[Harry J. Fletcher]

After posting a picture of my display of a Shamshir and Reeve I received a reply that the Shamshir was a little too late for use during the crusades. From what I can unravel the scimitar was term used to encompass the Abrab Saif, the Turkish Kalij, and the Shamshir. The Seljuk Turks brought a curved sword from central asia which was the Kalij which mirrored the Shamshir of Persia except that the Kalij blade was not quite as deeply curved and had a wider blade for the final 1/3 of the blade with a false edge called a selman that aided in cutting.

We know from accounts that the armies that confronted the crusaders were mainly lightly armoured and armed which gave moslem army excellent mobility. They preferred to harrass the crusaders with missiles or rather arrows from their mounted archers and entice them into a trap. Mobile cavalry of this type from the east tended to favor a curved sword for slashing which was suited to their style of warfare.

Before the Turkish migration to the region the arabs and indigenous population used a sword called a Kandar or a straight bladed single edged sword. the Persian word for sword is Shamshir, a single edged sword either straight or curved. I believe that there is little difference between a Shamshir which may likely have been in use during the crusading period along with the Kalij and also the Arabic Saif which is basically a Shamshir with a shallow curved blade. The Egyptians adopted the Saif and used it for centuries and it was used across North Africa. During the American seige of Tripoli and the aftermath Marine Officers were awarded the Mameluke sword which is really the Saif. English General Officers have traditionally called a version of the Saif since 1805.

the first picture is a drawing of a a classic Bayezid Turkish Kalij. and thesecond picture is of an Arab Saif while the third pic is of a Shamshir. The fifth picture is of swords in the Istanbul museum mose of which are Kalij but the far one resembles a very heavy cutting sword like a Christian Falchion. The final picture is of the Mameluke sword.

I welcome any comments, additions, discussion since this is a most fascinating subject.

Regards,

Harry

[Tibor Szebenyi]

As far as I know the Persian "shamshir", the Arab "saif" and the Turkish "kilij" (or kilic) means simply saber, nothing more. Today a lot of people say that the Ottoman saber from the 18th cent., with strongly curved blade, T-cross section, and significant yelman is THE kilij. And an elegant saber from Persia is THE shamshir. It would be better to call all of theese scimitars or sabers in English and not to distinguish them according to names which mean the same weapon. If You visit a Turkish museum like this: http://museum.velizariy.kiev.ua/turkey/istambul_ma2/index.html You can see, that every sword is kilic there. Even the straight European ones.

So instead of the names You should look for the evolution of theese weapons. Just read the labels under the sabers on that link! During the first(second, third) crusade the "saracens" used straight swords, then, as You wrote sabers appeared with the Turks and trade also went on. The hilt which You can see on that Marine Officer saber is called mamluk-hilt, but a lot of Persian, Ottoman and even Hungarian saber have this kind of hilt. The T-cross section, strong yelman (or selman, or elman) and very curved blade appeared later, when the Ottoman Empire was at its peak, covering a large area, so the sabers from there were kilic.

Today the terms shamshir, saif, kilic mean definite types, but as far as I see, theese are later versions, from the 18-19th cent. (or even used today in some countries) so if You go back to the time of the first crusade (by the way which Crusade do You think of? It does matter. ) don't stick to thoose stereotypes!

[Jean Henri Chandler]

one good point to take away is that the sabers were not widely in use until the 15th or 16th Century, well after the Crusades.

The only saber in use as far as i know around the 11th -13th Century were Chinese Dao and variants thereof from Central and Eastern Asia.

J

[Luka Borscak]

Also, arab straight swords were usually double edged, not single edged.

[Naully Nicolas]

good posting.

But I was wondering if we were able to see one-and-half scimitar or straight swords at that time ?

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Actually, curved swords were fairly widely used in the Middle East at the time of the Crusades--just not by the people we usually associate with the name "Saracens" (Arabs, Kurds, Egyptians, Syrians, and the like). The Turks, on the other hand, had been using curved swords for quite some time before the Crusades, and remember that they held a substantial chunk of the northeastern corner of the Crusading theatre. What we need to emphasize here is that the Islamic polities and cultures opposing the Crusaders were not a single, monolithic group, but rather a number of distinct cultural and political groups that fought among themselves as much as they fought the Crusaders. Even their battlefield tactics differed. The classic image of the Muslim horse archer is that of a Turk, whose army consisted largely of such light horse archers with a tougher core of armored heavy horse archers relying on the lance and bow. Kurds and Arabs relied on the lance and sword instead, though they tended to be a bit lighter than the "Franks" in terms of equipment. However, the Ayyubid polity that became the later Crusaders' principal foes--and their Mamluk successors--combined the fighting styles of the various ethnicities they gathered under their empire, and the mainstay of their army was a version of the Turkic heavy horse archer, armed with lance and bow, with substantial quantities of armor upon the man and often some form of armor for the horse as well (usually a quilted barding); it'd be safe to say that these horsemen copied the heaviest end of the Turkic heavy horse spectrum and substituted local straight-bladed swords for the Turkic scimitar.

So there. The Arabs didn't make much use of the saber until the Ottoman Turks conquered the area and set the military fashion for the whole place starting in the 15th and 16th centuries. But the Turks themselves had been using curved swords all along. It's just that before they became the arbiters of fashion, the people who were in the Middle East before them (most notably Arabs and Kurds) didn't want to adopt their fashions too much for fears of being seen as "barbarianizing" themselves, including in terms of the curved sword. The Turkic heavy horse panoply, on the other hand, could become popular because the "civilized" Muslims at that time had another precedent for it in the form of the Persian asavaran / asawira heavy cavalry that they admired so much (and whose system they probably combined with the Turks' to create the Mamluk hybrid).

[Samuel Bena]

Nice post Lafayette! , very educational as usual

Would you also happen to know, if the Arab and Kurdish warriors rode with shorter stirrups (central Asian style) or if they instead "rode long" like period European men-at-arms? It seems to me that this distinction is also important... if not more than the superficial "weight" of a rider ( iirc some of the period central Asian scale/lamellar harness seems more complete , and thus more "heavy" than the European coat-of-mail).


Apologies for diverting the topic a bit ,

Cheers,
Samuel

[Erdeniz S]

First off, hi everyone as this is my first post here. Been a lurker for some years but this is my first contribution.

Being a Turk myself, I want to give a few firsthand insight.

Now, I've never heard any mention of "Kalij" anywhere, it is known as "Kilij" in West. Turkish word is "Kılıç" and it, as Tibor mentioned, basically means "Sword". But, Kilij, Saif, Shamshir, all basically meaning sword in their respective languages, really came to respond to specific types of swords (well more like sabers) in time, just like "Katana" (which too, basically means sword in Japanese).

Even though Ottoman Kilij, with it's distinctive yelman, is known more with late samples from 17th, 18th or even later centuries, types that were less radically curved yet still including yelman were around much earlier, as it was mentioned here on this forum. Turkish military tradition, as mentioned here in earlier posts, was always mainly consisted of light / medium cavalry, for which curved chopping swords were more useful. And last two pictures showing U.S. Military "Mameluke" sword, while indeed been inspired from Ottoman swords, and there was similar authentic Ottoman swords, is not what is called a "Kilij" today, they are very late military swords, and they had a way less curve then traditional Kilij. Also, they lacked a yelman.

So... I'd say that type "Kilij" as it is known today, do not only respond to late types, and even exclude some late Ottoman swords.

Also, Tibor provided a link of photos from "Harbiye Military Museum", stating that all swords there are labeled "Kilij" even European ones. It is a magnificent museum, I was there two months ago and they really have a very nice collection, also my homecity İstanbul (even though i am not living there for last 14 years) is very beautifu, and I would recommend this museum and İstanbul city to anyone who's looking for a holiday. But... as embarassing as it is to say for me, labels of items there were simply bad. There were many items mislabeled (such as an Italian Schiavona labeled as a "German Sword" or rapiers labeled as "Swords" etc). I have seen such mistakes even in modern pieces as, a heavy .30 caliber Browning M1919 from WW2 was labeled as "Sub Machine Gun", and a Bergmann MP-18 was labeled as a Sten.

I'd say, during most of Crusades, greater majority of Muslim armies used straight double edged swords. As far as I know, Persians had curved and slender Shamshir before Arab people. But Turkish people used curved swords much earlier.

Also, some Turcoman warriors, who were still pagans, fought alongside crusaders against Arab and Persian peoples, as far as I know. So we might say, sometimes in Crusades, Eastern side used mostly straight swords, and Western side and their allies used straight swords + falchions + perhaps early kilijs

I think in time, late curved Shamshir came to symbolize Islamic Crescent, and straight European sword with quillons came to symbolize Christian Cross. And that's the reason they're pictured this way in late artwork.

As a last note, I do not want to sound like a subjective patriot minded person who thinks their cultures [put item here] are superiour to anything else . I think there is no such thing as "best sword type", and personally I would take European Longsword or Sidesword over anything, anyday

Just wanted to add my two cents, cheers.

[Harry J. Fletcher]

Mr. Erdeniz S. you are quite it is Kilij and not Kalij as I misspelled it. Thank you for pointing this out. Since you are close to the Topaki Museum in Istanbul, could you find some swords ( if they aren't mislabeled) that were used by the Turks against the 1st and 2nd Crusaders and post pictures of them? From my understanding, the curved sword was more advantageous to a horseman than a straight sword blade. And I agree with you that not all Saracen members of the various Turkish armies that faced the crusaders used curved swords. Since the turks migrated from the cacausas and curved swords were in use there one could say that they brought the curved sword with them. Saladin was a Visier in Egypt to Nur Ad Din's father and succeeded Nur ad Din as the ruler after he married his widow. As Egypt had been conquered by the Nur ad Din's father and Saladin's father was a Vizier to him until he died. Saladin became the Vizier in Egypt and to Nur Ad Din. The point I am making is that Turkish arms must have been brought into Egypt with the forces of the various Turkish armies and thus the Kilij was used and evolved into the Mameluke sword over time. Gradual changes are hard to pinpoint as to exactly when they started to occur so this led to confusion about the types of swords used in the Latin Crusading period.



regards,
Harry

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Shahril Dzulkifli]

What do I have here is a Turkish sword from the Ottoman period and I am not sure whether it's a Shamshir or Kiliç if you look at its blade. Can somebody tell me what type of sword is this? I just want to know.

[Tibor Szebenyi]

It is a kilij AND it is a shamshir. And it is a szablya. And a sabla. And a sabre.

[Samuel Bena]

[Tibor Szebenyi]

[Samuel Bena]

[Michael Curl]

Tibor, it looks like the armour in second row far left is not riveted, is that true?

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Shahril Dzulkifli]

Tibor, I think that sword photo don't look like a Kiliç if you look at its blade. To me I'll call it a scimitar because not all these swords have slender blades. Some scimitars also have thick, curved blades if I am correct.

[Samuel Bena]