Download - Facultatea de Științe Socio-Umane - Universitatea ...

From Every Side Armed with a Cross Sign. A Crusader’s (?) Sword from …
but it also meant a considerable prestige and forgiveness of all sins 15 . Crusaders
treated weapons that they used during the crusade as a testimony of taking the cross to
Jerusalem. Later on, such weapons became important family heirlooms which proved
truly knightly family praise. The case of Jean d’Alluye demonstrates the importance
of this testimony for crusaders. He ordered that after his death a sword that he used or
brought from crusade be depicted on his stone effigy. The hilt of his sword, as said by
H. Nickel, has a compact guard and a trilobate pommel totally different from the
fairly standardized cruciform hilts in use in Western Europe. The pommel has a
central bulbous element emerging between two outward-turning scrolls and the
quillon has sharply sloping shoulders ending in tiny upward-curling finials 16 (Fig. 1:
4). It is probably of Chinese origin, maybe the chên type 17 .
We also knew examples of swords which are regarded as having been given as a
remembrance of taking part in Baltic Crusades. It is worth mentioning the sword
found in Santok, which was ornamented with the depiction of advancing mounted
knights, which can symbolise a crusade. One of two triangular shields ornamenting
the sword’s blade had the image of a lion, and there is a cross potent on the other side
of the blade (Fig. 1: 1). This sword probably belonged to Ottokar II of Bohemia
(1233-1278) and may been given to him by the Teutonic Knights in remembrance of
his participation in the Baltic crusades in 1255 and 1267 18 . P. Bohm 19 relates this
sword to the royal participation in the campaign at the first date, while M. Głosek 20
says that the sword was manufactured after 1267. There is also a sword from the
collection of the Deutsches Historisches Museum. Its heraldic program (a shield with
a climbing lion and a shield with a cross potent) 21 inclined M. Głosek 22 to connect this
sword with the crusades. This specimen has been related to John the Blind of
Bohemia (1296-1346) who went on crusades undertaken by the Teutonic Knights
against pagan Lithuania in 1328/1329, 1336 and again in 1345 23 . A. R. Chodyński 24
connects two other sword parts (from the River Pregoła 25 and Frombork 26 ), decorated
with a coat of arms with an eagle and a lion on the pommel with participation of
15 Chronicler Guibert of Nogent wrote: God was now offering knights a fitting means of salvation that
did not require them to abandon their way of life or to don the monk’s habit: the holy war (Flori 1998).
16 Nickel 1991.
17 D. Nicolle suggests that it can be a Middle Eastern or Spanish-Muslim form of a light sword (Nicolle
1995, p. 290).
18 Seger 1912; Brackmann, Unverzagt 1936, Fig. 39; Knap 2009.
19 Bohm 1924.
20 Głosek 1973, p. 56-57.
21 Müller, Kölling 1981, cat. 21.
22 Głosek 1984, p. 80.
23 Iwańczak 2002.
24 Chodyński 2008, pp. 104.
25 Most scholars connect this sword with Conrad of Thuringia, Landgrave of Thuringia and the Grand
Master of the Teutonic Knights (died 1240) (Müller, Kölling 1981, p. 362, cat. 9; Oakeshott 1991, p.
94; Chodyński 2008, p. 104). M. Głosek thought that it had belonged to Władysław of Opole, Jobst of
Moravia or Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (Głosek 1973, p. 152, cat. 198).
26 Chodyński 2003, p. 29; Chodyński 2008, p. 106, il. 6.
55