Legendary Weapons and War Magic of Medieval History DOCUMENTARY

one of the most iconic tropes of fantasy medieval settings is the inclusion of named legendary weapons with magical abilities this idea is so prevalent that today it pervades virtually all mediums be it tabletop games video games literature tv shows and movies in fact legendary weapons are so deeply embedded in our cultural consciousness that even those who don't directly engage with these forms of media are aware of them but how did this happen when did we start injecting these fantastical concepts into history well it turns out that named legendary weapons long predate the modern era as arya and the hound best put it in fact it was our ancient forebears who first wrote about the artifacts and magical powers in their own time things like color changing blades scabbards of invulnerability and homing arrows are just a few examples today let us take a deeper dive into the legendary weapons of history you too can wield your own legendary weapons through our sponsor vikings war of clans 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downloading vikings for free using my links in the description below become a hero of exciting events in the world of vikings and don't forget to look me up under the username inficta history medieval myth and legend is filled with tales of extraordinary weapons usually named and often claimed to have special powers these swords are commonly attributed to famous heroes especially figures who have become important figures of national mythology historically speaking kings and governments have used these symbolic artifacts to shore up their own authority and to associate themselves with beloved legends however while it's impressive to hold up an item and wax on endlessly about its fabled past it's another thing entirely to actually prove what you're saying is actually true how do i know that's really excalibur the sword of king arthur in these matters we must realize that tracing a weapon's chain of custody over many centuries is incredibly hard given just how spotty your records are and how difficult it can be to match vague descriptions to an aging chunk of metal even modern historians and museum curators have a hard time verifying claims with many of today's surviving artifacts being identified as known or suspected forgeries for example a sword found in london's westminster abbey that is properly claimed to have belonged to henry v of england is more likely from a later period forgeries of this nature were rampant in the medieval world most famously in the enormous trade of religious relics which were so commonly faked that the church authorities attempted to regulate them with this understanding in mind let's at least humor the claims of history and take a look at the most famous examples of legendary weapons from the medieval era we can begin with the quintessential source of fantastical war gear arthurian folklore king arthur himself was supposedly a romano british leader who fought against the invading anglo-saxons of the 5th and 6th century ad though of dubious historical authenticity his story quickly spawned an entire universe of fan fiction about the early british monarchy which was expanded over the ages by people across medieval europe it's from this genre of arthurian literature and folklore that we get things like the knights of the round table and the tale of excalibur which was granted to the king by the lady of the lake depending on who you listen to the sword might be imbued with all sorts of magical abilities for instance it was always sharp it sliced through iron as through wood it blinded enemies when drawn in one of the most popular adaptations found in sir thomas mallory's le maldateur the scabbard of excalibur is even said to have prevented the bearer from bleeding meanwhile in welsh tradition arthur's dagger karnwen was said to cloak the bearer in shadow while his shield pridwin bore religious symbols which put heathens to flight diving deeper into the stories one can find all sorts of variants on this fantastical gear as a result most of the legendary equipment associated with king arthur is just that legendary and made out of whole cloth thus there have been few efforts to attribute any weapons from the modern era to his past that being said we do have a few tantalizing morsels from history worth mentioning for instance in 1191 records indicate that king richard the lionheart gave a sword called excalibur to king tankwrit of sicily while on his way to crusade in the holy lands later in 1415 a french source claims that a raid on the english baggage train at the battle of agincourt captured king arthur's sword however no other chroniclers can corroborate this account and all other mentions of arthurian relics from history are similarly vague another legendary weapon hailing from the british isles is the sword of william wallace as popularized in the movie braveheart he was a knight who played a pivotal role in the wars of scottish independence during the late 13th century however as many of you are sure to comment his visual depiction in the film is far from being historically accurate with the general idea being less killed more armor it's also a popular misconception that he went around wielding a style of two-handed claymore which would actually have become quite popular only centuries after his death and would not have been practical atop a mounted horse part of this confusion comes from a relic known today as the wallace sword which is indeed a massive two-handed weapon over five feet long popular folklore claims that its grip and scabbard were made from the skin of the english commander and treasure who wallace defeated at the battle of sterling bridge in 1305 however william wallace himself would face capture and execution with his sword vanishing from the record for the next 200 years it appears once again in 1505 when king james iv of scotland apparently paid for its repair next in 1644 it popped up again in dumbarton castle and in 1825 was allegedly sent to the tower of london before finally being transferred to the national wallace monument in 1888 where it has been ever since give or take a couple robberies given the spotty history of the weapon and the amount of rework it has undergone researchers have had a hard time attributing a date to the artifact however as we alluded to earlier the properties of the wallace sword and its claymore style design point to it hailing from the 16th rather than the 13th century nonetheless it stands as an important symbol of scottish national pride close neighbors to the british isles were the lands of germania and scandinavia both had long martial traditions which generated an extensive history of named weapons across the ages this is particularly true in their mythologies the famed beowulf for instance was said to have been given the blade fronting a rare and ancient sword which had never failed in combat in the full saga saga the hero sigurd wields grom a sword handed down to his father by odin which was said to be so sharp that it could cut an anvil in half and which proved its bite when used to slay a dragon in folklore many of these were believed to have been forged by mythological figures like weyland the smith among the extraordinary artifacts attributed to him are the male shirt and sword of beowulf as well as the weaponry of charlemagne and his paladins however these legendary weapons were not all-powerful literature is filled with their failures for example one common motif is that a hero's legendary sword would break at a critical moment sometimes this was due to the supernatural nature of an enemy such as when hunting fails beowulf against grendel's mother the hubris of the wielder in not respecting the sword's nature might also cause problems such as in cormac saga or simply the weapon might fail when a warrior is fated to die such as with sigurd's death in the volsunga saga all of these principles are best encapsulated in the story of hrolf kraki the 6th century a.d danish king his sword scufnung was renowned for the usual fluff of being strong and sharp but here's where things start to get wild apparently it was believed to be imbued with the spirit of rolf's 12 berserkers a snake lived in the cross guard and would emerge if one breathed on the entrance its pommel had a bag over it and must never be exposed to direct sunlight the sword would scream when it saw blood and a wound from the blade would never heal unless a conjoined lifestone was rubbed on the area first yeah you don't see this sort of crazy thing even in the wildest of fantasy settings this wondrous weapon was so powerful that future warriors were said to have unearthed it from the tomb of its owner multiple times for use in battle but one had to be careful to follow all of its rules lest the sword refuse to be drawn or for it to turn on its wielder next we shall speak of france it is here that one can walk down the halls of the louvre to behold joyez this legendary sword is said to have belonged to charlemagne king of the franks and first emperor of the carolingian empire which ruled most of western europe in the 9th century a.d it is named in various chivalric romances from the later medieval period which give us some insight about its supposed nature the 11th century song of roland for instance speaks of its peerless craftsmanship and how it changed color 30 times a day while other tales claim its pommel contain the lance of the roman soldier who pierced the sight of jesus during his crucifixion over the years more stories would be told about how it was used to behead saracen commanders or how it was lost in battle and only recovered thanks to the daring exploits of a frankish knight however the sword we know of today only appears in the historical record in the 13th century when it appears that the head of coronation processions for the kings of france joyous wielded such prestige that would continue to be used by monarchs for 550 years since then it has been housed in the louvre where modern scholars have been able to make a more thorough investigation of its past analysis reveals that the sword is actually an amalgamation of several elements that have been added over the centuries but nothing characteristic of swords from charlemagne's own time the conclusion therefore is that while the sword was never significant in the first place the fact that people treated it as if it were for so long ended up making it so i mean okay it's not the sword of charlemagne but it's been the sword of kings for over half a millennium that's almost more impressive let's now turn to spain it's here that in the medieval period christian and muslim forces battled fiercely over the iberian peninsula an important figure in these conflicts was the 11th century castilian knight and commander rodrigo diaz de vivar most commonly known as alcid he actually lent his services to the armies of many factions and was renowned for his tactical brilliance el cid's exploits were made famous by the epic spanish poem el cantare de miocid which catapulted him to the status of national hero this story also names his famous sword tizona it was a masterfully wrought blade with acid etched inscriptions in the fullers and a curved beautifully decorated cross guard some of its magical properties include the ability to cause opponents to surrender at its mere sight and for enemies to be racked with fear should any brave man wield it according to one legend when alcid was laid to rest in a monastery following his death a visitor disturbed the body only to have the tizona sword come to life and attack him in terms of its historical record a sword identified as the tizona first appears in the catalog of treasure from the house of kisti as early as the 14th century and later shows up in another inventory in 1503 in the 1600s we hear again of a sword by the name of tizona being gifted between noble spanish families and ultimately coming to rest in the castle of marcia the bastion would change hands a few times during the spanish civil war of the 1900s with soldiers supposedly discovering the tisona blade in a storage box eventually it was moved to the museum of the army in madrid however while on display to the public it was still technically private property until the ministry of culture set about trying to actually purchase it in the early 2000s it's during this process of appraising its value that earnest analysis was put into determining its authenticity as with many other legendary weapons it was revealed to be made of composite materials from various time periods and is likely not an original the islamic world also had its fair share of named legendary weapons the most famous of these is zulfikar an iconic split tip sword of heavenly provenance its origins date back to the earliest days of muslim conquest in the mid-seventh century arabia according to legend it was during a battle that the prophet muhammad's son-in-law ali proved himself in combat by splitting an enemy soldier's shield and helmet in a single powerful blow but shattering his own blade in the process in response muhammad is said to have given him a replacement sword that would become known as zulfikar alternative stories tell of how the sword was captured from the spoils of war or was a gift from the archangel gabriel in either case ali was able to wield it to devastating effect and beat back the opposing army it is at this point that a voice boomed from the heavens there is no hero like ali there is no sword like zulfkar indeed ali would go on to become one of the great rashdoon caliphs who led the rise of islam throughout the ages his blade would become an important religious political and military symbol it would reportedly be wielded by future warriors and later kept in the treasure houses of the islamic caliphs during the medieval era its legendary tales spread far and wide with many islamic swordsmiths actually creating reverential replicas these commonly took the form of double pointed scimitars which were highly decorated with many fanciful elements though of little practical use in war they served primarily as symbolic show pieces to demonstrate the skill of the craftsman as well as the wealth and piety of the purchaser zulfiqar continued to feature prominently in the visual history of the islamic world for example the 17th century ottoman empire would frequently fly flags bearing its image and there's even a modern iranian battle tank named after it continuing across the world we find yet more legendary items from eastern europe the step india china japan and beyond are countless weapons which would take hours to cover one of my personal favorites is attila the hun's sword of mars the warlord already had a brutal reputation as the self-described scourge of god who had come to enact the punishment from heaven but the story goes that one day a shepherd had been out with his flocked and saw that one of his cows was limping from a cut he tracked down the trail of blood and discovered a half-buried weapon the blade was immediately dug up and brought to attila who raised it up as a symbol of his god-given task from then on he would wield the sword of mars with such a vigor that all were assured that he alone was its rightful owner the heroes of china also wielded many powerful weapons one might consider the red sky sword of the first hana emperor which was used to slay a great white serpent the green dragon crescent blade of guanyu from the three kingdoms fame or the fascinating gujian sword which still survives today in remarkable condition really the list is endless and i definitely look forward to reading about all the shout outs in the comments section of everything we missed but before we end this video i wanted to cover some of the other non-named supernatural weapons from the medieval era because oh yeah they actually mentioned battle magic we know for instance that in the early medieval period northern european people wrote magical or runic inscriptions on their swords which they hoped would give them an edge in combat it was said that such swords would begin to develop a reputation of their own after performing valorous deeds whilst inversely dishonorable or criminal acts could stain them islamic literature also writes extensively about swords whose properties might manifest through a change in color one should not fault them though for this obsession since their blades whose metal was imported from india and forged in yemen were amongst the highest quality of the age but one didn't have to seek out some rare expensive weapon to unlock legendary powers for instance late medieval writings tell of how witches and wizards might create special weapons the 16th century english translation of the discovery of witchcraft names a demon lord who could be called upon to cause arrow wounds to putrefy in the malleus melafikaram a late medieval hunting text the author claims that archers could enchant arrows by shooting them into a crucifix on good friday these would then be capable of seeking out and killing any target an archer had laid eyes on according to the same text a wizard punker use this method to kill an entire castle's garrison one by one i hope you've enjoyed this look at the legendary and magical weapons of medieval history it's a great way to contextualize our own modern fantasy media and can even put us to shame with some of its fascinating mechanics definitely let me know what sorts of topics you'd like us to cover next in the meantime be sure to subscribe and check out the rest of our content thanks for watching

Channel: Invicta

Views: 200,570

Rating: 4.9381995 out of 5

Keywords: legendary weapons, real legendary weapons, legendary swords, medieval history, medieval history documentary, dungeons and dragons, fantasy rpg, fantasy history, king arthur, excalibur, el cid, tizona, william wallace, william wallace sword, zulfiqar, charlemagne, joyeuse sword, history documentary, invicta, dnd, magic, medieval magic, dnd magic, dnd weapons, world of warcraft, game of thrones

Id: GfP9IyMKK4Y

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020