I looked at teh ARMA manuels online too. The Golaith manuel shows what seems to be genuine two-handers. However, sometimes there can be a blurred line between what we commonly refer to as a zweihander and a hand-and-a-half sword. I do believe that the basic underlying principals that people such as Fiore and Silver talk about (balance, timing etc) would apply to the two-hander. I don't know specifically of judicial duels fought with these big swords , but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. At first one would think that using a 4-6 pound sword would be difficult and slow. Difficult maybe, but not necessarily slow. As someone mentioned above, great leverages can be generated with a long handle and with half-swording, the blade can be made shorter and faster when needed. What I was specifically wondering if the 2-handers actually used some moves or principals from polearms or a staff. This would seem sensible since the sword would be nearly as long as a staff.

Joel

I haven't really focussed on "true" two handers in my studies, but yes, according to period manuscripts, they do bridge that gap between polearm and sword.

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And I (like Anton said) am a bit confused by these terms and there actual looks and sices....

Aren't we all! The terminology is confusing because there really never was a universal terminology set in place. George Silver's two handed sword, for instance, is not one of the two-handers being discussed in this thread. Vadi's longsword is bigger than the typical hand and a half. They're all two handed swords, and yet they aren't all the same sword.

Greetings,

Is it just me, or do the swords on the Goliath manuscript resemble the swords mentioned in this post? What really leapt out at me was the short ricassos shown in both places.

Cheers,