Greetings & salutations to all.I've recently started researching Silvers work & hope someone out there can clear something up for me.The authorities whose work on Silver(Steven Hand for one)I've read,all seem clear that the Mortuary Hilt was Silvers choice of sword.However in his Paradoxes,section 33"Of The Pefect Weapon"he states:"I wish no friend of mine to wear swords with hilts,because when they are suddenly set upon,for haste they set their hands upon their hilts instead of their handles,in which many times,before they can draw their swords they are slain by their enemies".Also in the rendered drawing of Silver,in the section on determining a persons perfect sword length,he is clearly holding a simple cruciform hilt sword.With this in mind why do todays proponents of Silvers style champion the Mortuary Hilt as THE choice of training weapon(other than the obvious hand protection) & how was it determined that Silver himself championed this style of sword?Thanks in advance for any responses.

Well, on another part of his work Silver also mentions that he doesn't want swords without complex hilts because he sees protection for the hand as a must-have for most swordsmen. So, putting this statement in context with the other one, he might be railing against full basket hilts or maybe schiavona hilts--although I don't know whether the former already existed in his lifetime.

Maybe it's based on situation? In duels, a complex hilt. In the field, a simple.

Or it could be having to do with the "Paradox".

M.

Steve illustrates a mortuary sword in his book, because his kit comes from his days doing 30 Years War and English Civil War reenactment - a few generations after Silver. The sword Silver is referring to is actually an earlier form of the basket hilt, which had really been around since the 1570s.

G.Alan Beck wrote:

Also in the rendered drawing of Silver,in the section on determining a persons perfect sword length,he is clearly holding a simple cruciform hilt sword.

Look again! The sword he is holding has straight quillons with a "half-basket" of three bars going across the back of the hand, as Kel says. I can see how that is a little obscured in a low-res Net image like this:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pics/paradox_stance.gif

But you can see this much more clearly in an actual scan of the image:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=ol...0#PPA28,M1

As others have already mentioned, Silver suggests that the hand is best protected by the new, full hilts, but otherwise you should wear a gauntlet. (Incidentally, Viggiani gives similar advice in 1570.) So it's a ... Paradox. ;) Realistically, if we want to reconcile those to pieces of advice for styles of combat - and Silver does NOT do that - then his worry about the hilt is more like aimed for self-defense, the basket for battle.

The system works with either hilt, but as he suggests, the hand is more vulnerable in true gardant if you don't have either a basket or a gauntlet.

Greg