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Type X
Oakeshott describes the type of sword common in the late Viking age, remaining in use up to the 13th century. They feature broad and flat blades, with an average length of some 80 cm and with a fuller, generally very wide and shallow, running almost the entire length, but fading out shortly before the point. The point is typically rounded. The grip has the same average length as the earlier Viking swords (some 9.5 cm). The tang, usually very flat and broad, tapers sharply towards the pommel. The cross is generally of square section, about 18 to 20 cm long, tapering towards the tips, in some rare cases slightly curved. It is narrower and longer than the typical Viking type, representing a transitional type to the knightly sword of the high Middle Ages. 10th-century Norsemen knew this type and called it gaddhjalt (spike hilt). The pommels usually take a Brazil-nut form, and sometimes also a disk-shape. [1] (http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spotx.html)
In 1981, Oakeshott introduced the a subtype Xa, including swords with similar blades but a narrower fuller, originally classified under type XI. Many of the type X blades have inscribed the ULFBERHT mark.
Type XII
Typical of the high Middle Ages, these swords begin to show a tapering of the blade with a shortened fuller, resulting in improved thrusting characteristics while maintaining good cutting capabilities. A large number of medieval examples of this type survive. It certainly existed in the later 13th century, and perhaps considerably earlier, since the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum in Zurich posesses an example that has a Viking Age-type hilt, but clearly a type XII blade. The subtype XIIa (originally classified as XIIIa) consists of the longer, more massive great swords that appear in the mid-13th century, probably designed to counter the improved mail armour of the time, and the predecessor of the later longswords. The earliest known depiction of a type XII sword in art forms part of the Archangel Michael statue in Bamberg Cathedral, dating to circa 1200. The Maciejowski Bible (circa' 1245) depicts other examples.
Type XIII
This typifies the classical knightly sword that developed during the age of the Crusades. Typically, examples date to the second half of the 13th century. Type XIII swords feature as a defining characteristic a long, wide blade with parallel edges, ending in a rounded or spatulate tip. The blade cross section has the shape of a lens. The grips, longer than in the earlier types, typically some 15 cm, allow occasional two-handed use. The cross-guards are usually straight, and the pommels Brazil-nut or disk-shaped (Oakeshott pommel types D, E and I).
Subtype XIIIa features longer blades and grips. They correspond to the knightly great swords, or Grans espées d'Allemagne, appearing frequently in 14th century German, but also in Spanish and English art. Early examples of the type appear in the 12th century, and it remained popular until the 15th century. Subtype XIIIb describes smaller single-handed swords of similar shape.
Very few exemplars of the parent type XIII exist, while more examples of the subtype XIIIa survive. A depiction of two-handed use appears in the Tenison psalter. Another depiction of the type appears in the Apocalypse of St. John manuscript of circa 1300.
Single edged weapons
One strict definition of a sword restricts it to a double-edged weapon used for both slashing and stabbing. However, general usage of the term remains inconsistent and it has important cultural overtones, so that commentators almost universally recognize the single-edged Asian weapons listed above as "swords", simply because they have very similar prestige to the prestige attached to the European sword.
Europeans also frequently refer to their own single-edged weapons as swords -- generically backswords. Other terms include scramasax, falchion, scimitar, dussack, Grosses Messer, cutlass, sabre, szabla, and mortuary sword. Many of these are essentially identical weapons, and the different names may refer to their use in different countries at different times.
A machete (or, in Southern Africa, a panga) as a tool resembles such a single-edged sword and serves to cut through thick vegetation, and indeed many of the terms listed above describe weapons that originated as farmers' tools used on the battlefield. The scramasax, for example, usually lacks a cross-piece or any kind of guard, and is more properly functions as a war knife. Such weapons lacked much of the prestige and mystique associated with a 'proper' sword (usually reserved to the nobility, and designed exclusively as a weapon). This lack of prestige may have kept these weapons from use even in contexts where they would serve well. Already Xenophon recommended using the curved makhaira for cavalry (On Horsemanship 12:11), because of the nature of mounted combat. The Crusaders confronted the Islamic scimitar, but largely failed to adopt the weapon, also because of the symbolism contrasting the cruciform Christian sword with the "crooked" "heathen" weapon.
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