I'm new to the forum here, and, having read the article on English swords 1600-1650, I was curious if any of y'all could recomend a good article that covers the period immediately before this...

Additionally, the article left me with a couple of questions:

1. What is the difference between a rapier and a riding sword?

2. What is the difference between a hunting sword and a hangar? (...seeing as the article lumped them together)

3. Where can I learn more about backswords? The article talked about their hilts but said little about their blades... and I've always associated backswords with later highland basket hilts, not the hilts displayed or the time period covered.

Thanks, and my apologies if these are dumb questions...

Welcome aboard!

I'm not an expert in the era you're asking about, but I would recommend the article on Forms of European Edged Weaponry in the featured content section as a good place to go next. It will help define some of the terms you mentioned.

hm, i`m a newbee, but there are my 5 cents (or was it 10 cents ? always having difficulties with english phrases)

1. i think, the difference between rapier and riding sword is the blade. a riding sword has a rapier`s hilt, but a massive blade.

2. i`m consistent with a.spanjer, a slightly difference might be, that hunting swords often were decorated with hunting scenes or hilts of antlers.

3. i always thought, the backsword, was only one-edged, with a flatened back, whereas "real" basket-hilts are double-edged.
although there are also english backswords without basket-hilt, that rather look like riding swords. a bit confusing.

mfg

Backsword-style blades appeared on many English and Continental hilt styles from about 1600 to 1750. They were particularly common on mortuary hilts of the ECW period, but examples can be seen on a huge variety of hilt styles, so the term "backsword" usually refers to the blade only.

I've moved this topic to the Historical Arms Talk forum.

Even though this topic is referencing an article on this site, since the actual discussion is about swords that are not in the article, I felt it was better placed here.

Well, thanks, Bill. Not that it clears things up, but it is often helpful to understand the parameters of the vagueness that we're left with...

I read over the definitions in the "Forms of European Edged Weapons" article and found that it didn't really tell me much of anything that I didn't know, but rather confirmed what I thought I knew and left the answers to my questions just as unanswered. I guess the bottom line is that much of the terminological ambiguities derive from the simple fact that modern historians are trying to put categories around something that was constantly fluid so that we can talk intelligently about it... but sometimes reality has this pesky way of leaking out from around the confines of human-created paradigms like runny jello oozing from a jello mold...

You mention that "side sword" is basically a "made-up term." What about the term "arming sword?" Is that kind of the same concept, or is it something different?

Is there such a thing as an Oakeshott-style typology for latter-style, complex-hilted swords? Or are complex-hilted swords, too, well, complex? If it doesn't exist and is possible, perhaps something should be created, if for no other reason, just to increase clarity of discussion among historians and enthusiasts?

In Oakeshott's "European Weapons and Armour" he has some very elemental typologies for German bastard hilts, Schiavona, some rapier hilts, and a few distinctly English hilt types. This book covers the period from ca. 1500 to 1800, and is fairly broad in coverage at the expense of depth.

--ElJay