National symbolism
A power · Utility
4 figures have it.
Held by
This divine or supernatural parentage served to legitimize the Merovingian claim to power, suggesting that their right to rule was ordained by forces beyond the mortal realm.
Fuller medieval versions, notably Malory's, treat two well-known sword episodes as belonging to two different weapons rather than one: an earlier sword drawn from a stone or anvil in a churchyard, which proves Arthur's right to the throne and is later broken in combat, and a second sword given afterward by the Lady of the Lake, which is properly the one called Excalibur and which comes with a protective scabbard.
It has been featured prominently in Hungarian heraldry, appearing on coats of arms, military insignia, and national monuments.
From there he becomes a symbol of patriotism, which is precisely the use the later romances put him to, produced as they were both for courtly entertainment and as social and political argument.