The Bruhn-Hoffmeyer Typology of Medieval Swords

The modern student of the sword has a daunting task in comprehending the variety of historical swords that existed. One of the most obvious ways to do this is to create a typology that describes and orders common characteristics of these weapons so that comparisons can start from a common frame of reference. Any such system is imperfect to some degree as it is a modern, artificial attempt to classify something which was not intended to be classified. On the other hand, sword typologies, when done with enough care and thoroughness, are very useful.

Middelalderens Tvaeggede Svaerd, by Dr. Ada Bruhn-Hoffmeyer

Although Dr. Jan Peterson and Sir Mortimer Wheeler had developed and refined typologies for Viking swords by 1927, Dr. Ada Bruhn-Hoffmeyer was the first scientist to approach the medieval sword in a systematic fashion. Unfortunately, very little of Bruhn-Hoffmeyer's writing is available in English. In this article, we present a summary of this pioneering researcher's life and work.

Ada Bruhn-Hoffmeyer was born in 1910 in Roskilde, Denmark and from an early age showed great interest in archaeology. She earned an M.A. in archaeology in 1936, then worked in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen, during which time she made several research trips throughout Europe. In 1939 she became an assistant at the Tøjhusmuseet (Royal Armoury) in Copenhagen. In 1942, she was promoted to curator of the arms and armour department. From then onwards, she concentrated her research on medieval weapons. In her 1954 doctoral dissertation, Middelalderens Tvaeggede Svaerd (The Double-edged Sword of the Middle Ages), Bruhn-Hoffmeyer proposed the first, simple typology of swords dated between 1100 and 1550, using data from more than 500 swords in various European museums and collections. With this work, she set the stage for the detailed and more comprehensive studies to follow.

As with all pioneering work, the Bruhn-Hoffmeyer Typology was not the final word on the subject. The typology she proposed was not complex enough to describe the full set of characteristics present in medieval swords. Its critical shortcoming was its exclusion of different blade forms and properties. Although Bruhn-Hoffmeyer noted and elaborated on the blade development of the medieval sword, she believed that between the 12th and 16th centuries blades did not vary enough to justify using them as descriptive tools. Like Dr. Petersen, she offered a detailed description and classification of sword hilts, revealing local and temporal variations in style and fashion.

Bruhn-Hoffmeyer's work would have been pointless had the scientific community not acknowledged her efforts. Fortunately, most major sword-related publications in the second half of the 20th century refer to her work. And so, we come to the work itself.

The Bruhn-Hoffmeyer Typology
The Bruhn-Hoffmeyer Typology contains two major divisions: Romanesque Swords (1100-1550) and Gothic Swords (1350-1550). The Romanesque sword group contains subdivisions I, II, III, and the Gothic swords contain subdivisions IV, V, VI, and VII.

The pommel is the basic characteristic of this typology and is signified by Roman numerals. The guard, a secondary determinant, is represented in subtypes by lowercase letters a to e.

Romanesque swords

Gothic swords

The following sections give brief comments on each of the types above based on Bruhn-Hoffmeyer's descriptions:

Date: 2016-06-13; view: 398