We have a contradictory attitude towards the medieval sword. We expect it to be an object of nobility and status, the weapon and emblem of the knight and king. In our popular view of the medieval world, it is a magical object, imbued with power and symbolism. It is Roland's Durendal, Aragorn's Andúril, Arthur's Excalibur, Elric of Melniboné's Stormbringer – whether the sword is part of a historical myth or a modern one matters little, the imagined mythic properties are the same. Our modern myths are of magical swords, and so we assume the medieval ones must have been magical too. They are things of beauty. Their blades flash in the sun and their hilts gleam with opulent decoration. Yet they are also objects of violence and brutality. On television and in the movies, they are often depicted as cumbersome weapons, requiring great strength to wield, cleaving armour, flesh, and bone in graceless and vicious fights.

These contradictions have fed into the traditional study of medieval swords. This field has been dominated by the work of Ewart Oakeshott, the leading authority on high medieval swords throughout the twentieth century. He had an interest in swords from boyhood and started his own personal collection at a young age. He supported this with extensive personal research, which was accompanied by his own drawings (his job, up until he became a full-time researcher, was as an illustrator). Building on the work of Jan Peterson and R.E.M. Wheeler on so-called Viking-era swords, Oakeshott developed a typology of medieval swords of the high Middle Ages.