The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe: Experience, Identity, Representation

Sue Brunning asks what swords meant to the people of early medieval northern Europe beyond their obvious function as weapons. Drawing particularly on Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian evidence, she brings together images, archaeological finds and written sources to explore swords as socially charged objects that could acquire histories, identities and relationships of their own.

Many surviving swords were repaired, modified and retained across generations, while others were deliberately placed in graves, hoards or waterways. Brunning uses these patterns alongside literature and visual representation to develop the idea of the ‘living sword’: a weapon treated in ways that suggest personality, agency and biography.