[Scott Woodruff]

How common were swords with less than 60-65 cm blades during the 14th and 15th centuries? It seems that most students of the sword are more interested in larger more impressive swords, similarly, most museums are more likely to display the larger examples than weapons of less impressive stature. Is there a significant bias here? Period art is notoriously difficult to interpret, but it seems to me that many swords illustrated in 14th/15th century art are quite short. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any info related to medieval short/riding swords would be greatly appreciated.