[Timo Nieminen]

[Daniel Staberg]

There is written evidence of how the men armed with twohanded swords were used, it is just a matter of taking the time to decode the old German handwriting or fraktur print.

So far I have yet to find evidence of them being deployed anywhere but deep inside the pike square where they were tasked with guarding the standards.

The 1536/1537 Trewer Rath envisons a 21 ranks deep formation

[Luka Borscak]

Daniel, based on that, do you think pictorial evidence is mostly artistic licence and not reliable? What about Paulus Jovius account of Swiss men with two handers stepping out of formation and attacking enemy pike block (probably from flanks)?
I think the fact their place was deep inside the formation do not tell us if they moved during the battle according to situation...

[Daniel Wallace]

one thing that was just pointed out that i have had a tendency to lean to is their role as a defensive weapon more than offensive. the memorial does not point out that the iberian two hander was a sword of war - from reading it you get the notion that it had more of a protective role. there were discussions before about their role as a front line weapon but i'm only touching on discussions made about the iberian sword and style vs what mr Staberg's german findings.

to be deployed so deeply in the ranks, you could suggest that a devastated pike block taking heavy casualties turns to run and all of a sudden the two handers are acting like a rear guard? that may be a little out there because if all your buddies are running, your probably going to run too. but, two handers were an elite weapon, given to the best of the best. like your graduated with honors you started out with as pikeman, moved to a halberdier, and now you've been promoted to two hander. and if i'm not mistaken are not the more experienced solders farther back in the ranks or is that just something roman that i'm remembering?



artists are always at liberty to show what is exciting - but how many times have we found out that the art work is accurate.

[Matthew P. Adams]

Is there any historical reference to grasping the ricasso? I haven't seen anything myself, and any depiction of half swording that I have seen, the blade is grasped towards the middle. I don't think they were used that way, but I'm open to being wrong.

[Luka Borscak]

Matthew, I have also never seen evidence of gripping the ricasso of a twohander. About its defensive role, I would agree with you but I also don't think we can discard artwork as easily...

[Daniel Staberg]

[Jon Pellett]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Nicholas A. Gaese]

Hey Daniel,

I completely agree that art can vary in terms of quality of the depiction, and can pale in importance to written sources. However, even sources like Der Trewer Rath is not as accurate as a muster call, it was an envisionment of how military thinkers thought formations should be assembled. That said, it does give some numbers and names of formations and their captains. One of the rare examples I believe you mentioned previously was Wintzenberger, with his Fähnlein of 300 men, 14 of whom were doppelsöldner with harness and schlachtschwerter. A small number to be sure, but its there all the same. We can also use the imperial regulation of 1570, which figured out of 400 men, 50 armed with battle swords and polearms were to guard the standard. To me that sounds like a lot of guys for guard duty, especially since only 150 men would be armed with pikes....The rest had guns if I remember right.

Well all these sources show how these men were deployed, but it would be up to the captains and the situation, to determine how they were used. Formations were a mixed arms unit afterall, and to win a battle it often required them to be dynamic. Unless there were many seperate squads, 50 men to guard a few standard bearers would seem like a waste of man power to me.

As to which weapon is better for flanking, it's hard to say but a schlachtschwert could be plenty useful. A halberd has an advantage in reach and armour penatration ability, but its small axe head makes it less threatening to a row of unarmoured soldiers. A big sword can cut across more people per swing before being obstructed, where as the halberd is more suited to dispatching single foes. I soppose its just a design thing. The narrow, overly specialized attribution the twohander gets comes mostly from masters during the later 16th-early 17th c., at a time when the weapon and many other types are being pushed from war and become quite limited in use.

[Luka Borscak]

It's this quote:
"Another Italian, Paolo Giovio, describes the critical moment in the battle of Fornovo, 1495, where Charles VIII of France with his Swiss mercenaries was opposed by Francesco Gonzaga at the head of an imperial army: "Suddenly, as the *sc. The Italian pikemen, javelin-throwers and crossbowmen) began to approach, about 300 picked young men who are called "the forlorn hope" issued forth from each flank of the infantry body and with their great swords which they wielded with both hands began to chop up those enormous pikes with such boldness that nearly all those pikemen, aghast, turned their backs in flight without waiting for the main body of the infantry to come up." "

The Origins of the Two-Handed Sword
Journal of Western Martial Art
January 2000
by Neil H. T. Melville

[Neil Melville]

It's pleasing to see that my article is still being read and quoted, though it was several years old when it was re-published in JWMA, and I have refined and developed my ideas since then. Paolo Giovio could not have been an eye-witness of Fornovo (1495), being only a boy at the time, but he does devote a good few pages to his description of the battle, so he must have had plenty of informants. His work was published in 1566 (but possibly written much earlier). Here is his original text, in Latin, of the relevant passage and my revised translation:

Extemplo namque ubi appropinquatus est extraordinarii delecti iuvenes ferme trecenti, qui propter laudem summo quaesitam periculo vitae prodigi perditique vocantur, ab utroque phalangis latere prosilierunt , ac ingentibus gladiis quos ambabus manibus regebant enormesque hastas praecidere coeperunt. Quorum audacia territi pene omnes, priusquam phalangis impressionem expectarent, terga verterunt.

Suddenly indeed when they had come close about 300 young men, the elite, who through the praise that is gained associated with great danger, are called 'careless of life' and 'given up for lost' (in English 'the forlorn hope') issued from each side of the phalanx and with their huge swords which they wielded with both hands began to cut down the enormous pikes. Astounded by their boldness almost all the pikemen turned tail without waiting for the mass of the regiment to reach them.

Hope this is of interest,
Neil

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

I suspect our unwillingness to believe that swordsmen could cut pikes reflects both our relative lack of skill and penchant for using excessively thick pikes. The kind of acrobatics Silver and Meyer recommended make the notion of monster pikes untenable. Pike thickness of course varied, but Silver and Meyer wrote about what they considered the battlefield weapon. Thinner pikes, especially if tapered, would have been easier to cut.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

The principle tactical use of the larger two-handed swords by the late 15th Century seems to have been specifically for the smaller formations like forlorn hopes and so on, and to defend standards and artillery, groups of gunners and crossbowmen, and artillery, and as bodyguards for VIP's.

The Iberian 'montante' manuals and some of the Italian fencing manuals recommend using the large sword for situations when 'few must fight against many', both on the battlefield and in urban environs. This seems to be the role that the weapon excelled in (and a role for which the halberd was also used). As many have noted, a lot of the pikemen particularly among the Swiss used to carry longswords for sidearms, for the period when the pike square (or part of it) disintegrates. The specific (and important) niche for this weapons seems to be to help exploit / or defend against the chaos of the middle and later parts of a battle.

I'm not about to argue that swords couldn't cut pikes (I suspect they can- some images from Marozzo even make it look like it may have been common to practice doing so during fencing training) but I don't think it was a principle use of the two-handed sword to directly attack intact pike-squares, unlike say, the rotolero with their swords and rotella. I've seen some antique pikes from Switzerland (Berne? I think?) and was interested to note that they had langets on them, like a lot of the smaller Medieval and Early Modern polearms did. It would be hard to cut through those!

J

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Steve Hick]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Thanks Steve, that's interesting.


J

[Matthew P. Adams]

I've done some spear vs spadone bouting, and once you meet at the crossing, you push the spear head off line, slide the blade down the shaft and lop off fingers. i would love to try spadone against many, but my trainer is a PH synthetic, and its inappropriate for full speed hits with the large circular movements. too heavy and ridged to be safe. I would love to try one of the Arms and Armor Spadone trainers.

[Steve Hick]

[Matthew P. Adams]

Well, that's disappointing but understandable. I guess it's near impossible to make a realistic six foot impact weapon safe without some fairly extensive armor.