Other varieties of Sword which appear in the thirteenth century are the Falchion, the curved Sabre, the Espée à l'estoc, the Cultellus, and the Anelace.
The Falchion (_fauchon_, Fr., from the Latin _falx_) is of two kinds: the first a broad blade, becoming wider towards the point, the edge convex, the back concave; as in this example from the Painted Chamber:
the other differing from it only in having the back quite straight. The latter is figured on Plate XXXI. of the Painted Chamber; and of this form is the curious tenure sword of the lordship of Sockburn, co. Durham, engraved in the Archæologia, vol. xv. Plate XXVI. See, in Blount's "Antient Tenures," an account of this weapon; of the "monstrous Dragon, Worm, or flying Serpent, that devoured Men, Women, and Children," which fell at last under its keen edge; and of the "tomb of the great Ancestor of the Conyers, having carvings of the falchion, and of a dog, and of the monstrous Worm or Serpent, lying at the Knight's feet, of his own killing, of which the History of the Family gives the above account." The passage is too long for extract[366].
The falchion is a weapon of very remote antiquity. It appears among the paintings on the tomb at Thebes of Rameses III., B.C. 1230. See Plate III. of Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians" (ed. 1837). And it is found, almost identical in shape, in the wall-paintings of the Ajunta Caves, of the first century of the Christian era; of which a careful copy has been made for the Museum of the East India House. Guiart often mentions it in the _Chronique Métrique_, as in this passage:--
"Là ou les presses sont plus drues Est le chaple[367] aux espees nues, Aux fauchons, aux coutiaus à pointes, Si merveilleus que les plus cointes N'ont ores soing de vanteries."
The curved Sabre is of very rare appearance. It occurs among the pictures of the Painted Chamber, Plate XXXV.
The Epée à l'estoc (Stabbing Sword) is named in a judgment of the Parliament of Paris in 1268: "Sufficienter inventum est quod dictus Boso dictum Ademarum percussit cum Ense a estoc in dextro latero propria manu, et de ipso ictu cecidit dictus Ademarus." It appears also to be the weapon which Rigord assigns to some of the imperial troops at the battle of Bovines: "Habebant cultellos longos, graciles, triacumines, quolibet acumine indifferenter secantes, a cuspide usque ad manubrium, quibus utebantur pro gladiis."