Hank Reinhardt's The Book Of The Sword - Plot & Excerpts
The barbarians they fought used a longer cutting sword. The gladius was a very efficient sword, and one that was designed to be used as part of an integrated military system. But as a weapon for single combat, it wasn't all that good. The shield the Romans carried was quite heavy, and in one-on-one combat the Romans lacked the maneuverability to be able to defend themselves properly. Like the pike, it was formidable in mass, but not too good in single combat. As the empire began to decay and more and more barbarians not only flooded the empire but enlisted in the legions, the gladius was gradually discarded and by the fall of the empire in the fifth century the spatha replaced it. The spatha was the ancestor of the Viking sword and the knightly sword of the European middle ages.In the year 793 AD, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles record that "heathen men" ravaged and sacked God's church in Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne is a small island off of the east coast of England and had a church and an abbey.
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