Backsword
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A backsword is a type of European sword characterized as having a straight single edged blade and a hilt with a single handed grip.[1] It is so called because the triangular cross section gives a flat back edge opposite the cutting edge.[2]Later examples often have a "false edge" on the back near the tip, which was in many cases sharpened to make an actual edge and facilitate thrusting attacks.
Being easier and cheaper to make than double-edged swords they became the favored sidearm of common infantry.[2] From around the early 14th century the backsword became the first type of European sword to be fitted with a knuckle guard.[2]
The term refers more specifically to early modern European weapons, usually straight, and typically with complex protective hilts as used in George Silver's manuscripts.[3] It can also refer to the singlestick, which is used to train for fighting with the backsword, or to the sport or art of fighting in this fashion.[4]
Backswords were often the secondary weapons of European cavalrymen beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.[1] Though some claim the weapon's name was derived from the practice of slinging the weapon in a scabbard behind the trooper's back while riding in order to prevent it from clanging against his or the horse’s side as they galloped, this is incorrect. It is simply a reference to the flat "back" or "spine" of the unsharpened edge. Cavalry armed with a sword carried them either slung from the waist or attached to the saddle, as common sense and a little practice demonstrates that wearing the blade down the back would make the weapon very difficult to draw, and could at worst lead to a very nasty cut or the loss of an ear.
Backswords were also carried by some infantrymen, including irregulars like the Highland Scots, who likewise wore them slung from the hip, most often in an across-the-shoulder baldric or sword belt. In Scottish Gaelic, they are called "claidheamh cuil" (back sword), one of several terms for distinct types of weapons they used. (For more information on this topic, see Claymore.)
Examples of backswords
- Some Basket-hilted swords, including some basket hilt Claymores
- Cutlass
- Sabre
- Szabla
References
- ^ a b "Forms of European Edged Weaponry". MyArmoury.com.
- ^ a b c Loades, Mike (2010). Swords and Swordsmen. Great Britain: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84884-133-8.
- ^ "Historical Manuals". The Company for Historical Combat.
- ^ Allanson-Winn, R. G. (1890). Broadsword and Single-stick. London: George Bell.
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- Dwelly's Illustrated Gaelic to English Dictionary. Glasgow: Gairm Publications, 1988, p. 202
- Culloden: the swords and the sorrows. Glasgow: The National Trust for Scotland, 1996
Further reading
- Włodzimierz Kwaśniewicz, Leksykon broni białej i miotającej, Warsaw: Varsavia, 2003.
- Pierre Goubert & Maarten Ultee, The Course of French History, London: Routledge, 1991.
- Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, Oxford: Blackwell, 1984 ISBN 0-631-13142-6
- R. G. Allanson-Winn & C. Phillipps-Wolley, Broad-sword and Single-stick: with chapters on quarter-staff, bayonet, cudgel, shillalah, walking-stick, umbrella, and other weapons of self-defence (All-England Series.) London: George Bell, 1890.