Big British Basket Hilted Sword

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Victrix

Hi Lee,

Following on from Jim’s observation that two of the swords in Drummond’s illustration are in fact schiavonas, I wonder if schiavonas were popularly used by Scottish soldiers at the time, or whether these were simply collectors’ items for display? Were there Scotsmen serving in the Venetian armed forces who could have used schiavonas and then brought them home to Scotland on retirement? I know that there were Scotsmen serving in the Imperial Austro-Hungarian armed forces and I believe some Scottish families settled in the region after they were granted land there. Names like Leslie and Loudon spring to mind: https://electricscotland.com/history...o10Austria.pdf.

Victrix, thank you for the recognition, and interesting postulation on the possibility of connections between schiavonaand Scottish basket hilt.
Joseph Anderson, consulting on the Drummond work (1881)did IMPLY there was a connection, but reservedly. A French author of "Les Armes" (1890) also strongly suggested same as did authors of "Scottish National Memorials".
These 'suggestions' were questioned by Lord Archibald Campbell in 1899, and again by Danish arms scholar Holgar Jacobsen in 1940, who suggested that the Scottish basket hilt was from North European 'dusagges'. These often basket hilted short sabers (often termed 'Sinclair' saber) bore striking similarity in hilt construction to those of the Scots.

The similarity to schiavona is superficial at best, and schiavona have a 'lattice' type structure while most Scottish basket hilts have panels connected by connecting bars. H. Seitz ("Blankwaffen", 1965) suggested that the use of the basket hilt form precluded the advent of the fully developed schiavona guard (which had indeed evolved from a more basic Hungarian form hilt but without basket).

These details I took from "The Early Basket Hilt in Britain" by the late and most esteemed authority Claude Blair (in "Scottish Weapons and Fortifications", ed. David Caldwell, 1981). Mr. Blair well noted that while the rebuttal of the possibility of viable evolution of the Scottish basket form from the schiavona..........the accurate dating of these hilt forms in most cases remains speculative. However, it seems to me that basket hilts of the so called 'sinclair ' type existed in England in the 16th c. and I dont think schiavona in fully devoloped form existed then.

Also, to the point of Scottish mercenaries, thier presence in European armies is of course well known, and that was the case of thier participation in North European conflicts was indeed the circumstances which brought these sabers there as brought home. They also did fight with East European armies against the Turks, which brought forth the anomaly of curved blades on basket hilts (termed then 'Turcael').

While I am not aware of any particular case of Scots being engaged by Venice as mercenaries, there was of course a degree of connection in the religious sense as the Stuarts were primarily Catholic. Prince Charlie was indeed born in Italy and never saw Scotland until Culloden.
However, it is known that swords with schiavona hilts were by no means confined to Venice or the forces associated with the Doge, They were known in some degree to have been used elsewhere in Europe, but not in my thinking to enough significance to be regarded in these other contexts notably.

I did not intend to make this such a lengthy response, but wanted to address your very astute and well placed suggestion as well as I could. I hope this might be useful to any wishing to pursue further the interesting basket hilt conundrum.

In summary, I have never heard of any case of a Scot with a schiavona....Scottish basket hilts were of course hilted in Scotland using mostly German blades. Even though connected with Italy in some perhaps religious/political sense, I have never seen evidence of a schiavona even in clan holdings, so use of them in Scotland of note is unlikely.

[Victrix]

Jim, many thanks for your comments. They make perfect sense. The reason I asked about the possible use of schiavonas in Scotland is that I have a schiavona purchased in the UK with the motto NE QVID NIMIS (Lat. =Not in excess) written on the blade. I found that some aristocratic families in the UK use that motto, so when I saw Drummond’s illustration I saw the possibility that the schiavona might have been used in Britain. After all, schiavonas were allegedly used not only in Venice/along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. But I note the absence of any aristocratic crest on my schiavona and note the popularity of mottoes of all kinds on European blades 17-18thC, and conclude that my sciavona most likely is Venetian and was previously brought to the UK to be part of a collection. Apologies for pulling this thread in an unintended direction.

[E.B. Erickson]

Very interesting early baskethilt!
I have an excavated basket ca.1600-20 that also has the threaded capstan. I'll dig around and see if I can find a photo and post it here.

--ElJay

[E.B. Erickson]

Found the photos!

[Lee]

Yes, very much the same 'onion' shaped pommel and threaded tang button! How do you attribute this excavated sword?

Also, belatedly, here are photos of the running wolves and seriously rubbed blade decoration.