This book has focused very much on the sword as a cultural artefact and symbol. We have looked at the spiritual and mystical significance with which it was imbued, its role as a totem of power and authority, even its role as a plaything of the urban and academic elite. It is all too easy, when approaching the sword in this way, to ignore that it was a tool developed for killing. Men used swords to kill other men. Anything else they used them for – sport, symbol, gift, thing of beauty, euphemism, or metaphor – stems from this one simple, brutal fact. If we are to understand why the sword was such a significant weapon, and study it as a cultural artefact, then we should also attempt to understand this aspect of its culture. We should try and understand what swords do.

There has been relatively little work done on the sword as a tool for killing. However there has been an increasing amount of work done on the question of medieval violence but focusing very much on its cultural and social context, particularly (and perhaps inevitably) by the martial, chivalric elite. As a result we have a much clearer understanding of when it is appropriate to engage in violence and against whom, but less about the how. The analysis of what violence was done on individuals and by individuals has been the preserve of archaeologists. The study of skeletal remains, particularly of those from known battlefield graves, has given insight into the brutality of battle and hand-to-hand combat. Further individual finds have increased our knowledge and understanding of such wounds, as has the integration of the field of anthropology and forensic science. The former has been used to inform our understanding of the context of violent conflict, particularly outside of formal warfare, whilst the latter has been suggestive of ways of interpreting the use of weapons and of wounding in an historical context. The approach of historical martial artists and reenactors, looking to use the written sources to physically recreate the use of the sword (and indeed a variety of other weapons), also offer another avenue for understanding the use of the sword and its effectiveness. However, achieving such an understanding remains a difficult process.