Classification of swords
The English-language terminology used in the classification of swords is imprecise, and has varied widely over time, with terms such as "great sword", "long sword", "short sword", and "two-handed sword" being used to describe weapons with no particular relation to one another. Some of these terms originate contemporarily with the weapon they refer to, others are modern or early modern terms used by antiquarians for historical swords.
Terminology was further complicated by terms introduced in 19th-century medievalism, and in 20th-century pop culture (sword and sorcery, role playing games etc.)
A systematic typology of blade types of the European medieval sword is known as the Oakeshott typology.
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[edit] Size or shape
Terms classifying swords as "great", "long", "broad", "small" or "short" are often used within a certain context and may be ambiguous.
[edit] Great sword
The term great sword or greatsword is a relatively modern term used to refer to any large sword, but particularly to an example of any of a number of large swords used in medieval Europe. These include the longsword, in both the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and especially, "outsized specimens" of the longsword, such as the Oakeshott type XIIIa. Other swords known by this designation include the Zweihänder of 16th century Germany, broadswords, in early modern examples of the Schiavona type, and the Claymore (Gaelic claidheamh mor, lit. "great sword"), a Scottish sword.
Middle English (14th-century) grete sword is used to translate the Vulgate's gladius magnus in Revelation 6:4.
[edit] Long sword
The term longsword most frequently refers to a late Medieval and Renaissance weapon designed for use with two hands, but the term is not unambiguous, and refers to the "bastard sword" only where the late medieval to Renaissance context is implied. "Longsword" in other contexts has been used to refer to Bronze Age swords, Migration period and Viking swords as well as the early modern dueling sword.
Historical (15th to 16th century) terms for this type of sword included Spanish espadón, montante or mandoble, Italian spadone or spada longa (lunga), Portuguese montante and French passot. The Gaelic claidheamh mòr means "great sword"; anglicized as claymore it came to refer to the Scottish type of longsword with V-shaped crossguard. Historical terminology overlaps with that applied to the Zweihänder sword in the 16th century: French espadon, Spanish espadón or Portuguese montante may also be used more narrowly to refer to these large swords. The French épée de passot may also refer to a medieval single-handed sword optimized for thrusting.
The French épée bâtarde as well as the English bastard sword originates in the 15th or 16th century, originally in the general sense of "irregular sword, sword of uncertain origin", but by the mid-16th century could refer to exceptionally large swords.[1] The Masters of Defence competition organised by Henry VIII in July 1540 listed two hande sworde and bastard sworde as two separate items.[2] It is uncertain whether the same term could still be used to other types of smaller swords, but antiquarian usage in the 19th century established the use of "bastard sword" as referring unambiguously to these large swords.[3]
The German langes schwert ("long sword") in 15th-century manuals does not denote a type of weapon, but the technique of fencing with both hands at the hilt, contrasting with kurzes schwert ("short sword") used of fencing with the same weapon, but with one hand gripping the blade (also known as half-sword). It is only in the later 16th century that the term langes schwert can be shown to be applied to a type of sword. Contemporary use of "long-sword" or "longsword" only resurfaces in the 2000s in the context of reconstruction of the German school of fencing, translating the German langes schwert.[4]
The term "hand-and-a-half sword" is modern (late 19th century).[5] During the first half of the 20th century, the term "bastard sword" was used regularly to refer to this type of sword, while "long sword" or "long-sword", if used at all, referred to the rapier (in the context of Renaissance or Early Modern fencing).[6]
The term longsword has also been used to refer to different kinds of sword depending on historical context:
- Estoc, a French and English longsword designed for piercing armour
- Spatha, a Roman and early Medieval sword which is 'long' compared to the Seax and the Gladius
- Zweihänder, a late Renaissance sword of the 16th century Landsknechts, the longest sword of all
- the Rapier
- Katana (大刀 daitō, Odachi, Nodachi) is sometimes translated from the Japanese language as longsword
[edit] Broad sword
The term broad sword is generally used to refer to the basket-hilted sword, a group of early modern sword types characterized by a basket-shaped guard that protects the hand. The basket hilt is a development of the quillons added to swords' crossguards since the Late Middle Ages. The basket-hilted sword was a military sword, termed "broad" in contrast with the rapier, the slim dueling sword worn with civilian dress during the same period.
[edit] Small sword
The small sword or smallsword (also court sword, fr: épée de cour or dress sword) is a light one-handed sword designed for thrusting which evolved out of the longer and heavier rapier of the late Renaissance. The height of the small sword's popularity was between mid 17th and late 18th century. It is thought to have appeared in France and spread quickly across the rest of Europe. The small sword was the immediate predecessor of the French dueling sword (from which the épée developed) and its method of use—as typified in the works of such authors as Sieur de Liancour, Domenico Angelo, Monsieur J. Olivier, and Monsieur L'Abbat—developed into the techniques of the French classical school of fencing. Small swords were also used as status symbols and fashion accessories; for most of the 18th century anyone, civilian or military, with pretensions to gentlemanly status would have worn a small sword on a daily basis.
[edit] Short sword
The term short sword or shortsword has been used refer to a number of weapons intermediate between the sword and the dagger
- short Iron Age swords
- certain Renaissance era sidearms:
- Baselard, a late medieval heavy dagger
- Swiss degen, a 15th century Swiss weapon derived from the baselard
- Cinquedea, a civilian short sword (or long dagger)
- Katzbalger, a short Renaissance arming sword
- certain fascine knives
- Model 1832 Foot Artillery Sword, a shortsword of about 25 inches in length
- certain Japanese bladed weapons:
[edit] "Handedness"
The term two-handed sword, used as a general term, may refer to any large sword designed to be used primarily with two hands:
- the European longsword, popular in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- the Scottish late medieval claymore (not to be confused with the basket-hilted claymore of the 18th century)
- the Zweihänder sword favoured by the Landsknechts of 16th century Germany.
- the Japanese samurai sword, the Katana, Uchigatana, Tachi, Odachi, and Nodachi.
- the Chinese Wodao, Miao dao and Zhǎn mǎ dāo .
The term is historical inasmuch as it translates Early Modern German bedenhänder, baidenhänder (Jacob Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch cites 16th-century attestations, among them Sebastian Franck).
The term "hand-and-a-half sword" is modern (late 19th century).[7] During the first half of the 20th century, the term "bastard sword" was used regularly to refer to this type of sword, while "long sword" or "long-sword", if used at all, referred to the rapier (in the context of Renaissance or Early Modern fencing).[8]
The term "single-handed sword" (or "one-handed sword") is a retronym coined to disambiguate from "two-handed" or "hand-and-a-half" specimens. "Single-handed sword" is used by Sir Walter Scott.[9]. It is also used as a possible gloss of the obscure term tonsword by Nares (1822);[10] "one-handed sword" is somewhat later, recorded from c. 1850.
[edit] Reflist
- ^ Qui n'étoit ni Françoise , ni Espagnole, ni proprement Lansquenette, mais plus grande que pas une de ces fortes épées ("[a sword] which was neither French, nor Spanish, nor properly Landsknecht [German], but larger than any of these great swords." Jacob Le Duchat (ed.), Oeuvres de Maitre François Rabelais, Jean-Frédéric Bernard, 1741, p. 129 (footnote 5).)
- ^ Joseph Strutt The sports and pastimes of the people of England from the earliest period: including the rural and domestic recreations, May games, mummeries, pageants, processions and pompous spectacles, 1801, p. 211.
- ^ Oakeshott (1980).
- ^ A nonce attestation of "long-sword" in the sense of "heavy two-handed sword" is found in Principles of stage combat (1983). Carl A. Thimm, A Complete Bibliography of Fencing & Duelling (1896) uses "long sword (Schwerdt) on p. 220 as direct translation from a German text of 1516, and "long sword or long rapier" in reference to George Silver (1599)on p. 269. Systematic use of the term only from 2001 beginning with C. H. Tobler, Secrets of German medieval swordsmanship (2001), ISBN 9781891448072.
- ^ attested in a New Gallery exhibition catalogue, London 1890.
- ^ see e.g. A general guide to the Wallace Collection, 1933, p. 149.
- ^ attested in a New Gallery exhibition catalogue, London 1890.
- ^ see e.g. A general guide to the Wallace Collection, 1933, p. 149.
- ^ in Death of the Laird's Jock (1831).
- ^ Robert Nares, A glossary; or, Collection of words ... which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors (1822).
[edit] See also
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