| Author |
Message |
|
Sean Manning
|
|
  |
 |
|
Ryan S.
|
 Posted: Tue 28 May, 2024 6:43 am Post subject: |
 |
|
|
Don’t smallswords typically have triangular blades, similar to Panzerstechers? It seems that a blade type originally developed for penetrating armourer was adapted for unarmoured contexts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Wed 29 May, 2024 11:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ryan S. wrote: | | Don’t smallswords typically have triangular blades, similar to Panzerstechers? It seems that a blade type originally developed for penetrating armourer was adapted for unarmoured contexts. |
I don't know where blades with a medial ridge on just one side like a letter T instead of a plus sign + first appear. Photos in museums and catalogues usually only show one side of the blade.
www.bookandsword.com
|
|
|
|
|
Pedro Paulo Gaião
|
| Posted: Thu 30 May, 2024 1:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ryan S. wrote: | | Don’t smallswords typically have triangular blades, similar to Panzerstechers? It seems that a blade type originally developed for penetrating armourer was adapted for unarmoured contexts. |
Julian Ronenberger once showed me his photo of the Topikapi Museum, in Turkey, featuring a 16th-century unhilted triangular blade he says to be a rapier blade. I haven't paid much attention to the blade length, but it was a legit triangular blade. I can't remember of other rapiers having triangular blades, but they might exist as well.
MET`s collection has early smallswords that appeared at the same time as colichemarde`s variation (that is, 1680`s) featuring hexagonal blades.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27204
There`s a 1650-60`s piece with hilt decoration typical of a smallsword, including the hexagonal blade, but the 90.8cm long blade clearly denounces a rapier or "transitional rapier" configuration (when a branch of rapiers started getting shorter).
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22924
Early "true" smallsword from the same timeframe (1650-1660's)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22364
Transitional rapier from the 1650's:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27449
---
The fundamental difference between Colichemardes and normal smallswords (though they were called espadas roupeiras in Iberia just like what we call rapiers today; the term "espadim" is or was used to distinguish a smallsword from the rapier macro-category) was that the former was invented as a battlefield sword, the terço forte (or the strong third) being made thicker and wider. At the time this was justified as intended to parry sabers, avoiding the risk of breaking (as it happened earlier when Zweihanders opposed rapiers) and giving more confidence in parrying action.
(Edit: this might explain why some of these swords have Estoc/Panzerstecher's filet/ridges as in: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27135)
I'm not a reader of warfare after 1640/1660, so I have never seen any work dealing with smallswords being used in military context at later 17th century, but I suspect the colichemarde was invented when someone was trying to do this, and was a failure anyways (though it seens it kept being used regardless by someone at that time).
This year, when I visited Carlos' workshop, I asked him if the oversizing of the forte, which necessarily causes the thrust to be more powerful, was an unintended consequence, but he definitely believes it was an intended consequence alongside the parrying action. He disagrees with some of the conclusions of this article: https://core.ac.uk/reader/161102560
The reason why sabers were more dominant than smallswords in war has to do mainly with the fact that saber fencing is natural in any context, while smallsword fencing forces you to a more controlled action. You can't hit brutally and mindlessly with a smallsword, but any soldier can do that with a saber. At some point this could explain rapier unpopularity on war, or at least why military rapiers echoed the early rapier tradition by having wider blades.
Anyways, for an interesting timeline:
Early Rapier period: 1550's, but likely earlier (I will discuss that later)
Classical Rapier period: 1580's
Smallsword period: 1650-1660's
Colichemarde period: 1680's
Quitó period: 1700's
Quitó is a Portuguese exclusive sword to refer to a later type of smallswords of the early 18th century period, whose blade length was around 60-66cm. It was a very universal style, and the Portuguese apparently adopted the trend from France. But nowhere do I see a nomenclature to distinguish them from normal smallswords. Arya Stark's Needle, at least in the HBO show, is a Qutó by length (for a happy coincidence, some Quitós were reffered to as "Needle blades").
Beside the blade length, Quitós feature an uncomplex hilt, the most usual being simply a knuckle bow made out of small chains or rosary's beads.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quit%C3%B3
Like its predecessors, it feature civilian usage and had this whole flamboyant/swashbuckler culture at the Portuguese cities at that time, though a book I read says it co-existed with "Toledans" (meaning a rapier with a long-blade, around 105-125cm BL) and was sometimes used against them in real street duels. Some assassinations and coup attempts in 18th century Portugal were made with Quitós, including one that harmed the Marquis of Pombal in the streets of Lisbon.
What is interesting about smallswords is the fact that it's so light that becomes a very fast blade, compensating its short length. Carlos Cordeiro was talking about a duel footage of his friends, one with a rapier and the other with a smallsword, and smallswords were far from victims here: since it was faster than the rapier, a fencer could use the blade to beat the rapier out and give another hit to the rapierist before the rapierist himself could strike the enemy, or that the smallsword wielder could parry a rapier while turning his back to the enemy and them strike him (which is an actual smallsword fencing movement, despite HEMAistis thinking of it as dumb).
This eccoes the doctrine behind a "two-tempo" weapon and a "one-tempo" weapon that separates smallswords and rapiers, respectively.
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
Last edited by Pedro Paulo Gaião on Thu 30 May, 2024 1:25 am; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ryan S.
|
| Posted: Thu 30 May, 2024 10:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Sean Manning wrote: | | Ryan S. wrote: | | Don’t smallswords typically have triangular blades, similar to Panzerstechers? It seems that a blade type originally developed for penetrating armourer was adapted for unarmoured contexts. |
I don't know where blades with a medial ridge on just one side like a letter T instead of a plus sign + first appear. Photos in museums and catalogues usually only show one side of the blade. |
True, and if they have descriptions, it isn’t clear what kind of triangular cross-section it has. There are estocs with triangular blades that are equilateral with concave sides. Or are those considered three edged swords? I have a book that thankfully includes some drawings of cross-sections, because it describes two different blades as triangular.
The estoc in Philadelphia that you linked to is dated to early 1500s, so I would say that the t shaped ones are at least that old.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Fri 31 May, 2024 1:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
I don't know much about smallsword and spadroon blades. European sword blades of the 16th and 17th century seem like an open area for research, A.V.B. Norman focused on hilts. Daniel Parry's typology is for rapiers from the late sixteenth century onwards http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=37332
www.bookandsword.com
|
|
|
|
|
Pedro Paulo Gaião
|
| Posted: Fri 31 May, 2024 9:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
Some extra stuff on smallswords and quitós:
King D. Joao V made a law in 1713 stipulating it`s maximum blade length to be 3 palms (modern palm is 22.86cm, so it would be 68.58cm maximum). Apparently, it was also forbidden to carry a long bladed rapier (the Toledans) in streets. A source on that:
"...the patriarchal severity disappeared, manly customs were lost. D. João V, by putting foreign elements in the court, made it effeminate. The fashions of France, bringing grace and elegance in their clothes; big soldiery/military swords filled with Christ and legends (writings, generally religious, on the flat) were proscribed, they left them to rust at the bottom of old wooden chest, or in the corners of heavy Dutch wardrobes or at the bedside of nursing babies "to scare away the witches", - and they replaced the manly rapière by a tiny child's smallsword, as light as a toy, as expensive as a jewel, made more for courting than for killing, whose blade, according to the Johannine law of 1719, could not exceed three palms [...] that the jumping Frenchmen of the time of D. João V called - the “quitó”. In 1707, the Count of Coculim ordered a fashionable smallsword to D. Luís da Cunha, [living] in London, «the smaller the better». In 1720, by order of the magistrate of Rossio, the townguard's officers collected the last six-palm toledanas (22.86x6= 137.16cm, likely overall length) that man on disguise carried under their cloaks. The Spanish and Dutch greatswords (zweihanders?) were dead. Behind Frans Halls’ “man with the sword”, Watteau’s Gilles smiled, all in white. The reign of the “quitó” had begun."
Link: https://www.arqnet.pt/amoremportugal/quitos.html
Machado de Assis was recently translated to English, one of his fiction works talks about how the narrator received a smallsword when Napoleon was exiled to Elba (1814), noticing how it was bigger than "Napoleon's sword", whatever that exactly meant:
"When Napoleon's fall reached Rio de Janeiro, there was great reaction on our house [...] These days I got a new smallsword, given by my godfather, and frankly the smallsword was more interesting to me than Bonaparte's downfall [...] I couldn't stop thinking that our smallswords are always bigger than Napoleon's sword. " (Memórias Postumas de Bras Cubas)
He was eventually expelled from home because of his sword obsession.
-----
| Sean Manning wrote: | | I don't know much about smallsword and spadroon blades. European sword blades of the 16th and 17th century seem like an open area for research, A.V.B. Norman focused on hilts. Daniel Parry's typology is for rapiers from the late sixteenth century onwards http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=37332 |
I remember asking Julian material for rapier study, and he mentioned what you are saying about the only published study about was on hilt typology. I think I have a bunch of material to discuss about artistic and extant evidence on early rapiers and sideswords. I was revisiting Luca Signorelli's painting to find Cognot's inspiration for his pair of 1490's sideswords.
I think the only real thing that impedes Signorelli's artwork from being reffered to as early rapiers is the fact that these early swords were of hexagonal cross-section, or implied to be, while the unquestionable early rapiers everyone agrees are all 1550's diamond section swords wider than most of these historically accurate 1480-1530 sideswords.
If in 1480's Signorelli represents slim swords with a pair of finger-rings, and nothing else, by the 1490's his swords get both knuckle-bows and a sidering from the finger-rings. And while it's claimed such complex hilts were used in Italy for civilian contexts, Signorelli puts them in armoured and unarmoured figures, though they lacked gauntlets and vambraces in cases such as the St. Benedict's frescoes (while wearing cuirasses, leg harness and mail sleeves reaching the elbows). I still have to study them more, and check if he actually represented side rings without knuckle-bows
------
| Ryan S. wrote: | Is it possible that the rapier started off as a cavalry sword? I am thinking about this for a few reasons:
1. Reitschwert, meaning riding sword is used synonymously with sidesword, which is a modern word for a rapier that is less rapier-like. |
When I googled abou it the name "Seitschwert" was applied to sideswords. I guess it was a spelling mistake because one German word refers to side, while Ritter refers to rider or cavalryman.
Anyways, what Bjorn article on Gustav Vasa Rapier teaches is that 16th-century Swedish words for rapiers were local adaptations for "Stossdegen", and the Royal Armouries of Sweden describe rapiers as simply "varja", or sword. I dont think Seitschwert was ever used historically for rapiers or sideswords.
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ryan S.
|
| Posted: Fri 07 Jun, 2024 12:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: |
| Ryan S. wrote: | Is it possible that the rapier started off as a cavalry sword? I am thinking about this for a few reasons:
1. Reitschwert, meaning riding sword is used synonymously with sidesword, which is a modern word for a rapier that is less rapier-like. |
When I googled abou it the name "Seitschwert" was applied to sideswords. I guess it was a spelling mistake because one German word refers to side, while Ritter refers to rider or cavalryman.
Anyways, what Bjorn article on Gustav Vasa Rapier teaches is that 16th-century Swedish words for rapiers were local adaptations for "Stossdegen", and the Royal Armouries of Sweden describe rapiers as simply "varja", or sword. I dont think Seitschwert was ever used historically for rapiers or sideswords. |
I am pretty sure that Seitschwert comes from English Sidesword and is only used in modern HEMA. Both are said to come from the Italian "Spada da Lado". Paurenfeindt mentions Reitschwerter in his Fechtbuch, but only to say he doesn’t cover it. That suggests that it was different from long sword. However, since long sword is a technique, then maybe Reitschwert just means mounted sword fighting?
|
|
|
|
|
Pedro Paulo Gaião
|
| Posted: Sat 08 Jun, 2024 4:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
There's some new stuff I want to share:
Gregório Lopes has a number of artwork around 1536-1541 depicting interesting advances in complex hilts:
O Martírio de São Sebastião, by Gregorio Lopes, dated 1536-1538.
The longbowmen's sword has a knuckle bow (apparently introduced in Portugal in 16th century), a sidering on the viewer's side and some lacing (laço) on the opposite, but the perspective doesnt tell us where they go.
The ressurection of Christ by Gregório Lopes, dated 1539-1541.
This one seens weird tom me,almost as if the caravel guard was introduced during a renovation
This is an early work by him, Paradise Altarpiece, dated 1523: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Greg%C3%B3rio_lopes_%28o_jorge_leal%29%2C_retablo_del_paradiso%2C_1523_circa%2C_01.jpg
Besides a horned sword/sword of double guards similar to the late 15th century ones in Spain (painting on the left), there's this one:
It seens all complex hilted swords where at first of the sidesword style: wider (c. 3.5-3.8cm) and barely tapering. Which means that rapier hilts appeared earlier than rapier blades.
Notable mention, however, to the two handed longsword printed in 1540, about the Portuguese Discovery at Ethiopia:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Francisco_Alvares_%27The_Prester_John_of_the_India%27_%28Ho_Preste_Joam_das_Indias%29_%28CBL_Rare_Books_AA602%2C_Title_Page%29.jpg
Iberians, but especially the Portuguese, seens to have been more interesting in adding complex hilt features of lighter, one handed swords, into two handed swords (I can remember of the Pseudo Vasco da Gama montante at Lisbon, the 1640 Reconquest of Bahia depicting a montante with a pappenheimer guard etc)
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Sat 08 Jun, 2024 5:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ryan S. wrote: | | However, since long sword is a technique, then maybe Reitschwert just means mounted sword fighting? |
AFAIK that is only technical German fencing jargon. In medieval languages, a long sword generally means a sword which is long ie. great in length.
There are lots of inventories, wills, etc. with riding swords next to other types of swords. I wonder when a riding sword / Reitschwert / spada da cavallo is a "light, easy-wearing sword to wear when you ride to the next town" and when it is a "long, heavy cavalry sword."
Edit: When Andre Paurenfeyndt says "DAS Erst capitel lernd wieman phfortayl prauchen sol im langen schwerdt welchs gnuczt wirt mit payden henden, als sthlachtschwerdt, reydtschwerdt triecker und ander vil mer, die ich von kurcz wegen aus las." I think he means long sword in the technical fencing sense of "the sword used with both hands on the hilt" and then Schlachtschwert, Reitschwert, Dreiecker are examples of "the long sword, which is used with both hands." So in Austria in 1516 a Reitschwert could be what we call a longsword.
www.bookandsword.com
Last edited by Sean Manning on Mon 10 Jun, 2024 1:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Sun 09 Jun, 2024 11:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Sydney Anglo points to Paulus Hector Mair's early illustrations of swords called Rappieren
The blades in the illustrations to his treatise are of moderate length and width and four-sided but they might be 'rapier foils' https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Paulus_Hector_Mair
A broad flat blade like Pedro's examples would definitely behave differently than something like the 'Munich Town Guard group' even if the hilts were the same.
www.bookandsword.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Wed 12 Jun, 2024 12:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ryan S. wrote: | | I am pretty sure that Seitschwert comes from English Sidesword and is only used in modern HEMA. Both are said to come from the Italian "Spada da Lado". Paurenfeindt mentions Reitschwerter in his Fechtbuch, but only to say he doesn’t cover it. That suggests that it was different from long sword. However, since long sword is a technique, then maybe Reitschwert just means mounted sword fighting? |
The Grimm brothers mention a sixteenth-century term die Seitenwehr "sidearm" which might be equivalent to Italian spada da lato, but one of their examples says that servants should wear either a two-handed Seitenwehr or a Rapier, so a Seitenwehr was not necessarily a medium-sized one-handed sword https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=DWB&lemid=R00727 Picking out period meanings for different words is tough, especially when those words have modern meanings too. I don't know when the term Rapier originates or what kind of sword it meant at the beginning.
www.bookandsword.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ryan S.
|
| Posted: Wed 12 Jun, 2024 5:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
In Altenburg castle, there is a long sword said to have belonged to Kunz von Kauffungen who was behind the kidnapping of the princes. The museum calls it a Reitschwert.
This article, which I haven’t fully read yet also deals with Reitschwerter in context from long swords. https://www.schwertkampf-ochs.de/essays/aufsatz_langesschwert_v1.pdf
I wonder if Seitenwehr means something like a Katzenbalger. I have read that Katzenbalger were referred to in formal sources as Degen or Wehr.
The first known instance of the word "rapier" is 1474 in France according to Jan Sach. The first reference to the rapier in English is 1538 according to https://www.bakerspeel.com/english-rapier-timeline/ Thrusting swords for war weren’t really new at the time, but I believe both Silver and Meyer say that thrusting used to be banned in fencing. This is also around the time that trial by combat started to be banned.
|
|
|
|
|
Pedro Paulo Gaião
|
| Posted: Wed 12 Jun, 2024 12:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Sean Manning wrote: | Sydney Anglo points to Paulus Hector Mair's early illustrations of swords called Rappieren
The blades in the illustrations to his treatise are of moderate length and width and four-sided but they might be 'rapier foils' https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Paulus_Hector_Mair. |
Besides some non-literal translations (the Latin Munich 1540 features a lot of references to Spain that disappear in the translation, like rapiers being "spanish swords" and talking about the fencing method of spaniards and italians), the figures themselves are somewhat less clear than in other rapier manuals, they alternate from what we call today as sideswords to mortuary swords, but all seen to be used for cuts.
Some of Mair's Rappier don't even have complex guards, which reminds me of uncomplex guard-rapiers seem in Federico Ghisliero (1587):
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1179594796750141&set=a.731921028184189
Then, I discovered Mair/Meyer also has some moderatedly complex guards in "rapier G section":
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2935897269771305&set=a.479932338701156
While it does make sense to have less complexity in a sword used with a buckler, I suspect these were practice rapiers, as no uncomplex rapier seens to have survived.
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Wed 12 Jun, 2024 4:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: | | While it does make sense to have less complexity in a sword used with a buckler, I suspect these were practice rapiers, as no uncomplex rapier seens to have survived. |
I think most people would agree that Joachim Meyer's artist tries to carefully depict practice weapons such as wooden daggers or rapier foils, but Daniel Parry owns a sharp straight 17th century narrow-bladed sword and dagger with just a side ring. Because "rapier" has no agreed-on definition, people often decide that swords of the 16th or 17th century with simple hilts are not rapiers, but that is just their own personal way of using language.
http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=373...;start=132
www.bookandsword.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ryan S.
|
| Posted: Thu 13 Jun, 2024 4:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I found a reference to rapiers in a military context. In reading an account of the Battle of Mühlberg (1547) written by Hans Baumann, a German in service of the Duke of Alba, Spanish soldiers put rapiers in their mouths as they swim across the river. From the context, it seems most likely that the Spanish soldiers were arquebusiers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anthony Clipsom
Location: YORKSHIRE, UK Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 333
|
| Posted: Thu 13 Jun, 2024 6:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
The OED gives first English language use in 1503
For gilt hilt and plomet to the rappyer and ane new scheith to it.
in J. B. Paul, Accounts of Treasurer of Scotland (1900) vol. II. 224
Anthony Clipsom
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ryan S.
|
| Posted: Thu 13 Jun, 2024 1:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Anthony Clipsom wrote: |
The OED gives first English language use in 1503
For gilt hilt and plomet to the rappyer and ane new scheith to it.
in J. B. Paul, Accounts of Treasurer of Scotland (1900) vol. II. 224 |
Thanks. Since George Silver was born in the 1550s, the term was around for sometime before he was born, and could have already changed its meeting before he wrote Paradoxes of Defence.
I have read the full essay from Tilman Wanke and I believe the idea that could be most revolutionary plays a small part in it. It implies that Messer was used to refer to a sword used with one hand. Plenty have noticed that German sources refer to sideswords as Rapiers and longswords as just Swords. This suggests that for the Germans, that a normal sword, was a long sword. Maybe this was because single edged Messers had become the typical one-handed sword? So maybe Rapier meant one-handed sword, at least until it was replaced by Degen. Although, at the beginning it probably meant a specific type. Apparently, the term "spanishes Schwert" was also used.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Fri 14 Jun, 2024 12:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
I like the idea that rapiers started out as "Spanish or Italian swords" and changed from short broad blades to long narrow blades as swords in Italy and Spain changed, although Latin writers like Paulus Hector Mair might be showing off classical learning when they say "Spanish sword" ("the ancient Romans used the Spanish sword, and we moderns do too"). Can not embed link with url tag so
| Code: | | https://www.academia.edu/726930/_Gladius_Hispaniensis_an_archaeological_view_from_Iberia_ |
www.bookandsword.com
|
|
|
|
|
Pedro Paulo Gaião
|
| Posted: Fri 14 Jun, 2024 11:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
Revisting the post I took some stuff to answer:
| Ryan S. wrote: | | Interesting. Do you have more data on the length of rapiers over time? In Europäische Hieb und Stich Waffen it says that the length helped infantry to be able to reach riders |
That's weird claim because Dutch Rondassiers appear with normal or conservative complex hilts, as in here:
Spanish Tercio rodeleros (or officers fighting as rodeleros), appear either with Terzado swords (the name comes from a blade that's 2/3 the length of a normal sword) and heavy sabers, in the manga's van (a manga/sleeve is a block of firearms in the corners of the tercio block). Some paintings of the battles in Dutch Brazil also depicts rodeleiros with minimally complex swords, normal length of around 80-90cm. For the tercios:
The Portuguese Crown on how long a rapier was allowed to be: The ordinances of 1539 and 1557 limit the overall length of a "sword" (here meaning one handed swords, as montantes were way bigger than that) was 5 palms (given by an historian to be exactly 22cm, thus giving 110cm OAL). Take some 5cm for pommel, 7-10cm for grip and you get around the length of early rapiers such as Charles V and Gustav I's. D. Sebastião revision in 1565 changes that for 110cm BLADE LENGTH only.
The interesting part is that early laws were clearly thought from the civilian context, as it proclaims officers in cities, villages etc would confiscate these weapons, put the offenders in jail and give a substantial fine to be paid. While the later laws mention the soldiers were complaining they were under disadvantage because foreign enemies had longer "swords"; I suspect this is an early evidence for how rapiers were becoming longer and longer as we get to the 1580's. MET has a 1575-1580's rapier with an impressive 120,7cm BL
It's wide enough (some 3cm?) to be used in war, I guess
-----
I found this discussion in an older post that gives the actual favourite Gustav Adolph's sword,
Blade Length: 880mm (88cm)
Blade Width: 35mm
OAL: 1077mm (107,7cm)
Weight: 1,740kg
https://samlingar.shm.se/object/E0EFA5CA-2250-42BA-B49A-4C1C27349E49
This was certainly intended or classifiable as a war rapier in the 17th century, or in the spectrum as the Munich Townsguard sword. Meaning that instead of "early rapiers" disappearing, classical rapiers and the evolution of warfare pushed them to a war context. I'm not aware of any laws of sword width, but they would be way more opressive/useful in cities than slimmer rapiers (which is one of the explanations given for why Munich's so wide: to give the guards an advantage over civilians in fights)
| Ryan S. wrote: | | 3. The Polish Koncerz is similar to a rapier, especially a "true rapier" in that it is a long thrust dedicated weapon. In fact, it is longer and more thrust oriented.. |
By the way, do we have any datation for when Koncerz appear? I mean, very long blades that doesnt have a fillet/ridge in the flat, like Estocs (what we call Estocs today)?
| Vincent Le Chevalier wrote: | | More hand protection is always good, of course, but I don't think the fingering actually has so much to do with thrusting (mark that the koncerz do not have finger rings, either). |
I thought the finger around the index was intended to help align the point to where you want it. I'm not aware of any rapier manual or school that doesnt use the index even when the rapier has longer grips.
| Sean Manning wrote: | | A broad flat blade like Pedro's examples would definitely behave differently than something like the 'Munich Town Guard group' even if the hilts were the same. |
Which is the reason why is despise rapier typology on hilts rather than blades. A sword like the one used by Jean de Vallete in the Siege of Malta is simply a normal 16th-century sword with complex guard. Since it's not diamond section, it would cut even better than the Munich. I can't remember who made Grand Master Jean's reproduction, but here's the original used in the siege:
https://timesofmalta.com/article/Copy-of-the-real-de-Valette-sword-again-used-in-battle-.474176
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum
|
This is a standard topic