Museum Mythbusting: No, this is not "The Sword of Grutte Pier"

You may have seen this sword floating around on the net recently, as this photo has been making the rounds again:

This is normally described as "the sword of Grutte Pier Gerlofs Donia", a Frisian folk hero. He was militarily active around 1515 to 1520, and was reportedly extremely tall.

His stature and the folklore around him have led to some outlandishly erroneous claims being made about him. Today I am going do dispel one of them.

The sword pictured here is a "bearing sword". It is not even a unique example of a bearing sword.

It is 2.13m long and 6.6kg, rather too heavy to have ever been used for combat even by a strong and large human.

It has twins in the royal armouries in Leeds (accession IDs IX.1024 and 1025) both of which significantly predate Pier. They're from the early 15th century, 1400 to 1430, as is the sword pictured in the OP, and were thus made long before he was born in 1480. There is another similar swords in the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, ID: NG-NM-522.

These are bearing swords, held by a sword bearer (thus the name) at the front or rear of processions from cathedrals to city halls, and they are entirely made for ceremony. Their blade geometry, balance, and heat treatment is not conducive to use in combat. They are oversized, overweight (6.6kg in this case), and suited only to their original purpose. Both this sword, and NG-NM-522 have "IN-RI" inscribed on the blades, further indicating their religious connection.

It is quite probable that these swords went into storage in the 16th century when Protestantism swept threough the Netherlands, and the Saint's day processions were abandoned along with other trappings of Catholicism.

The Leeds swords are single fullered, scaled up bearing swords around 2-2.2m in length with straight crossguards, Oakeshott type XIIIa blades, and a variety of Passau makers marks. Just like Piers' sword. They also have the same distinctive octagonal pommels.

It is worth mentioning the RA examples have diamond cross sections past the fuller, and this does not, instead having a lenticular section. It may have been made in another workshop to meet market demands for bearing swords. The Rijksmuseum example also has a hexagonal pommel, plain guard and flattened diamond cross section blade.

It is therefore inaccurate to say this enormous bearing sword was "made for him due to his stature" when it is clear it was made decades before his birth.

The sword pictured was documented in the town hall of Leeuwarden in the year 1791 by Jacobus Kok - long after his death in 1520 - and attributed to him posthumously because he was large, and it was large. It was also one of two such swords found in the town hall, the other was also a processional sword.

The other sword was posthumously attributed to Wijerd Jelckama, a lieutenant under Pier. There is no explanation given or attempted as to why these two swords happened to be in the ownership of the town hall, nor why two folk hero's were using bearing swords made decades before they were even born.

Town halls were a typical storage location for processional swords, as the processions were official events organised by the towns. Another common occurrence is that saints days parades and processions were run by cathedrals, abbeys, and churches, and we also find a large number of bearing swords in storage in religious institutions.

There is no doubt that this sword predates Pier, and was made as a bearing sword.
It is incredibly unlikely he owned it, and even less likely he used it, and it would be been a martially ineffective sword if he had, particularly considering he would have been facing pikes, halbards, katzbalgers and regular zweihanders which were much lighter and thus faster.

Not only is it unlikely, but worse, there is no evidence supporting it. Only the claims of a museum which profits from the myth.

Swords of comparable length were readily available and weighed 30% less at least. A heavy sword is not a better sword, even if you are large and strong. It is just a slower sword. You do not want to be both the largest, and slowest target on a battlefield.

Further reading:

The book by Jacobus Kok which reported on the two bearing swords in Leeuwarden is called "Vaderlandsch woordenboek 1791".

There is no other reading available about this specific sword. It's a dishonest, tourist-trap myth upheld by the museum that profits from it.

On bearing swords in general, and processional ceremonies:

https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-122.html

https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-123.html

Hans-Peter Hils, "Meister Johann Liechtenauers Kunst des langen Schwertes", 1985 also discusses how many bearing swords are incorrectly classified as battle swords and have been since the 19th century.

The Rijksmuseum example: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/NG-NM-522

There is a slightly different bearing sword in the topkapi palace collection in Istanbul, which also features oversized proportions and a hexagonal pommel, but has a different crossguard shape and fullering arrangement. https://i.redd.it/hgtwr4zw79c41.jpg