The Sword in the Stone and Other Legendary Blades of the Middle Ages

From Charlemagne’s Joyeuse to the sword embedded in the rock at Rocamadour, the Middle Ages were filled with tales of blades blessed, cursed, and unbreakable. Explore the myths and miracles surrounding medieval swords, where history ends and legend begins.

By Jacqueline Murray

There were lots of swords in the Middle Ages. That is an understatement. It is impossible to know how many swords were forged. After all, for over 1500 years, virtually every man above the status of peasant and over the age of fourteen owned at least one sword. Is it any wonder that so many have survived and capture the attention of the military-minded in museums or historic sites or tweak the imaginations in shows like Forged with Steele?

But not all swords were created equal. Many had storied histories or names that endure through the ages, for example those of El Cid, the eleventh-century Iberian warrior, possessed two named swords: Colada and Tizona. Tizona survives to this day and is on display at the Museum of Burgos. Its authenticity is supported by metallurgical testing that dates it to the eleventh century and identifies it to include Damascus steel.

According to the eleventh-century epic, The Song of Roland, Charlemagne’s storied sword was called Joyeuse, which was “a peerless blade that changes colour full thirty times a day.” The sword seems to have disappeared from sight. It is now displayed in the Louvre, which has identified the blade dating from the eleventh century and the pommel on the end of the handle from the tenth to eleventh centuries.

Joyeuse moves us a little further away from history and into the realm of legend, where it is joined by other swords, such as Zulfiqar, the double-pointed sword said to have been given to the Prophet Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel and subsequently used by his successor, Ali ibn-Abi Talib. This sword was reputed to be extraordinarily strong and sharp when wielded by a Muslim warrior.

The Song of Roland tells the tale of another legendary sword, Durendal, perhaps even more significant than Joyeuse. Charlemagne gave the sword to Roland, but the story pushes the boundaries of the legendary further, bringing Durendal much closer to Excalibur, the mythical sword of King Arthur. There are relics embedded in Durendal, powerful relics that render it indestructible. These include a tooth of St Peter, a hair of St Denis (patron of France), and, perhaps most powerful of all, a fragment of the Virgin Mary’s clothing.

Throughout the poem, Roland repeatedly extols the power of his sword but, in the end, he, like the other brave knights, must also die. Roland desperately attempts to break Durendal by repeatedly striking it against stone and marble, but it will not break. “A grey stone stands before him at his knee; Ten strokes thereon he strikes, with rage and grief, It grides (scrapes), but yet nor breaks nor chips the steel.” Roland refuses to let his sword fall into the hands of the enemy. In the main version of the epic, he hides the sword underneath him and dies atop it.

Durendal in the Cliff: Fact, Legend, or Eighteenth-Century Fraud?

As with all legends, there is fluidity and a capacity for accretions and exaggerations, pulling the story out of shape so it drifts quite far from the original. Thus, more modern versions circulate; in one Roland gathers all his strength to throw the sword as far as possible, in one case 200 miles, where it embeds itself into a cliff in the French village of Rocamadour. In another version, St Michael the Archangel spirits the sword away from the battlefield and lodges it in the cliff. Each adaptation supports the authenticity of a sword lodged thirty-two feet above ground in the cliff at Rocamadour.

Unlike the swords of Charlemagne and El Cid – scrutinized, tested, and, if not exactly verified, at least dated to the Middle Ages and displayed in reputable museums – the alleged Durendal in the cliff appears to have no authenticity at all. According to David Perry and Matthew Gabriel, both the Archangel Michael and the superhuman sword tossing did not accrue to the medieval legend but are eighteenth-century variants. Indeed, a close reader of The Song of Roland would have been suspicious from the start. In battle and in death, Roland’s archangel of choice is not Michael but rather Gabriel. In the epic, as he is approaching death, Roland appeals for Gabriel’s help to leave the battlefield and, at the moment of death, it is Gabriel who receives his dying prayer.

Thus, the sword in the cliff appears to be the result of the skullduggery of an eighteenth-century French aristocrat, intent on attracting tourist dollars, who convinced the local clergy to play along. What before the French Revolution was quasi-religious tourism was transformed later into a more secular carnivalesque focus on the sword and the ultimate triumph of the French (well, Frankish) king over the hostile foreign other that endures into the twenty-first century. Sadly, its theft in 2024 thwarted any chance for scientific examination, but, without any medieval provenance, it becomes little more than an eighteenth-century fraud imposed on a twelfth-century epic.

The Rise of the Sword in the Stone

More famous than these swords, and certainly more legendary, are swords from earliest accounts, reputed to have been embedded in stone. Excalibur is, of course, the most famous of these, thanks to the confluence of Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (a compilation of stories: 1485) and Walt Disney’s The Sword in the Stone (film: 1963). In the twelfth century, in his The History of the Kings of Britain (ca. 1136), Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first to provide the name of Arthur’s sword. Geoffrey integrated into his monumental history various stories about King Arthur dating from at least the ninth century, possibly even the sixth century. He translated the sword’s Welsh name into the Latin Caliburnus, which gradually transformed into the English Excalibur.

While Geoffrey of Monmouth, an historian, avoided miraculous deeds, once the poets took up the story, it changed dramatically. As early as 1200, in his poem Merlin, Robert de Boron included the notion that Arthur pulled the sword out of an anvil (soon to become a stone) in order to prove he was king. Of course, this is really a demonstration of the future potency and virility of the young boy Arthur.

Seemingly linked to the story of Excalibur is an Icelandic sword called Gramr. In the Volsunga Saga, written in the thirteenth century though recording much earlier oral tradition, Odin appears at the wedding of Signy, the sister of the warrior Sigmund. Odin thrusts a sword into the Tree of Life, stating that anyone who could pull it out would find no better weapon. Of course, everyone tries but only Sigmund is able to pull the sword out of the tree. Some scholars have suggested that the sword in the tree was made of bronze; once iron started to be forged into swords, they were then thrust into or removed from stones, anvils, and the like.

Another story that appears to fall in with this group of miraculous swords is not about a sword at all, but rather a bishop’s staff. In his Life of St Edward (1161–1163), Aelred of Rievaulx included a new miracle to the story of Wulfstan’s staff, an event believed to have occurred a century earlier. Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sought to depose Wulfstan from his bishopric. Wulfstan refuses to hand over his bishop’s staff, saying he will return it to Edward the Confessor, who had originally given it to him. Wulfstan takes the staff and thrusts it into the stone cover of Edward’s tomb, asking the saint to receive it and then give it to whomever he deems worthy. All the bishops try to pull out the staff without success. Lanfranc then urges Wulfstan to retrieve his staff, but instead Wulfstan asks St Edward to return his staff if he still considers him suitable. The staff immediately leaps out of the stone tomb and directly into Wulfstan’s hand.

Saint Galgano and the Sword that Would Not Budge

There is another sword in the stone that appeared roughly around the time that Geoffrey of Monmouth and Robert de Boron were polishing Excalibur’s story and also coincides with the evolution of Durendal in the twelfth century. This is, however, a modest sword without a name, but it adds a twist to the “sword in the stone” motif.

The story goes that one day Galgano (1148–1181), a middling knight from the town of Chiusdino, not far from Siena in Tuscany, was riding through the mountains. Then, at Montesiepi, St Michael appeared before him, and his horse, almost as if it recognized the archangel and understood the importance of this moment, refused to move. Transformed by the angel’s presence and his horse’s reaction, Galgano underwent a spiritual conversion and turned away from military life. He plunged his sword into the stone where he stood, to serve as a cross, and assumed the life of a hermit. He became famous for his asceticism and attracted other hermits to live in the area. Galgano died in 1181 and, four years later, was canonized.

Galgano is the first Catholic saint to undergo an investigation and formal canonization process ordered by a pope, thus there are written records that place Galgano firmly in a historical context. Nineteen witnesses, including his mother, provided testimony about his mode of life and miracles. She testified that Galgano’s horse did indeed stop in its tracks at Montesiepi, and that Galgano then thrust his sword into “the earth”. Afterwards, no one, including Galgano himself, was able to pull it out.

From the late twelfth through seventeenth centuries, as with all legendary or hagiographical accounts, Galgano’s story was modified, interpolated, appropriated, and co-opted according to ecclesiastical rivalries, political opportunism, and sometimes, it would appear, pure whim. As the influence of Siena increased, Galgano was claimed as the city’s patron saint. He was also claimed by various religious orders, including the Cistercians, Augustinians, Vallambrosians, and Dominicans.

With this attention and rivalry, the legends surrounding Galgano expanded, making his hagiography ever more robust. Sounding altogether too like Francis of Assisi, he travelled to Rome to gain papal consent for his little community of hermits. While away, thieves broke in and tried to steal his sword, breaking it and suffering grisly divine punishments. Over time, the earth into which Galgano had plunged his sword metamorphosed into stone.

Through it all, only Galgano’s simple, unnamed sword was unchanged, remaining the prominent feature in hagiographies, artistic representations, and legendary accretions. It is still possible to see Galgano’s sword, plunged into the stone at his shrine at Montesiepi, where it lies protected under a plexiglass shield. This sword, like Joyeuse and Tizona, has also undergone scientific scrutiny in recent years, as has the stone itself. While not yet authenticated, the sword type is from the twelfth century and the metal does not apparently contain modern alloys, so it might possibly be medieval. This uncertainty would be appropriate for a nameless sword, but why, given its reliable historical provenance?

Galgano’s simple “everyday” sword was not credited to be in any way special other than it served as a saint’s cross and could not be pulled from the stone. Gradually, however, it has been transmuted into a legendary sword, worthy to stand alongside Excalibur, Durendal, and even Gramr, all swords imbued with the miraculous from the beginning. But it is Galgano’s unnamed sword that has more of a whiff of historicity about it, not as an artefact but based on the reputable historical records of the canonization process.

All of these stories seem to have emerged from the literary efflorescence of the late twelfth century and in various ways appear to be intertwined or influenced by each other. So, much like the case of Arthur and Sigmund, the removal of a sword or staff indicates to others the power, virility, or authority of the remover.

Galgano’s canonization process in 1185 occurred not long after Aelred wrote his account of Wulfstan’s staff. But canonization processes did not simply record miracles. They were overseen by canon lawyers and papal emissaries who interrogated every witness and authenticated every miracle. Thus, according to medieval legal standards, Galgano thrust his sword into the ground/stony ground/stone from which it could not be removed. Galgano’s action was not a demonstration or recognition of power and virility. Rather, it was quite the opposite; in effect he demonstrated that he was rejecting the secular world in every way, including rejecting sexual potency. This canonization process occurred somewhat before Robert de Boron added to the Arthur story the element of him pulling Excalibur from an anvil/stone, to prove his power and potency in the making. There is little likelihood that Galgano’s story influenced de Boron’s account.

When the Supernatural Meets the Sword

Supernatural and otherworldly figures are central to these swords (or bishop’s staff) in stones. Odin himself brings the sword to Sigmund and thrusts it in the tree. Saint Edward the Confessor tosses Wulfstan’s episcopal staff back to him. Emerging from Celtic mythology, Merlin causes the appearance of Excalibur, embedded in stone, initiating the almost ritualized process by which young Arthur is recognized as king to-be. Appropriately, the Archangel Gabriel, the Messenger of God, presents the sword, Zulfiqar, to the Prophet Muhammad.

In The Song of Roland, the Archangel Gabriel watches over the battle, hears Roland’s appeals for help to leave the battlefield; it is Gabriel who is with Roland as he dies. The warrior Archangel Michael appears in a later version and facilitates Roland throwing Durendal away into France, then spiriting the sword to the cliffs of Rocamadour. The appearance of Michael aligns with Galgano’s experience. Michael, the warrior, appears to the young knight, essentially forbidding him to go to war and to thrust his sword into the stone. So, across stories, and across cultures – Arabic, Celtic, Norse, French, and Norse – and across religions – Christian, Muslim, pre-Christian – archangels, gods, saints, and mystical figures were central to the accounts of supernatural swords.

When considering the unimaginable number of swords that populated the medieval millennium, and, indeed, the multitude of medieval swords that have survived into this millennium, visions of great battles and warrior heroes may leap to mind. Perhaps those less prone to romanticizing the past will deliberate on the hideous wounds and innumerable deaths or sword of the executioner. But despite the vast array of extant medieval swords, displayed in museums and historic sites, there will always be those whose minds drift instead to the ineffable swords of myth and legend. These are the swords that populate the imagined Middle Ages; those swords beyond the grasp, those miraculous swords that overshadow cold, hard steel.

Jacqueline Murray is a medieval historian based at the University of Guelph. Her scholarly research focuses primarily on medieval genders and sexualities, especially masculinities. As a public-facing historian, she seeks to intrigue and inform audiences about the Middle Ages and why they matter. You can follow her on Bluesky @jacquelinemurray.bsky.social‬

Top Image: Épée du roi Arthur, lac de Trémelin – photo by Avel-Breizh / Wikimedia Commons