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69

armour, for they are archaeological specimens rather than antiquarian ones, and have to bc assessed by a different sort of examination

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than those of the lóth century and later.

I illustrate here a typical sword of Type X, one with which I am most intimately acquainted because it Iives with me (Fig.

62A). The form is classic - herc is the truć Type X- yet there are aspects of it which to some extent belie things I have said about the type. When it was in the collection of Mr. Harold Petersen of Arlington, it had no cross, but after it was sold at Sotheby's in London, in 1978, the new owner had a cross very skill-fiilly madę and applied to the sword without disturbing the pommel. He went on to write an article about it, which appeared in a now defunct English magazine, Antique Arms and Militaria, in 1982 or 1983. In this article, by the use of very ingeniously selected circum-stantial evidence, he demonstrated by means of the designs inlaid upon the blade that it had belonged to a great English baron,

Hubert Walter. This baron was King John's chancellor and became Archbishop of Canterbury, and had been with Richard Coer-de-lion in the Holy Land in 1195, when he was instrumental in concluding a treaty with Salah-ed-din (Saladin). The writer's evidence, as is said, rested upon the silver-inlaid designs on the blade. Unfortunately for his theory, these designs were clearly matched for style, technique and content with similar ones upon one of Dr. Leppaaho's Viking swords of c. 1050-1100, and by a carved ivory casket of the same period (Fig. 63). So, these inlays

datę the sword a century before the lifetime of

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Archbishop Hubert. However, this doesnh invalidate the theory because there is no rea-

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son why a fine sword - and this was a very fine one, as shown by the traces of silver plating on the pommel - should not have been still in use c. 1200. Before I acquired the sword, I went to Canterbury Cathedral, where Hubert was buried, knowing that when his tomb was opened in the 19th century, several pieces of his property had been found in it - his episco-pal ring, his crozier, and a fine silver mounted

Figurę 62. Swords ofType X (A) and XA (B) c. 1100. BL: 97.7cm, Private Collection.