In the Middle High German Lay of the Nibelungen (das Nibelungenlied), Siegfried's wife Kriemhild takes revenge on his murderers by killing them with Siegfried's own sword, Balmung (which had a mythical status not unlike that of Excalibur). It doesn't say in the summary below that it was Siegfried's sword, but I just double-checked in the text, and it says she used his sword.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied

What about in judicial duels? In the Cantar de mio Cid the Cid's champions use his swords to defend him in the judicial duel.

Thanks, Kristen. While I appreciate the suggestion, Kriemhild's use of Siegfried's sword to take revenge on her husband's murderers doesn't really fit into the sort of tradition i'm looking for, The Nibelungenlied, at least from my Penguin edition, also post-dates the traditions I'm looking at. And for which I'm seeking earlier precedents.

Your answer did remind me, though, that there is a different precedent example to be found in the Volsung Saga. I'm referring here to Odin's insertion of the sword only Sigmund can draw, into the trunk of the tree, Barnstock. I've long suspected that this story may have been the inspiration for the Sword in the Stone legend. The chronology of the Volsung saga that's come down to us is also relatively late, but the work has a much more primeval feel than the Nibelungenlied, and I suspect its roots go back much further. On a quick look tonight, however, the sword in the tree does not seem to appear in Sturluson's Prose Edda, so I'll need to check that and the Elder Edda further. In a way, though, looking at Odin as 'King' figure, does allow one to them view Sigmund and Sigurd as using the king's sword in their roles as the king's champion. Bit I'd need to look further into that as well.

Thanks to you as well, Charmaine. In my library I have a copy of the bilingual Penguin edition of El Poema de Mio Cid, a different work to the one you cite. And one I've yet to find time to examine. Certainly, the use of the Cid's sword by his champions in judicial combat is the kind of thing I'm looking for. And the tradition, if not the work, clearly predates the French Arthurian tales. So I'll mark both works down as something to look into. But I'm also hoping other examples will be forthcoming to give a broader picture. I'd be interested to know if examples are to be found in the Chansons de Geste, such as the Song of Roland, as well as, for example, the non-Arthurian parts of the Welsh Mabinogian.

I've checked the Chanson de Roland and it does not seem that the champion uses Charlemagne's sword. The Poema de mio Cid and Cantar de mio Cid are the same work.

Thanks for the further feedback, Charmaine. And the feedback on the Cid poem. That makes things easier.

It depends to some degree on what you mean by "the King's sword." If you mean the one he personally carries around as a symbol of his own knighthood, I can't think of a good example of that. But if you mean a sword that belonged to the king and was given to the knight by the king, that is clearly important in the literature: see especially the Prose Lancelot, where Lancelot establishes that he is Guinevere's knight and not King Arthur's because -- even though Arthur knights him formally -- he avoids having a sword girded on him by the king, but arranges for the Queen to send him a sword of hers to be girded with. This is taken to establish a clear duty of personal loyalty to her and her causes, and indeed it is as Guinevere's champion that Lancelot distinguishes himself.

Brad, the part of the Lancelot you refer to is well known to me, and I consider its significance for the story is that, by Lancelot’s own connivance, it is the Guinevere, not Arthur, who makes Lancelot a knight, a point reinforced by Lancelot in the text. (Lancelot-Grail 2 p. 71.) But this part of the tale was not what I was referring to.

In my 1999 paper King Arthur’s Swords I noted that two possible references in the prose Lancelot. “The first of these is to a sword that clearly does belong to Arthur, although in the reference it is Lancelot who uses it. The sword is variously called Sequence, Secanece or Seure (West, Prose Index, p.278). The variants make it hard to know if the name, itself, carried any significance, but the sword is clearly described as a special sword that ‘the king carried only in mortal combat’. (Lancelot-Grail 2, p. 234. That it is Arthur’s sword, because we read on the page before that Lancelot, who had been recovering from “madness”, was armed by Guinevere in Arthur’s own armour.) Although the circumstances under which Lancelot comes to use the sword are novel, when we consider that Arthur, who is at the time imprisoned, will shortly be rescued by Lancelot, it is clear that here again we have another example of the king’s sword being used by the king’s champion.”

Also, in “Sommer’s edition of the Lancelot, Gawain gives Lancelot Escalibor, “sa boine espee” to use in the coming fight.” (The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romance, (edit. H O Sommer), Washington, Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1908 – 16. Volume 4, p. 61.) (Please see my article for more detail.)

Usually, however, it is Gauvain who carries the king’s sword being used as the king’s champion. And my interest in this was sparked by the curious fact that, in Chretien’s Conte du Graal, Gauvain has Escalibor with him, though how or why is not explained in the poem.

With regard to my take on Gauvain's role in Le Conte du Graal, please see also my 2008 paper, Chrétien’s Conte du Graal and the Fatal Flaw in Feudalism.