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Niels Just Rasmussen
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 Posted: Sat 23 May, 2015 9:05 am Post subject: |
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This Swedish sword collector had 2 Schweden-degen (the two last swords on his page):
Source: http://www.antikavapen.se/345843679
The first he reports as being produced in Germany from 1640-80.
It actually looks a bit like the Danish Army infantry rapier from around 1670 (but not quite the same)!
Source: https://www.arma-dania.dk/public/timeline/_AD_blankvaben_view.php?editid1=181
The second sword he reports as looking older than the first type. It is shorter and with a broader blade, though with the same profile.
It is also the type with one covered and one uncovered ring.
I think it is significant that the thumb-ring (if present) is always located below the covered ring-guard, never the uncovered, so I think it highly unlikely that all these swords lost the "ring-cover" on exclusively one side.
That is even the case with the Øksnebjerg Sword, where the thumb-ring is below the covered ring-guard.
So maybe a preliminary working hypothesis:
So maybe Scandinavians modified the earlier 1630-40's German models with regard to only one ring covered or they were produced like that from Germany. Maybe Swedish Gustavian models also have examples with only one covered ring-guard.
Later German models from 1640-80 included those used in Denmark from around 1670 always (?) have two closed ring guards.
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Stephen Wheatley
Location: DORSET ENGLAND Joined: 15 Nov 2008
Posts: 93
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| Posted: Sat 23 May, 2015 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Niels, there was a post a couple of years ago about Tessaker or German Basket hilts. Can't find the link but loads seem to have ended up in Norway. Try googling ''digitaltmuseum tessaker'' if you haven't already - fantastic pictures on their website.
Stephen Wheatley
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John Hardy
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| Posted: Sun 24 May, 2015 1:50 am Post subject: |
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Niels, with all due respect, I believe you are vastly overestimating the role actual religious beliefs played in the sides common soldiers and even officers fought for during the 30 Years War. The war was fought on all sides primarily by armies of professional soldiers -- I.e. "mercenaries". Mercenaries fight for money, and Money does not have a religion.
One interesting aspect of warfare then was what happened to a merc who was on the losing side of a battle: assuming he survived, there was very little chance that he would spend time as a POW. National officers might be ransomed or released on their parole not to fight again, but mercs were generally offered the chance to enlist with the victors instead. A career merc could very well fight for five or six different armies of all nominal religions and nationalities... and all of his commanders would take great care not to ask any potentially embarrassing questions about his personal beliefs.
The net result was that the supposedly Catholic army of Tilley, for example, probably had as many soldiers in it who were notionally Protestants as it did actual Catholics. And the reverse was true for the so-called Protestant armies.
The result is that I have absolutely no problem with the idea of a weapon with Catholic inscriptions on it being carried in a Protestant army or vice versa. (and that is without even considering the possibility of the sword being battlefield loot....)
| Niels Just Rasmussen wrote: | | J.T. Aliaga wrote: | Perhaps not bishops depicted but Saints?
Anyhow, I was raised Catholic but I thought some Protestant & Lutheran bishops wore mitres. |
Caveat: It is totally possible, that the depictions on the Øksnebjerg sword are not Bishops at all (The site only gives the picture from one side of the sword), but this following discussion takes the consequences it is a Bishop or could be perceived by others as (catholic) bishops.
As the Thirty Years War was predominately a religious war (though politics and quest for territory also played a large part) it would have been quite hard to imagine a catholic looking sword in a lutheran army and vice versa.
According to Luther the Pope was the anti-christ: [His reply to the Papal bull of Pope Leo X]
"For who before God would be happier than Luther if he were condemned from so great and high a source for such manifest truth? But the cause seeks a worthier martyr. I with my sins merit other things. But whoever wrote this bull, he is Antichrist. I protest before God, our Lord Jesus, his sacred angels, and the whole world that with my whole heart I dissent from the damnation of this bull, that I curse and execrate it as sacrilege and blasphemy of Christ, God's Son and our Lord."
and later....
"The wrath of God is coming upon the papists, the enemies Of the cross of Christ, that all men should resist them. You then, Leo X, you cardinals and the rest of you at Rome, I tell you to your faces: "If this bull has come out in your name, then I will use the power which has been given me in baptism whereby I became a son of God and co-heir with Christ, established upon the rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. I call upon you to renounce your diabolical blasphemy and audacious impiety, and, if you will not, we shall all hold your seat as possessed and oppressed by Satan, the damned seat of Antichrist; in the name of Jesus Christ, whom you persecute."
Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials...ebull.html
So running around with a papist-looking-weapon in a Lutheran army during the Thirty Years War would be totally comparable to a Catholic running around with a picture of the devil and inscribed pentagrams on his sword. For a lutheran the fight against the papacy and the catholic establishment was a fight with the devil himself.
So all Catholic things (meaning not in the Bible) were denounced: All Lutheran are by definition priests, actual priests and bishops are not holy, but in fact civil servants (at least in the Danish Lutheran Church) as you had to make sure that someone could conduct the correct service. In theory every Lutheran can do it. So it would NOT make any sense to have bishops on your swords for a lutheran (only exception was if the owner was a Lutheran bishop).
Furthermore Lutheranism also denounced all believes in saints as all men are 100% sinners (including Luther and the Virgin Mary). Instead of being cleansed of sin in Purgatory before stepping into heaven a Lutheran is saved by faith alone. If faithful you still go to heaven as 100% sinner and God covers up you sin (not removes it) and declares you righteous as a Judge he is.
Here one of the most famous lines of Luther: "Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works; evil works do not make a man wicked, but a wicked man does evil work".
So it is not actions, but ONLY faith that is important for being deemed righteous by God and thus get salvation.
"Only a man of (Lutheran) fate are in fact even able to do good works and evil works doesn't make him wicked since he has fate."
A man that doesn't have faith (non-Lutheran) are not in any way able to be a good man, even if he does good works, since a wicked man (non-Lutheran) does evil work by definition by lack of faith!
That is the reason I find it very unlikely that a papist looking sword (even if it's not by intent it would look so to an observer and thus be very dangerous to carry around) should be carried by some one on Funen in the Thirty Years War.
Later in the war with Sweden 1658-1660 where Denmark then got catholic allies it would certainly had softened up, so it's much more likely that it could be a sword from this period.
Off course Lutheranism have softened up A LOT since then, but in the religious war people took it deadly serious as their salvation depended on it. |
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Niels Just Rasmussen
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| Posted: Sun 24 May, 2015 2:37 am Post subject: |
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| John Hardy wrote: | Niels, with all due respect, I believe you are vastly overestimating the role actual religious beliefs played in the sides common soldiers and even officers fought for during the 30 Years War. The war was fought on all sides primarily by armies of professional soldiers -- I.e. "mercenaries". Mercenaries fight for money, and Money does not have a religion.
One interesting aspect of warfare then was what happened to a merc who was on the losing side of a battle: assuming he survived, there was very little chance that he would spend time as a POW. National officers might be ransomed or released on their parole not to fight again, but mercs were generally offered the chance to enlist with the victors instead. A career merc could very well fight for five or six different armies of all nominal religions and nationalities... and all of his commanders would take great care not to ask any potentially embarrassing questions about his personal beliefs.
The net result was that the supposedly Catholic army of Tilley, for example, probably had as many soldiers in it who were notionally Protestants as it did actual Catholics. And the reverse was true for the so-called Protestant armies.
The result is that I have absolutely no problem with the idea of a weapon with Catholic inscriptions on it being carried in a Protestant army or vice versa. (and that is without even considering the possibility of the sword being battlefield loot....)
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John, you have a very strong point when it comes to the mercenary companies with their own commanders, that would take whatever came their way. So they would not really interact a lot with "national" troops. You are quite right that people would not in any way enquire about their personal believes.
But any sensible commander would only operate with mercenary troops OUTSIDE his own domain (or at least keep them very controlled within a garrison), unless he was very callous about these mercs pillaging where ever they went. If his country was invaded, then off course you had to bring mercenaries on your own soil.
The other troops:
1) Noblemen with their private armies. These nobles and their soldiers had to have - officially at least - the same belief as their liege. Some noblemen were still catholics up into the 1600's, but had to keep it secret when the Thirty Years War started and afterwards.
2) Christian IV created in 1614 two national conscripted regiments for Denmark with fixed officer corps [and from 1604 peasant militia in Norway], and those conscripted troops all had to be Lutheran. By law it was illegal for Danes to be Catholic between 1536-1849.
These regiments were "Jydske Infanteriregiment" and "Skånske Infanteriregiment".
So from 1614 Denmark have two National regiments of Lutheran Danes directly under the King and trained in Denmark.
Apparently they were present at the great defeat at Lutter am Barenberge in 1626 with other mercenary companies of the Protestant cause.
Still have to find the size of the Danish regiments [but it seems to have been ~4000 men in 1614 and ~8000 men in 1624],
Source: http://danmarkshistorien.dk/perioder/adelsvae...udvikling/
and in 1614 a Norwegian national army of 2100 men were created and expanded to 6243 men in 1628.
Source (page 7): http://dis-danmark.dk/bibliotek/800006.pdf
So that is conscripted soldiers, while all Norwegian men had to bear arms in the peasant militia for defense purposes only.
In 1642 the combined nationally conscripted Danish + Norwegian + Slesvig/Holsten forces were around 35.000 men.
So 1614 is the official birthday of the "Danish Army" and "Norwegian Army", they were by law required to be Lutheran. The old Scandinavian Leding-system - where the King called the population for a campaign were apparently last used in Norway (Viken) in 1613.
So it means that some mercenary troops retreating from Lutter am Barenberge (1626) could have retreated back to Funen after Wallenstein occupied Jutland and the presumed catholic Øksnebjerg sword, then got buried on the western side of Funen when these surviving national and mercenary forces protected western Funen from further catholic advances.
Again 1659 when catholic allies were present with Danes to drive of the Swedes from Funen would be the only other time catholics would be on Funen.
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John Hardy
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| Posted: Sun 24 May, 2015 11:43 am Post subject: |
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| Niels Just Rasmussen wrote: |
John, you have a very strong point when it comes to the mercenary companies with their own commanders, that would take whatever came their way. So they would not really interact a lot with "national" troops. You are quite right that people would not in any way enquire about their personal believes.
But any sensible commander would only operate with mercenary troops OUTSIDE his own domain (or at least keep them very controlled within a garrison), unless he was very callous about these mercs pillaging where ever they went. If his country was invaded, then off course you had to bring mercenaries on your own soil.
The other troops:
1) Noblemen with their private armies. These nobles and their soldiers had to have - officially at least - the same belief as their liege. Some noblemen were still catholics up into the 1600's, but had to keep it secret when the Thirty Years War started and afterwards.
2) Christian IV created in 1614 two national conscripted regiments for Denmark with fixed officer corps [and from 1604 peasant militia in Norway], and those conscripted troops all had to be Lutheran. By law it was illegal for Danes to be Catholic between 1536-1849.
These regiments were "Jydske Infanteriregiment" and "Skånske Infanteriregiment".
So from 1614 Denmark have two National regiments of Lutheran Danes directly under the King and trained in Denmark.
Apparently they were present at the great defeat at Lutter am Barenberge in 1626 with other mercenary companies of the Protestant cause.
Still have to find the size of the Danish regiments [but it seems to have been ~4000 men in 1614 and ~8000 men in 1624],
Source: http://danmarkshistorien.dk/perioder/adelsvae...udvikling/
and in 1614 a Norwegian national army of 2100 men were created and expanded to 6243 men in 1628.
Source (page 7): http://dis-danmark.dk/bibliotek/800006.pdf
So that is conscripted soldiers, while all Norwegian men had to bear arms in the peasant militia for defense purposes only.
In 1642 the combined nationally conscripted Danish + Norwegian + Slesvig/Holsten forces were around 35.000 men.
So 1614 is the official birthday of the "Danish Army" and "Norwegian Army", they were by law required to be Lutheran. The old Scandinavian Leding-system - where the King called the population for a campaign were apparently last used in Norway (Viken) in 1613.
So it means that some mercenary troops retreating from Lutter am Barenberge (1626) could have retreated back to Funen after Wallenstein occupied Jutland and the presumed catholic Øksnebjerg sword, then got buried on the western side of Funen when these surviving national and mercenary forces protected western Funen from further catholic advances.
Again 1659 when catholic allies were present with Danes to drive of the Swedes from Funen would be the only other time catholics would be on Funen. |
Very interesting information about the origins of the modern national armies in Norway and Denmark. And it sounds like the official sanctions against Catholics lasted about 20 years longer in Denmark than they did in England.
In my comments, I had mainly been thinking of the 30 Years War as it was fought in Germany. There even the "national" armies of France and Sweden had heavy mercenary components. But you are right of course that they were all fighting on other people's lands. Big difference.
Having said that, I still don't think it would be a major problem for a Lutheran officer to be carrying a sword with Catholic inscriptions on the blade -- IF it was a battle trophy (or could be explained away as one).
"Yes, it is a great sword, isn't it? Although you're right that the engravings on the blade are a bit much. But then, I took it off one of those stupid Catholic a**holes after I killed him, so what can you expect?" --- ALWAYS an acceptable explanation for any little social faux pas in the decoration of one's weapon.
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Niels Just Rasmussen
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Niels Just Rasmussen
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| Posted: Mon 25 May, 2015 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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| John Hardy wrote: |
Very interesting information about the origins of the modern national armies in Norway and Denmark. And it sounds like the official sanctions against Catholics lasted about 20 years longer in Denmark than they did in England.
In my comments, I had mainly been thinking of the 30 Years War as it was fought in Germany. There even the "national" armies of France and Sweden had heavy mercenary components. But you are right of course that they were all fighting on other people's lands. Big difference.
Having said that, I still don't think it would be a major problem for a Lutheran officer to be carrying a sword with Catholic inscriptions on the blade -- IF it was a battle trophy (or could be explained away as one).
"Yes, it is a great sword, isn't it? Although you're right that the engravings on the blade are a bit much. But then, I took it off one of those stupid Catholic a**holes after I killed him, so what can you expect?" --- ALWAYS an acceptable explanation for any little social faux pas in the decoration of one's weapon. |
Yeah the Thirty Year War seems to be one of the reason for the gradual movement away from mercenary armies towards national armies.
Conscripted soldiers are cheaper than mercenaries and if religiously motivated they are more reliable, but in the beginning of pretty bad quality (until battle hardened as they are just conscripted peasants).
You could explain it away exactly the way you said, but a cautious man in the "Thirty Year War" might bury it at an easily recognizable place [Øksnebjerg] and hope to pick it up later......which maybe didn't happen as it was discovered in 1830.
My point is also that it seemed to be a short period of time - Thirty Years War - with extensive religious tension.
Generalløjtnant (General Lieutenant] Hans von Ahlefeldt could command Danish troops [on the right flank] at the battle of Nyborg in 1659, though he had converted to catholicism after a former stay in the french army, so already at this point the tension level was much lower, as Denmark also had catholic allies against Sweden.
After 1648 most people probably had enough and let more things slide if people just kept their religious believes to themselves.
A fun thought could be that the Øksnebjerg sword belonged to Hans von Ahlefeldt. That after the victory at Nyborg in 1659 he placed his sword at the old Øksnebjerg battlefield in memory of the defeat of the catholic forces there in 1535? [He also had the chance when he was Governor of Funen from 1663-1664].
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Niels Just Rasmussen
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Stephen Wheatley
Location: DORSET ENGLAND Joined: 15 Nov 2008
Posts: 93
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| Posted: Tue 26 May, 2015 8:46 am Post subject: |
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The Yttergran sword is a beauty, in English churches funerary swords and armour were often painted black and hung over memorials to individual officers at this time, I think they did the same in Scandinavia. Unluckily the Victorians plundered a lot of it two hundred years later and most of what survives (in England) consists of typically English mortuary swords and basket - hilts. Given the numbers of English and Scots who fought in the thirty years war, I'm surprised how few of the Dutch/Swedish swords there are here.
Stephen Wheatley
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Niels Just Rasmussen
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| Posted: Wed 27 May, 2015 11:57 am Post subject: |
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| Stephen Wheatley wrote: | | The Yttergran sword is a beauty, in English churches funerary swords and armour were often painted black and hung over memorials to individual officers at this time, I think they did the same in Scandinavia. Unluckily the Victorians plundered a lot of it two hundred years later and most of what survives (in England) consists of typically English mortuary swords and basket - hilts. Given the numbers of English and Scots who fought in the thirty years war, I'm surprised how few of the Dutch/Swedish swords there are here. |
Have actually no idea how many is scattered around Scandinavia. It depends if museums have separated Dutch-Swedish types from (later?) German Schweden-degen in their registers (that latter is found in great numbers I'm certain).
Only a Swede with museum access can really answer that.
It seems strange that plundering Victorians should have removed all dutch-swedish swords and not basket-hilted and mortuary swords. It shows that the Dutch-Swedish type probably was rare to start with for English/Scottish troops.
Also a point worth mentioning is that for Scandinavians the Pappenheimer rapiers became preferred among officers, while the Schweden-degen became a common soldiers weapon. So most officers might have chosen other kind of weapons for memorials.
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