War and Military Atlas

How Battles Were Fought
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Weapons Systems

Seax

Medieval

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The seax is a small sword, fighting knife or dagger associated with the Germanic peoples of the Migration Period and Early Middle Ages, especially the Saxons, who are thought to take their name from the weapon. Long seaxes appear in the archaeological record from around the seventh century. The seax was carried as a personal sidearm and utility blade as much as a battlefield weapon, and it later became a heraldic device, appearing in the coats of arms of Essex and the former county of Middlesex.

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