Plate VII.
Figure 10 of our Plate, from Livonia, offers a variety from the axe already described, in having an angle in its under line. A similar contour is found in examples discovered in Normandy, and figured on Plate vii. of the Abbé Cochet's work. The broad-axe is seen in our figures 5 and 7; the first from Selzen, the other from Livonia. Compare the Frankish specimen engraved at page 233 of La Normandie Souterraine. Others have been found in England.
The single-axe used by the Anglo-Saxons in battle does not seem to have differed in form from those employed in woodcraft; as may be seen by referring to the Calendar contained in Cotton MS., Julius, A. vi., faithfully copied in Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations." Indeed, it is probable that the blade which had felled an oak was often called upon to strike down an enemy. Manuscripts do not frequently give pictures of the battle-axe; but examples occur in Cott. MS., Cleop., C. viii., and in the Anglo-Saxon Benedictional of the Library of Rouen.
The double-axe is of still more rare occurrence in book-paintings. It appears in two places in Harleian MS., No. 603, but this is a work not earlier than the close of the eleventh century. In the graves, the bipennis has never been found at all; neither is it seen in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons in the Bayeux Tapestry. But if the bipennis of the true classical form, that is, having two vertical blades, has not hitherto been seen among the varied contents of the Northmen's graves, a very singular variety of this implement has been discovered among the tombs of the Valley of the Eaulne. It is a kind of adze-axe, the one blade being vertical, the other horizontal. It was found by the Abbé Cochet in the cemetery of Parfondeval, and has been engraved in his work, p. [306], and in the Archæologia, vol. xxxv., p. 229. The adze form of one of the blades would seem to indicate rather an artificer's tool than a warrior's weapon, and the Abbé tells us that the peasants have still such an implement, which they call their bisaiguë (p. [307]). We may remember, however, that an authority for the military use of the horizontal blade exists in the effigy at Malvern[77].
The Pole-axe is the almost universal form of this arm in the Bayeux tapestry. Not only the Saxon soldiery, but Harold, and even Duke William himself, are armed with this fearful weapon. Indeed, for a force of infantry, as the English were, contending against cavalry, no other kind of axe could have been of much service. Wace, whose minute descriptions, wearisome enough to the general reader, are invaluable to the archæologist, has not lost sight of the long-handled axes of the islanders. He has even given us the particular dimension of the head,—"ki fu d'acier:"—
"——un Engleiz vint acorant:
Hache noresche[78] out mult bele,
Plus de plain pié out l'alemele[79].
—— la coignie
K'il aveit sus el col levée,
Ki mult esteit lonc enhanstée[80]."
Rom. de Rou, ii. 225.