Coventry’s 14th century civic sword has returned to its hometown 550 years after it was removed by an angry king. The sword, or rather, the hilt and a tiny stump of the blade which are all that survive, is part of the Burrell Collection art museum in Glasgow and has been loaned to Coventry for its City of Culture 2021 exhibition.

Carrying a sword in front of a king during processions, coronations and other official occasions was an unambiguous symbol of supreme temporal power in the Middle Ages. The right to a bearing-sword was sometimes extended to powerful nobles (dukes and earls) and by the late 14th century, to mayors of cities. It was a recognition of the growing importance of cities to the monarch, a ceremonial honor that lent city government an aristocratic cachet even as it became a symbol of their civic liberties. London was the first to receive the grant of a mayoral sword. By 1500, 17 cities in England and its overseas possessions (Calais in 1392, Dublin in 1403 and Drogheda in 1468) had been granted civic swords.

We don’t know the precise date when Coventry was granted its civic sword, but it was before 1384 because the City Annals (compiled many centuries later) note that in that year Richard II ordered that the sword be carried behind the mayor instead of in front of him as punishment because the mayor “did not do justice.” Richard restored the mayor of Coventry’s right to carry the sword in front in 1387. Chronicler Henry Knighton of Leicester writing at that time described the Coventry sword as “gladium ornatu aureo” (sword decorated with gold). This is the earliest surviving contemporary record of a civic sword in Britain.

By the 14th century, Coventry was the fourth largest city in England. It was rich in natural resources — timber, stone, arable land, pastures for grazing, the River Sherbourne for water and mill power — and prospered from trade, particularly wool production. Royal charters had granted Coventry extensive privileges, including the right to export merchandise overseas, freedom from certain tolls and both city and county status. The sword was one of those privileges.

Coventry had supported Lancastrian kings Henry V and Henry VI with troops and money. It became a de facto capital when Henry VI and his queen consort Margaret of Anjou moved the royal court there in the 1450s and parliament was called there several times between 1456 and 1460. Henry and Margaret even processed with the Coventry civic sword in front of them. After the defeat of Henry VI at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, the city made peace with the new Yorkist King Edward IV, but it wouldn’t last. The Earl of Warwick, formerly allied with Edward, turned coat and made an alliance with Margaret of Anjou. He occupied Coventry with 3,000 soldiers in March 1471. Edward showed up at the city’s massive defensive walls with his army demanding entry and was denied.

After Warwick’s forces were routed and the Earl killed at the Battle of Barnet on April 14th, Edward retaliated against Coventry by withdrawing many of its privileges, including county status, and confiscating its civic sword. The fate of the sword was unknown until it was rediscovered by accident in a rubbish heap in Whitechapel in 1897. It was first in the private collection of Sir Guy Laking, the first director of the London Museum. It later was acquired by Sir William and Lady Constance Burrell who gave it to the City of Glasgow in 1944.

The Coventry Sword today is not the same as the one Henry Knighton wrote about — it dates to around 1460 — but it is still a gladium ornatu aureo. While the blade was amputated, the hilt was in good condition considering its rough life. The ivory grip is intact, as is the bronze crossguard with gilded ornamentation of a Tudor Rose and Edward IV’s badge, the Sun in Splendour. The bronze pommel’s gilded decoration and silver side medallions also survived, to our good fortune. The silver medallions on the side of the pommel bear the Royal Arms and the arms of Coventry (elephant and castle), which is how we know which sword it is.

The sword is on display at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum until November 21st.

Restoration of an effigy in Dundrennan Abbey in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, has shone a flashlight on the penumbra of medieval murder mystery. The “Abbot’s Stone” is installed against the west wall of the nave of the abbey’s ruined church. A robed abbot lies recumbent with his crozier diagonal across his body and a dagger plunged into his chest. His feet rest on the small, contorted figure of a disemboweled man, his entrails spilling out through a gash in his abdomen. The effigy is believed to date to the 13th century,

Mr Cox, formerly of the cultural resources team at Historic Environment Scotland, said: “It seems possible that this memorial commemorates an abbot of Dundrennan who was wounded or assassinated.

“The small figure at his feet likely represents his assailant. The symbolism is rather poignant, the scene depicting the abbot as triumphant over his assailant in perpetuity.”

The carving would originally have covered a tomb chest and is one of number to be recently conserved at the abbey, which sits in a valley around five miles from Kirkcudbright.

The Cistercian abbey at Dundrennan was founded in 1142 by Fergus, Lord of Galloway. It was the first of Scotland’s 13 Cistercian monasteries. The early Gothic church was notable for its three stories and open arcades, an unusual design in Scotland, and considerable remains of it managed to survive the Reformation. There are large sections of the 12th century transepts and early 13th century nave still extant, as are significant portions of the mid-13th century chapter house.

It was not destroyed during the Scottish Reformation; it was just neglected after it. The monks were evicted in 1560, and in 1587 the abbey was annexed by the Crown. Some of the lands were used to create a lordship for James VI’s groom of the bedchamber in 1606. The buildings were used to house livestock. By the 18th century, the abbey was a wreck and numerous visitors wrote about its dilapidated condition.

Records from the Abbey’s are sparse, so much so that we don’t even have a complete list of its abbots. There are just a few grave stones, charters and legal documents and none of them refer to a stabbing or disemboweling, alas. One extremely important record has survived: a certain Adam Blacadder is documented as having been appointed commendator (administrator) in 1541, a role he held until his death in 1562.

The remains of a church built in the 10th century by the first Holy Roman Emperor have been discovered under a cornfield near Eisleben, in Saxony-Anhalt, northeastern Germany. State archaeologists have been excavating the site of the royal palace of Helfta built by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I west of modern-day Eisleben.

Since digs began in May, the team has unearthed the foundation walls of a classic three-aisled cruciform basilica about 98 feet long and 66 feet wide with a transept and semicircular apse on the east end. Church-related artifacts found so far include a Romanesque bronze crucifix with enamel, a prestigious object made in Limoges in the 13th century, and a large piece of a church bell.

The church was founded around 968 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great who had moved to Rome two years earlier to take a more hands-on approach in his unruly relations with the papacy and widen his sphere of influence in Italy. Building large, showy churches in Germany, especially in his ancestral duchy of Saxony, was part of his program to establish himself as Emperor of the Romans and the newly-minted Holy Roman Empire as the true papal-approved successor to the Roman Empire. (The Byzantine emperor begged to differ.)

Historian Thietmar von Merseburg wrote in his early 11th century chronicle that the church at Helfta was dedicated to Saint Radegund, a 6th century Thuringian princess who dumped her husband Merovingian Frankish King Chlothar I in favor of an ascetic religious life. Theitmar also recorded that Otto the Great had been personally present when the church was inaugurated.

More than 70 graves including brick and stone tombs from the 10th through the 15th centuries have been found inside the church precinct and in the adjacent cemetery. Objects recovered include a gilded belt buckle, coins, knives and several enameled bronze brooches. which was the final resting place for many of the region’s elite. Thietmar’s account describes one such burial. It was his own relative Count Werner von Walbeck, whose remains were transported from Walbeck to be buried in the churchyard in 1014. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, so Thietmar had the entrails removed and buried in the cemetery in lieu of the fully intact corpse.

Martin Luther was born and died in Eisleben, and it was the Reformation he sparked that cause the church’s ultimate destruction. For 500 years it dominated the landscape and religious life of the area. Come the fury of the Protestant Reformation, its walls were torn down to its foundations and its very location obliterated from the record.

The excavation of the site will continue until early September and will widen the dig area to the area around the church. Archaeologists hope to unearth remains of the settlement and fortifications the grew around the Ottonian royal palace.