Concentration/number of weapon types in the pre-and immidiate migration period.

Sorry for a cut off title, I am mainly interested in the areas, Germany (inclusive of east Germans), France (inclusive of the Rhineland and Burgundy), England (includes ancient kindom of Northumbria, Dumnonia and the Cymri sp?).

After intensive reading I have come to think that Northern Germany and Scandanavia were vastly richer in quality arms and armour that souther Germany in the pre-migration (250/300-400?) and immidiate (400-550?) migration period. Through grave finds and such this has come to be my belief.
However compared to some (Watchman:shame: bowed head) I am a novice of the lowest order.

Therefore one could expect the invading "Anglo-Saxon" peoples to have been better equipped than the Lombards, Alemanni or even some Frankish tribes.

I have taken the much later occurance of the Viking invasions of Ireland, whereby the invaders greatly increased the quality and quantity of weapons, as a template for this type of thing.

Obviuosly by the time of te later Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs the Franks were the greatest producers of arms and armour in Christendom and the so called cresent of germany, the area where arms production was centered, continued to be so during the middle ages. As can be attested by the finds of such weapons all across the Western Balkans and southern Italy and even the Byantine areas of Greece. But that was at a later date.

So back on topic, is such a theory of northern German superiority in arms quality and quantity justifiable?
An what types of weapons would have been noticably superior.


Sorry for any serious spelling and grammatical mistakes.

That is an interesting contention. But it could also have been a tactical one where weapons were put to better use than previously. It is very difficult to prove without more data though.

If I am not mistaken though this is the time of the rise in prominence of the longer swords, call them what you wish.

In your Viking invasion of Ireland those would be axes and welded swords as well as some tactical developments, the way they used their shields and stood in formation. That coupled with the early Irish disdain for metal armor would account for the rapid Viking expansion there, though it did not take all that long for the Irish to emulate and to some extent stop any wider expansion even if they couldn’t or wouldn’t expel the invaders.

Obviously for a people to expand their territories they must be militarily or diplomatically successful.

Well in Ireland it also meant the use of light cavalry, an important development.

I suppose what I am also asking is that if like the Vikings the Angles, Jutes and Saxons were weapon "heavy", would they also have influenced the number and type of weapon used in Britain.

In order to even begin talking about that I need to know whether the Northern Germans and early Scandanavian peoples eg. Jutes were in posession of more and better weapons and armour. In Northumbria it might be the case that the Germanic invaders were more heavily armed than others of the area and period.

As for the case of Longer swords, the use of the short sword or Seax by the Germanic invaders is noted and iconic. The Romans had of coarse switched to the Spatha, but I believe that has to do with their encounters against the Persians and such, a higher emphasis on cavalry than before.

The Axe was obviuosly a Viking infusion as it was all across the British Isles. Of coarse in Ireland such axes tended to be slimmer and of lesser contruction due to the lack of Iron. Of coarse the Irish assimilated and imitated the Vikings, I am not against the idea but for it.
But this is not what I wish to discuss.

Evidence for your premise is going to be sparse. It could well be tactical differences as the previous Celtic if you will metallurgy was more advanced than that of the Germans. It could well be that the continental infantry tactics were superior to the Briton cavalry tactics of the day. It may be simple to say that if infantry is stronger then fight on foot but you may be running up against people who thought it beneath their station in life. (this is just the Saxon et.al invasion of Britton) But the previous metallurgy on the continent was likewise of a better grade. In places this did not change and that may be why the Frankish weapons boom occurred later on. Maybe they just took over the better technology in their expansion.

From what I gleaned not all of central Europe was overrun. Bavaria for instance was a name that the amalgam of peoples there began to call themselves and was a much larger region than we think of it today. This would be within you crescent I believe and border the Franks in the north.

I say that that metallurgy was superior because they had techniques for producing steel and that in turn gives rise to all those ancient swords of renown.

These techniques were not that easily acquired though, and were guarded secrets by the smiths themselves.

I know this leave everything up in the air but as I said earlier it could have been tactical development coupled with population expansion and better farming methods…

Yes, I have found out for myself that support for any premise in this area will be hard for a student to gain access to. I have tried to find a solid book on archeological finds of the Migration period in Germany and those found in France and northern Italy and England. It's a hard treck, and my funds are simply not there. The classic problem of research.

I know for example that early Anglo-Saxon swords were of the highest quality, being pattern welded and taken good care of. I have always been told to believe that these were however very rare, but with the coming of more powerful archeological machinery more finds are popping up all over England, showing a possible higher proportion of swords among the Angles, Saxons and Jutes at least than was previously thought. However I have not been given difinitave evidence that all of these swords wer Anglo-Saxon.
Gah, such troubles!

Oh and niether is it a matter of being overrun, an occurance perhaps unique to southern England?
The Franks merley became an elite among Romano-Gauls. As did most other Germanic tribes.
A reason perhaps for a "revival" of arms manufacturing in the all across western Germany may have been the creation of a stronger and more settled monarchy? Perhaps after the gradual degrading of armour and arms (at least in Britain) left over from Roman and early post Roman times during the 6th-7th cen may have lead to the re-learning of old techniques? A kind of Dark age revival?

Just as an aside, Where do the Friesians come into the equation…
I am willing to except that the reason English is so close to Frisian is because perhaps all the tribes of the time and region spoke a similar language to that branch of German but they were already there when the invasion started and the invasion had to pass through their homelands in Germany to get there. It is likely they had better technology due in part to their service to the Romans as well as being noted traders as well as the forerunners to the Vikings as sea raider and were very advanced in shipbuilding.

I have been wondering of late if the Norse didn’t get some of their ship technology from them and perhaps some of their smithing to go with it.

Back to the Saxons now, if they were using pattern welded blades in the invasion period why was it said that this was part of the Viking military revolution and made them so strong?

I don’t know what you know about metallurgy but that welding was a big deal as it gave the iron hardness and stiffness that plane iron would not have. In fact what makes steel different than iron is that little bit of carbon interspersed in the crystalline structure of the iron which imparts its hardness, ability spring back into shape and to hold a temper for a better edge. Hammering that iron gives it work hardening and puts a bit of carbon into the iron giving it better properties as a weapon. It is a delicate balance though because too much carbon…only around 1%…makes the iron unweldable and brittle.

No I am certain they used pattern welding in the migration period. However by the 7th cen. I think. There is a decline in pattern welding all across England. I am not certain when this was revived, Im guessing sometime in the late 9th to early 10th cens.
What made the Vikings so potent was their use of stirrups and hit and run tactics. Plus a lifetime of warfare created a very capable fighting man, more so than the Saxons they first encountered.

Frisia is where many of the so called "Anglo-Saxons" are thought to have come from, thus explaining their likeness to the Englisc of later centuries. The Saxon's and others like them were known as great pirating tribes. The Norse people would of coarse have known about ship biulding for a long time. That they might have used the concepts of the former displaced tribes of Jutland and the Frisians is certain.

Does anyone have any good links or info about the archeological finds of the souther Germanic tribes?

Pattern welding goes back to the Celts and Romans already. The Vikings long imported their better sword blades from the south - there were numerous Frankish royal edicts banning the sale of such weapons to the buggers, which as usual the merchants cheerfully ignored. Local craftsmen then added furniture according to local taste.

The main thing that made the Vikings such a trouble was their ships - they could usually pick their battles and avoid serious resistance until they had looted their fill and went home. Later on they started getting more ambitious of course, partly because arable land was running short in Scandinavia.

As a side note, the famous "Viking" ships were actually a fairly late developement of something like the 6th-8th cenuries AD, and the designs were being constantly improved until the structural limits of the construction method were reached around the turn of the millenium. Baltic ships first began having masts in something like late Roman times...

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Originally Posted by Bopa the Magyar

What made the Vikings so potent was their use of stirrups...

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While it is certainly possible the Scandinavians were early to pick up the stirrup from their eastern travels (although dunno what the archeological evidence says), its impact on their combat effectiveness would have been about nil as they did their fighting on foot... Heck, Scandinavian influences led to the Anglo-Saxons to dump their remaining cavalry traditions and similarly begin fighting as pure infantry.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

While it is certainly possible the Scandinavians were early to pick up the stirrup from their eastern travels (although dunno what the archeological evidence says), its impact on their combat effectiveness would have been about nil as they did their fighting on foot... Heck, Scandinavian influences led to the Anglo-Saxons to dump their remaining cavalry traditions and similarly begin fighting as pure infantry.

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I have read that there have been finds of stirrups in Scandanvia from the Viking age. Though you make a good point that it was an irrelevance to them, also it seems to the Anglo-Saxons whom did not adopt it until the 10th and 11th cens. As I said pattern welding was used by the Anglo-Saxons to great effect. However it seems that during the 7th cen. AD along with a dropn high quality armours and arms, the use of pattern welding at least among the Germanic Tribesmen died out. I have not been able to verify a reason as to why.

But that is not my point of interest and is OT.

Better metallurgical techniques, IIRC. Rendered pattern-welding obsolete and useful mainly for decorative purposes, such as blade inscriptions.

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Originally Posted by Bopa the Magyar

...also it seems to the Anglo-Saxons whom did not adopt it until the 10th and 11th cens.

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The Byzantines picked it up from the Avars already in what, 8th century. That it took so long for it to be adopted in western Europe (which was in contact with Byzantine influences along the Mediterranean coast), despite the rising importance of heavy cavalry from Carolingian times onwards, makes for one pretty strong argument against the (already long discredited anyway) "stirrup myth" IMO.

So no one can actually give me any info on what I have put foreward?
Oh well, perhaps off to the .net.

No idea about the pre-Migration period, but I'm pretty sure northern Germany only became famous for some arms-production centers by the Middle Ages. The chronic instability of the region during the Roman period (with all those tribes wandering towards the limes in search of fortune) ought not have made for very solid industrial base or all that much material wealth overall.

Of course, the Baltic region still had a fair bit of valuable stuff to export - amber, furs, walrus ivory etc. - and the people who could tap that trade could of course get pretty rich indeed, duly allowing them to aquire various luxury items (including swords) from quite far away.

Insofar I'm aware of the basic "grunt" of the Migrations Germanic armies was the humble spearman (an axe and/or long knife would have made a cheap and effective sidearm; the pattern repeats with the Vikings), swords and such being the purview of the wealthy elite (and lucky looters) for purely economic reasons already. Indeed, by what I've read of it, even more complex and impressive types of spear, such as the long-shanked angon throwing-spear (extremely similar to the contemporary Roman spiculum, which had replaced the old pilum), were something of "prestige weapons" only the better-equipped warriors had.

Well, I am pretty certain that there was a greater concentration of swords in the area. Massive amounts have been dredged up from Denmark which are not of Norse origin (apparently, but again not having primary souces on finds makes it tricky to verify.) So having even more readings on such things is needed.

I shall continue to search through my uni data base.
Thanks for the great discussion, Watchman and Fisherking.

I have tried tapping some German sources…but with limited luck, as my German is not the best.

But even there I run into the same melding of Celtic/German to the point that you can hardly tell who is who. It is such a cloudy time and moving people leave little record of a material culture. I think that most of what we have is more educated guess work than conclusive evidence of who was where, let alone what they had.

The easiest place to start might be with Gothland…we know where they came from and should have some indication what their material culture was around the time they started to move, especially since not everyone left…