A sword from the Medway, at Upnor Reach, is 31¼ inches long and 1⅞ inch wide at the broadest part. It has no less than fifteen rivet-holes for the hilt, in three groups of five each.
One from the Thames (28⅝ inches), with plain blade and thirteen rivet-holes, has five small rivets still in situ.
More commonly the rivet-holes are fewer in number. One (24½ inches) in Canon Greenwell’s Collection, from Broadway Tower, Broadway, Worcester, has nine rivet-holes, three in the tang and three in each wing. One from the Thames at Battersea[1033] (26 inches), and one from Ebberston, Yorkshire, in the Bateman Collection, have the rivets arranged in the same manner, as has one which was found near Whittingham,[1034] Northumberland, with another sword subsequently to be described, and also with three spear-heads.
Fig. 344.—Newcastle. ¼
I have one (19 inches) with eight rivet-holes, four in the centre and two in each wing, found near Cambridge. The holes appear to have been either made or enlarged by a punch having been driven through them, the rough burr being left on. On either side of the central ridge of the blade there is a pair of engraved lines parallel to the edges and at about ¼ inch distant from them. The base of the blade next the expansion for the hilt has been neatly serrated or engrailed, like that of the sword from Barrow, but in this case transversely. Unfortunately this blade, which is beautifully patinated, has been broken into three pieces.
French swords of this class, both with a central slot combined with rivets and with rivets only, are by no means uncommon. Specimens of each, from the department of Seine et Oise, are figured in the “Dictionnaire Archéologique de la Gaule.” One with a slot and four rivets is in the museum at Nantes. Two with seven rivet-holes were found at St. Nazaire-sur-Loire[1035] (Loire Inférieure).
Seven is, indeed, a more usual number for the rivet-holes than any of these higher numbers. In Fig. 344 is shown a fine example of a sword with seven rivet-holes, found in the Tyne, near Newcastle, and now in the collection of Canon Greenweil, F.R.S. It is 28 inches in length, and has a bead or rib just within the edges, which is somewhat exaggerated in the figure. The hilt-plate is provided with slight flanges for retaining the horn or wood that formed the hilt, and has a semicircular notch at the base, possibly for the reception of a rivet. See Fig. 356.
A sword from the Thames near Battersea (28⅝ inches), in the British Museum, is of nearly the same form as Fig. 344, but the end of the hilt-plate has no notch, and there is no midrib running down it. The hilt has been fastened by seven rivets, which fit tightly in the holes and are nearly all in position. Their ends have conical depressions in them, as if a punch had been used as a riveting tool. In some the rivets have been closed by a hollow punch, so as to leave a small stud projecting in the middle of each surrounded by a deep hollow ring. Some French swords present the same peculiarity.