Hi all,
I was invited to a medieval gathering.
With some friends, known at that time, we talked about POB.
swords for type XIII I said that I had a POB to about 120-130 mm. by the guard.
Almost everyone has challenged this measure. Their reasons are:
1) Only the cavalry swords were so heavy towards the tip.
2) It would not be acceptable for a combat sword so unbalanced.
3) a sword is slow, not suitable to the school of medieval fencing.
I am not a student of medieval fencing. I do not know almost nothing of fencing. My questions:
A sword is suitable for the cutting can be balanced as if it were otherwise?
Who teaches a school of medieval fencing should not respect the characteristics of that use? The air versatility of a sword to be considered respecting the use for which it was built in ancient times?
Reflections ...

Simple measurements like that don't tell anything.

How long is the blade? how wide is the blade? how is the mass distributed? What is its purpose? What are the targets it will face? how will it be used?

A balance point of 4.5-5" on a 37" long blade is quite a different thing than the same balance point on a 31" long, 1.5" wide blade and even on a 31" long, 2" wide blade.

We all must always consider a sword as a whole and not by any single statistic or measurement.

I'm not sure if I understand you well -

Are your friends suggesting that PoB/CoG 130mm from guard means that sword is too blade heavy?

By that logic almost all medieval swords are completely unbalanced. (See Albions for example).

This might sound like a generalisation but I have found that blade length has far greater affect than POB and weight with regards to handling chatacteristics that are particularly associated with speed.

The shortest sword I have owned was the Sovereign, it was heavier than other longer single handers I have owned, but much quicker. POB also has to be considered from the point of view of employment of the sword. Some XIX's in production have POB's around 5", but as soon as the finger is looped over the guard through the finger rings this effectively brings the POB back by about 1". The more I handle swords, the more I am lead to believe POB is a by product not a goal.

120-130mm is not unbalanced. If the POB ends up being too close to the hilt I would imagine you would have no feel for the blade when striking. Not many swords appear to have a POB less than 100mm. Very few that I can note. I have owned a very fast sword with a POB of 127mm.

Maurizio, is the sword in question an antique or based on research of historical examples? If not then it is simply someones version of what they think a XIII should be and may not truly represent the type..

Maurizio, the discussion is different from that you think.
1) single hand sword: POB into the guard.
2) one and half sword: the key of volta is the "posta". you must remember the "posta finestra". The POB is in middle of your eyes. You remember how i grip the sword into posta finestra. the distance from pob to guard is >= the distance from nose to ear.
into middle of your eyes the propagation of power must be 0 ergo POB.
I hope to be clear. Sorry for my poor english.

bye

Point of balance is only part of how a sword handles. The other is moment of inertia (rotational inertia).

Take for example, two swords with similar weights, lengths and balance points.

One has a thick ricasso and sharp profile and distal tapers. The other has a thinner ricasso but stays broad and thick towards the tip. The one with the broad tip will feel heavier and be slower to rotate due to the increased mass towards the tip.

This thread over at SFI has a good discussion of the concept: http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=51519

(edited to correct technical error discussed below)

An XIII with a POB 2 inches from the guard seems off to me, these swords have quite parallel edges, and are meant for shearing blows, that is better achieved with a blade heavier sword.

Back in the early days of European martial arts, when schlager blades became available and began to supplant modified epees as rapier simulators, people said that you couldn't do disengages or cavazziones with them. The problem was epee techniques don't work for schlagers. Now we do disengages routinely with practice rapiers.

Similarly, your friends may think swords with POBs 100 mm from the cross are poorly balanced simply because they haven't figured out how to use them yet.

Maybe we've passed talking about XIII's, but I recently bought an ATrim sword of that type. Almost everyone on this forum would agree that Gus Trim knows how to make and balance a blade. Some of its statistics in mm -

Overall length - 1010 mm
Blade length - 775 mm (30.5 in)
Blade width - 60.33 mm
POB - 114.3 mm (4.5 in)
weight - 1.19 kg

It has almost no profile taper, but its broad, flat blade has plenty of distal taper.

If the POB was closer to the guard, this sword would lose its authority and point control. The distribution of the blade geometry via the distal taper pushes the POB further down the blade. This sword had great maneuverability especially with 2 hands. It is not at all blade heavy and may be the most finely balanced of all my swords.

Maurizio, are your friends reenactors using reanactment swords? That type often has little or no distal taper with thick rounded edges to give it more durabilty. To bring the weight back towards the guard, a heavier pommel is then added, resulting in a very short POB.