoard of swords, some still in splendid condition, others broken and bent, a few severely rusted and rotted, has been published several times, mainly by me. The first of these publications, at which time I could deal only with seventeen of them, because they were the onlv ones then that I had seen and handled, was bv no means accurate. I had assumed they had been lost by the fugitive, beaten English men-at-arms when trying to escape by Crossing the river. My next publication, some eighteen months later, was written with the advantage of my increased knowledge of detail regarding the actual site of the find and the naturę of it.

Even then I could draw no sensible or acceptable conclusions, for this group of eighty swords, when found, were together in what could be described as a solid lump. It was only after a cou-

Figure 125. Bastard sword madę by Melchior Dicfstetter of Munich, c.1540. In a private collection. Fishskin grip. BL: 43"; OL: 51”; Wt 41 b 2oz.