Does anyone know anything about these unusual swords in the Vadi Manual..."Gladitoria", etc. They seem to have a spear tip and a spike-pommel with sharp or very pointy cross guards. After I enlarged the image, I could clearly see coventional binding on the grips. I couldnt find any reference to these specificaly in the Vadi text. I have recently finished going through all the pages in this 'Historic Arms' forum and I cant remember seeing anything on these, but I could have easily missed it as there are so many postings.
Does anyone know of any surviving originals ? Has anyone made one of these ? What are they called ? All the other weapons in the illustrations seem to be conventional fighting arms and not for Judicial combat or Tourney.
If anyone has any other reference, text, illustrations or photos it would be greatly appreciated.
I value all replies and your input. Thank you !!

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You'll find similar weapons (albeit not that strange) in Talhoffer. Some of the swords depicted in the Thott edition feature nasty spike-crossguards as well as pommels made for stabbing.
I really doubt that that such weapons were used very often, even in duels. These are really specialized weapons, not suited for the battle-field or similar activities ;)

There are (as far as I know) only a few surviving examples of specialized swords for armoured duelling and tournaments.And these don't look like the swords depicted in the manuals.
Here's one of these babys:

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16th century tournament sword

Wolfgang,

Could you possibly give me a reference for that picture? I'm very interested to learn more about these "tournament" swords. :D If you have pictures of any others examples I'd love to see them.

Wonderful, that thread looks like it'll make a very helpful read. I appreciate you finding it for me. :)

I find these swords to be very pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

And I found another reference in my Sword file under 'Foot-Tourney'.........

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PS.......Why would a foot-tourney sword have a rain-guard ? That is a rain guard on the bottom drawing isnt it ? Did they have scabbards for these swords ?

Merv, those swords depicted in Vadi are specialized weapons for judicical combat.

Best regards,

Wolfgang and Merv, thanks for those cool attachments. Talk about something you could definitely half-sword with! :p They certainly do look like something that Talhoffer would come up with.