Longsword
Encyclopedia
The longsword is a type of European sword
designed for two-handed use, current during the late medieval
and Renaissance
periods, approximately 1350 to 1550 (with early and late use reaching into the 13th and 17th centuries).
Longswords have long cruciform
hilt
s with grips over 10 to 15 cm length (providing room for two hands). Straight double-edged blades are often over 1 m to 1.2 m (40" to 48") length, and weigh typically between 1.2 and 1.8 kg (2½ to 4 lb), with light specimens just below 1 kg (2.2 lb), and heavy specimens just above 2 kg (4½ lb).
s, Migration period
and Viking sword
s, rapiers, as well as the early modern dueling sword.
Historical (15th to 16th century) terms for this type of sword included German langes schwert, 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.
The Masters of Defence competition organised by Henry VIII in July 1540 listed two hande sworde and bastard sworde as two separate items.
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.
The term "hand-and-a-half sword" is modern (late 19th century).
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).
Even though "long sword" is the historical term for the weapon, 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.
mentions the sword subtypes XIIa and XIIIa from the latter part of the High Middle Ages
, c. 1250-1350, as the forerunners of the later longswords. Calling these two subtypes 'great swords', Oakeshott lists their hand-and-half grip (with enough room for the off-hand to hold the pommel securely) and relatively large blade (roughly 36 inches or 910 mm), for the most part longer and broader than contemporary arming sword
s.
In the Late Middle Ages
, c. 1350-1500, various longsword subtypes emerge with their hand-and-half grip:
Notably, this last subtype XVIIIe sometimes exhibits a proper two-handed grip. While all of the above subtypes of the Late Middle Age can count as 'longswords', the Oakeshott typology does not go on to list the properly two-handed longswords of the Renaissance Age, whose blades are truly huge, such as the Scottish claymore
(blade length roughly 42 inches or 1.07 m) and the German zweihänder (blade length roughly 53 inches or 1.35 m).
The blade of the medieval longsword is straight and predominantly double edged. The construction of the blade is relatively thin, with strength provided by careful blade geometry. Over time, as is evidenced in the Oakeshott typology and other similar systems, the blades of longswords become slightly longer, thicker in cross-section, less wide, and considerably more pointed. This design change is largely attributed to the use of plate armour as an effective defense, more or less nullifying the ability of a sword cut to break through the armour system. Instead of cutting, long swords were then used more to thrust against opponents in plate armour, requiring a more acute point and a more rigid blade. However, the cutting capability of the longsword was never entirely removed, as in some later rapiers, but was supplanted in importance by thrusting capability.
Blades differ considerably in cross-section, as well as in length and width. The two most basic forms of blade cross-section are the lenticular and diamond. Lenticular blades are shaped like thin doubly convex lenses
, providing adequate thickness for strength in the center of the weapon while maintaining a thin enough edge geometry to allow a proper cutting edge to be ground. The diamond shaped blade slopes directly up from the edges, without the curved elements of the lenticular blade. The central ridge produced by this angular geometry is known as a riser, the thickest portion of the blade that provides ample rigidity. These basic designs are supplemented by additional forging techniques that incorporated slightly different variations of these cross-sections.
The most common among these variations is the use of fullers and hollow-ground blades. While both of these elements concern themselves with the removal of material from the blade, they differ primarily in location and final result. Fullers are grooves or channels that are removed from the blade, in longswords, usually running along the center of the blade and originating at or slightly before the hilt. The removal of this material allows the smith to significantly lighten the weapon without compromising the strength to the same extent, much as in the engineering of steel I-beam
s.
On some cutting blades the fuller may run nearly the entire length of the weapon, while the fuller stops one-third or half-way down other blades. Hollow-ground blades have concave portions of steel removed from each side of the riser, thinning the edge geometry while keeping a thickened area at the center to provide strength for the blade.
A variety of hilt styles exist for longswords, with the style of pommel and quillion (crossguard) changing over time to accommodate different blade properties and to fit emerging stylistic trends.
The evolution of the sword before and after the development of the longsword was not entirely linear. Swords of an older type may have coexisted with newer variants for quite some time, making it difficult to trace a single path of sword evolution. Instead, the course of sword development is layered with some swords evolving from a previous type of sword, acting as its able contemporary, and eventually being abandoned while the original design continued in use for some time afterward. Similarly, variants of a particular type of sword may have come about not to replace it, but to simply coexist with it until a new evolution brought a close to both older types of weapons. Such situations present both the path of sword development as a whole and the encompassed rise and fall of the longsword as chronologically nebulous and confused by broad definitions, both modern and contemporary.
The relatively comprehensive Oakeshott typology
was created by historian and illustrator Ewart Oakeshott
as a way to define and catalogue swords based on physical form, though a rough sense of chronology is apparent. This typology does not set forth a prototypical definition for the longsword, however. Instead, it separates the broad field of weaponry into many exclusive types based on their predominant physical characteristics including blade
shape and hilt
configuration. The typology also focuses on the smaller, and in some cases contemporary, single-handed swords like the arming sword
.
The longsword, with its longer grip and blade, appears to have become popular during the 14th century and remained in common use, as shown through period art and tale, from 1250 to 1550. The longsword was a powerful and versatile weapon, but was not considered the only weapon needed for learning the arts of war. Johannes Lichtenauer
, an influential Fechtbuch
(combat manual) author, writes that young knights should learn to "wrestle well, (and) skilfully wield spear, sword, and dagger in a manly way."
It is in the Types XIIa and XIIIa that the first early variants of the longsword arise as simply longer versions of the single-handed sword. There are rare archeological findings of swords of this type from as early as the late 12th century. Boasting both increased grip length and increased blade lengths, these weapons would have been powerful hewing swords, perhaps developed to further combat the prevalence of mail
and plate armour
. These weapons also firmly fit the modern colloquial term "hand-and-a-half sword", as Oakeshott notes, because they do not provide a full two-hand grip as do some early extant specimens and the 16th century Bidenhänder. Hand and a half swords were so called because they could be either a one or two handed weapon.
Oakeshott (1980:130) distinguishes twelve different types. These all seem to have originated in Bavaria and in Switzerland. By the late 16th century, early forms of the basket-hilt emerge on this type of sword.
Beginning about 1520, the Swiss sabre (schnepf) in Switzerland began to replace the straight longsword, inheriting its hilt types, and the longsword had fallen out of use in Switzerland by 1550.
In southern Germany, it persisted into the 1560s, but its use also declined during the second half of the 16th century.
There are two late examples of longswords kept in the Swiss National Museum, both with vertically grooved pommels and elaborately decorated with silver inlay, and both belonging to Swiss noblemen in French service during the late 16th and early 17th century, Gugelberg von Moos and Rudolf von Schauenstein.
The longsword or bastard-sword was also made in Spain, appearing relatively late, known as the espadon or the montante.
Codified systems of fighting with the longsword existed from the later 14th century, with a variety of styles and teachers each providing a slightly different take on the art. The longsword was a quick, effective, and versatile weapon capable of deadly thrusts, slices, and cuts. The blade was generally used with both hands on the hilt, one resting close to or on the pommel. The weapon may be held with one hand during disarmament or grappling techniques.
In a depiction of a duel, individuals may be seen wielding sharply pointed longswords in one hand, leaving the other hand open to manipulate the large dueling shield. Another variation of use comes from the use of armour. Half-sword
ing was a manner of using both hands, one on the hilt and one on the blade, to better control the weapon in thrusts and jabs. This versatility was unique, as multiple works hold that the longsword provided the foundations for learning a variety of other weapons including spears, staves, and polearms. Use of the longsword in attack was not limited only to use of the blade, however, as several Fechtbücher explain and depict use of the pommel and cross as offensive weapons. The cross has been shown to be used as a hook for tripping or knocking an opponent off balance. Some manuals even depict the cross as a hammer.
What is known of combat with the longsword comes from artistic depictions of battle from manuscripts and the Fechtbuch of Medieval and Renaissance Masters. Therein the basics of combat were described and, in some cases, depicted. The German school of swordsmanship
includes the earliest known longsword Fechtbuch, a manual from approximately 1389 mistakenly accredited to Hanko Döbringer. This manual, unfortunately for modern scholars, was written in obscure verse. It was through students of Liechtenauer, like Sigmund Ringeck
, who transcribed the work into more understandable prose that the system became notably more codified and understandable. Others provided similar work, some with a wide array of images to accompany the text.
The Italian school of swordsmanship
was the other primary school of longsword use. The 1410 manuscript by Fiore dei Liberi
presents a variety of uses for the longsword. Like the German manuals, the weapon is most commonly depicted and taught with both hands on the hilt. However, a section on one-handed use is among the volume and demonstrates the techniques and advantages, such as sudden additional reach, of single-handed longsword play. The manual also presents half-sword techniques as an integral part of armoured combat.
Both schools declined in the late 16th century, with the later Italian masters forgoing the longsword and focusing primarily on rapier
fencing. The last known German manual to include longsword teaching was that of Jakob Sutor
, published in 1612. In Italy, spadone, or longsword, instruction lingered on in spite of the popularity of the rapier, at least into the mid-17th century (Alfieri's Lo Spadone of 1653), with a late treatise of the "two handed sword" by one Giuseppe Colombani
, a dentist in Venice
dating to 1711. A tradition of teaching based on this has survived in contemporary French and Italian stick fighting
. (See, for instance, Giuseppe Cerri's Trattato teorico e pratico della scherma di bastone of 1854.) However, there can be no doubt that the heyday of the longsword on the battlefield was over by 1500.
Bloßfechten (blosz fechten) or "bare fighting" is the technique of fighting without significant protective armour such as plate
, mail
The lack of significant torso and limb protection leads to the use of a large amount of cutting and slicing techniques in addition to thrusts. These techniques could be nearly instantly fatal or incapacitating, as a thrust to the skull, heart, or major blood vessel would cause massive trauma. Similarly, strong strikes could cut through skin and bone, effectively amputating limbs. The hands and forearms are a frequent target of some cuts and slices in a defensive or offensive maneuver, serving both to disable an opponent and align the swordsman and his weapon for the next attack.
Harnischfechten, or "armoured fighting" (German kampffechten, or vechten in harnasch zu fuess lit. "fighting in armour on foot"), depicts fighting in full plate armour
.
The increased defensive capability of a man clad in full plate armour caused the use of the sword to be drastically changed. While slashing attacks were still moderately effective against infantry wearing half-plate armor, cutting and slicing attacks against an opponent wearing plate armour were almost entirely ineffective in providing any sort of slashing wound as the sword simply could not cut through the steel. Instead, the energy of the cut becomes essentially pure concussive energy
. The later hardened plate armours, complete with ridges and roping, actually posed quite a threat against the careless attacker. It is considered possible for strong blows of the sword against plate armour to actually damage the blade of the sword, potentially rendering it much less effective at cutting and producing only a concussive effect against the armoured opponent.
To overcome this problem, swords began to be used primarily for thrusting. The weapon was used in the half-sword
, with one or both hands on the blade. This increased the accuracy and strength of thrusts and provided more leverage for Ringen am Schwert or "Wrestling at/with the sword". This technique combines the use of the sword with wrestling, providing opportunities to trip, disarm, break, or throw an opponent and place them in a less offensively and defensively capable position. During half-swording, the entirety of the sword works as a weapon, including the pommel and crossguard which function as a mace as shown in the Mordstreich.
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
designed for two-handed use, current during the late medieval
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
periods, approximately 1350 to 1550 (with early and late use reaching into the 13th and 17th centuries).
Longswords have long cruciform
Cruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...
hilt
Hilt
The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard,grip and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillons. A ricasso may also be present, but this is rarely the case...
s with grips over 10 to 15 cm length (providing room for two hands). Straight double-edged blades are often over 1 m to 1.2 m (40" to 48") length, and weigh typically between 1.2 and 1.8 kg (2½ to 4 lb), with light specimens just below 1 kg (2.2 lb), and heavy specimens just above 2 kg (4½ lb).
Terminology
The term "longsword" is ambiguous, 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 swordBronze Age sword
Bronze Age swords appear from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, evolving out of the dagger. They are replaced by the Iron Age sword during the early part of the 1st millennium BC....
s, Migration period
Migration Period sword
Swords of the Migration Period show a transition from the Roman era Spatha to the "Viking sword" types of the Early Middle Ages....
and Viking sword
Viking sword
The Viking sword is a form of spatha, evolving out of the Migration Period sword in the 8th century, and evolving into the classical knightly sword in the 11th century with the emergence of larger crossguards...
s, rapiers, as well as the early modern dueling sword.
Historical (15th to 16th century) terms for this type of sword included German langes schwert, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
espadón, montante or mandoble, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
spadone or spada longa (lunga), Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
montante and French
Middle French
Middle French is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from 1340 to 1611. It is a period of transition during which:...
passot. The Gaelic claidheamh mòr means "great sword"; anglicized as claymore
Claymore
The term claymore refers to the Scottish variant of the late medieval longsword, two-handed swords with a cross hilt, of which the guards were in use during the 15th and 16th centuries.-Terminology:...
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.
The Masters of Defence competition organised by Henry VIII in July 1540 listed two hande sworde and bastard sworde as two separate items.
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.
The term "hand-and-a-half sword" is modern (late 19th century).
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
Rapier
A rapier is a slender, sharply pointed sword, ideally used for thrusting attacks, used mainly in Early Modern Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.-Description:...
(in the context of Renaissance or Early Modern fencing).
Even though "long sword" is the historical term for the weapon, contemporary use of "long-sword" or "longsword" only resurfaces in the 2000s in the context of reconstruction of the German school of fencing
German school of fencing
The German school of fencing is the historical system of combat taught in the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern periods , as described in the Fechtbücher written at the time...
, translating the German langes schwert.
Late Middle Ages
The Oakeshott typologyOakeshott typology
Ewart Oakeshott's typology of the medieval sword is based on blade morphology. It categorizes swords into 13 main types labelled X to XXII. Ewart Oakeshott introduced it in his The Archeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry in 1960.The system is a continuation of...
mentions the sword subtypes XIIa and XIIIa from the latter part of the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
, c. 1250-1350, as the forerunners of the later longswords. Calling these two subtypes 'great swords', Oakeshott lists their hand-and-half grip (with enough room for the off-hand to hold the pommel securely) and relatively large blade (roughly 36 inches or 910 mm), for the most part longer and broader than contemporary arming sword
Arming sword
The arming sword is the single handed cruciform sword of the High Middle Ages, in common use between ca. 1000 and 1500, possibly remaining in rare use into the 16th century...
s.
In the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
, c. 1350-1500, various longsword subtypes emerge with their hand-and-half grip:
- average blade length about 32 inches (810 mm): subtype XVIa (early 14c)
- average blade length about 34 inches (860 mm): subtype XVIIIc (mid 15c to early 16c)
- average blade length roughly 34 inches (860 mm) with approximate range from 30 to 38 inches (800 to 900 mm): type XX (14c and 15c), subtypes XXa (14c and 15c),
- average blade length about 35 inches (890 mm): subtype XVa (end of 13c to early 16c), XVIIa (mid 14c to early 15c)
- average blade length roughly 39 inches (990 mm) with averages about 36 to 42 inches (around 1 m): subtypes XVIIIa (mid 14c to early 15c), XVIIIb (early 15c to mid 16c), XVIIId (mid 15c to early 16c), XVIIIe (mid 15c to early 16c).
Notably, this last subtype XVIIIe sometimes exhibits a proper two-handed grip. While all of the above subtypes of the Late Middle Age can count as 'longswords', the Oakeshott typology does not go on to list the properly two-handed longswords of the Renaissance Age, whose blades are truly huge, such as the Scottish claymore
Claymore
The term claymore refers to the Scottish variant of the late medieval longsword, two-handed swords with a cross hilt, of which the guards were in use during the 15th and 16th centuries.-Terminology:...
(blade length roughly 42 inches or 1.07 m) and the German zweihänder (blade length roughly 53 inches or 1.35 m).
Blades differ considerably in cross-section, as well as in length and width. The two most basic forms of blade cross-section are the lenticular and diamond. Lenticular blades are shaped like thin doubly convex lenses
Lens (optics)
A lens is an optical device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmits and refracts light, converging or diverging the beam. A simple lens consists of a single optical element...
, providing adequate thickness for strength in the center of the weapon while maintaining a thin enough edge geometry to allow a proper cutting edge to be ground. The diamond shaped blade slopes directly up from the edges, without the curved elements of the lenticular blade. The central ridge produced by this angular geometry is known as a riser, the thickest portion of the blade that provides ample rigidity. These basic designs are supplemented by additional forging techniques that incorporated slightly different variations of these cross-sections.
The most common among these variations is the use of fullers and hollow-ground blades. While both of these elements concern themselves with the removal of material from the blade, they differ primarily in location and final result. Fullers are grooves or channels that are removed from the blade, in longswords, usually running along the center of the blade and originating at or slightly before the hilt. The removal of this material allows the smith to significantly lighten the weapon without compromising the strength to the same extent, much as in the engineering of steel I-beam
I-beam
-beams, also known as H-beams, W-beams , rolled steel joist , or double-T are beams with an - or H-shaped cross-section. The horizontal elements of the "" are flanges, while the vertical element is the web...
s.
On some cutting blades the fuller may run nearly the entire length of the weapon, while the fuller stops one-third or half-way down other blades. Hollow-ground blades have concave portions of steel removed from each side of the riser, thinning the edge geometry while keeping a thickened area at the center to provide strength for the blade.
A variety of hilt styles exist for longswords, with the style of pommel and quillion (crossguard) changing over time to accommodate different blade properties and to fit emerging stylistic trends.
The evolution of the sword before and after the development of the longsword was not entirely linear. Swords of an older type may have coexisted with newer variants for quite some time, making it difficult to trace a single path of sword evolution. Instead, the course of sword development is layered with some swords evolving from a previous type of sword, acting as its able contemporary, and eventually being abandoned while the original design continued in use for some time afterward. Similarly, variants of a particular type of sword may have come about not to replace it, but to simply coexist with it until a new evolution brought a close to both older types of weapons. Such situations present both the path of sword development as a whole and the encompassed rise and fall of the longsword as chronologically nebulous and confused by broad definitions, both modern and contemporary.
The relatively comprehensive Oakeshott typology
Oakeshott typology
Ewart Oakeshott's typology of the medieval sword is based on blade morphology. It categorizes swords into 13 main types labelled X to XXII. Ewart Oakeshott introduced it in his The Archeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry in 1960.The system is a continuation of...
was created by historian and illustrator Ewart Oakeshott
Ewart Oakeshott
Ewart Oakeshott was a British illustrator, collector, and amateur historian who wrote prodigiously on medieval arms and armour. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Founder Member of the Arms and Armour Society, and the Founder of the Oakeshott Institute...
as a way to define and catalogue swords based on physical form, though a rough sense of chronology is apparent. This typology does not set forth a prototypical definition for the longsword, however. Instead, it separates the broad field of weaponry into many exclusive types based on their predominant physical characteristics including blade
Blade
A blade is that portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with a cutting edge and/or a pointed tip that is designed to cut and/or puncture, stab, slash, chop, slice, thrust, or scrape animate or inanimate surfaces or materials...
shape and hilt
Hilt
The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard,grip and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillons. A ricasso may also be present, but this is rarely the case...
configuration. The typology also focuses on the smaller, and in some cases contemporary, single-handed swords like the arming sword
Arming sword
The arming sword is the single handed cruciform sword of the High Middle Ages, in common use between ca. 1000 and 1500, possibly remaining in rare use into the 16th century...
.
The longsword, with its longer grip and blade, appears to have become popular during the 14th century and remained in common use, as shown through period art and tale, from 1250 to 1550. The longsword was a powerful and versatile weapon, but was not considered the only weapon needed for learning the arts of war. Johannes Lichtenauer
Johannes Lichtenauer
Johannes Liechtenauer was a 13th or 14th century German fencing master. He was likely born in the early to mid 1300s, possibly in Lichtenau, Mittelfranken . Unfortunately, no direct record of his life or teachings currently exists, and all that we know of both comes from the writings of other...
, an influential Fechtbuch
Fechtbuch
Martial arts manuals are instructions, with or without illustrations, detailing specific techniques of martial arts.Prose descriptions of martial arts techniques appear late within the history of literature, due to the inherent difficulties of describing a technique rather than just demonstrating...
(combat manual) author, writes that young knights should learn to "wrestle well, (and) skilfully wield spear, sword, and dagger in a manly way."
It is in the Types XIIa and XIIIa that the first early variants of the longsword arise as simply longer versions of the single-handed sword. There are rare archeological findings of swords of this type from as early as the late 12th century. Boasting both increased grip length and increased blade lengths, these weapons would have been powerful hewing swords, perhaps developed to further combat the prevalence of mail
Mail (armour)
Mail is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh.-History:Mail was a highly successful type of armour and was used by nearly every metalworking culture....
and plate armour
Plate armour
Plate armour is a historical type of personal armour made from iron or steel plates.While there are early predecessors such the Roman-era lorica segmentata, full plate armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, especially in the context of the Hundred Years' War, from the coat of...
. These weapons also firmly fit the modern colloquial term "hand-and-a-half sword", as Oakeshott notes, because they do not provide a full two-hand grip as do some early extant specimens and the 16th century Bidenhänder. Hand and a half swords were so called because they could be either a one or two handed weapon.
Renaissance
Distinct "bastard sword" hilt types develop during the first half of the 16th century.Oakeshott (1980:130) distinguishes twelve different types. These all seem to have originated in Bavaria and in Switzerland. By the late 16th century, early forms of the basket-hilt emerge on this type of sword.
Beginning about 1520, the Swiss sabre (schnepf) in Switzerland began to replace the straight longsword, inheriting its hilt types, and the longsword had fallen out of use in Switzerland by 1550.
In southern Germany, it persisted into the 1560s, but its use also declined during the second half of the 16th century.
There are two late examples of longswords kept in the Swiss National Museum, both with vertically grooved pommels and elaborately decorated with silver inlay, and both belonging to Swiss noblemen in French service during the late 16th and early 17th century, Gugelberg von Moos and Rudolf von Schauenstein.
The longsword or bastard-sword was also made in Spain, appearing relatively late, known as the espadon or the montante.
History
In a depiction of a duel, individuals may be seen wielding sharply pointed longswords in one hand, leaving the other hand open to manipulate the large dueling shield. Another variation of use comes from the use of armour. Half-sword
Half-sword
Half-sword, in 14th- to 16th-century fencing with the longswords, refers to the technique of gripping the central part of the sword blade with the left hand in order to execute more forceful thrusts against armoured and unarmoured opponents. The term is a translation of the original German...
ing was a manner of using both hands, one on the hilt and one on the blade, to better control the weapon in thrusts and jabs. This versatility was unique, as multiple works hold that the longsword provided the foundations for learning a variety of other weapons including spears, staves, and polearms. Use of the longsword in attack was not limited only to use of the blade, however, as several Fechtbücher explain and depict use of the pommel and cross as offensive weapons. The cross has been shown to be used as a hook for tripping or knocking an opponent off balance. Some manuals even depict the cross as a hammer.
What is known of combat with the longsword comes from artistic depictions of battle from manuscripts and the Fechtbuch of Medieval and Renaissance Masters. Therein the basics of combat were described and, in some cases, depicted. The German school of swordsmanship
German school of swordsmanship
The German school of fencing is the historical system of combat taught in the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern periods , as described in the Fechtbücher written at the time...
includes the earliest known longsword Fechtbuch, a manual from approximately 1389 mistakenly accredited to Hanko Döbringer. This manual, unfortunately for modern scholars, was written in obscure verse. It was through students of Liechtenauer, like Sigmund Ringeck
Sigmund Ringeck
Sigmund Schining ein Ringeck was a 14th or 15th century German fencing master. While the meaning of the surname "Schining" is uncertain, the suffix "ain Ringeck" may indicate that he came from the Rhineland region of south-eastern Germany...
, who transcribed the work into more understandable prose that the system became notably more codified and understandable. Others provided similar work, some with a wide array of images to accompany the text.
The Italian school of swordsmanship
Italian school of swordsmanship
The term Italian school of swordsmanship is used to describe the Italian style of fencing and edged-weapon combat from the time of the first extant Italian swordsmanship treatise to the days of Classical Fencing ....
was the other primary school of longsword use. The 1410 manuscript by Fiore dei Liberi
Fiore dei Liberi
Fiore Furlano de Civida d'Austria delli Liberi da Premariacco was a Medieval master of arms and the earliest Italian master from whom we have an martial arts manual...
presents a variety of uses for the longsword. Like the German manuals, the weapon is most commonly depicted and taught with both hands on the hilt. However, a section on one-handed use is among the volume and demonstrates the techniques and advantages, such as sudden additional reach, of single-handed longsword play. The manual also presents half-sword techniques as an integral part of armoured combat.
Both schools declined in the late 16th century, with the later Italian masters forgoing the longsword and focusing primarily on rapier
Rapier
A rapier is a slender, sharply pointed sword, ideally used for thrusting attacks, used mainly in Early Modern Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.-Description:...
fencing. The last known German manual to include longsword teaching was that of Jakob Sutor
Jacob Sutor
Jacob Sutor was a German fencing master who published a fighting manual in 1612, called the Neues Künstliches Fechtbuch...
, published in 1612. In Italy, spadone, or longsword, instruction lingered on in spite of the popularity of the rapier, at least into the mid-17th century (Alfieri's Lo Spadone of 1653), with a late treatise of the "two handed sword" by one Giuseppe Colombani
Giuseppe Colombani
Giuseppe Colombani is known as l'Alfier lombardo He wrote a treatise on martial arts, published in 1711. It is the latest known treatise discussing the spadone, or longsword, before the revivalist movements of historical fencing in the 20th century....
, a dentist in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
dating to 1711. A tradition of teaching based on this has survived in contemporary French and Italian stick fighting
Stick fighting
Stick fighting is a generic term for martial arts which use simple long slender, blunt, hand-held, generally wooden 'sticks' for fighting such as a staff, cane, walking stick, baton or similar....
. (See, for instance, Giuseppe Cerri's Trattato teorico e pratico della scherma di bastone of 1854.) However, there can be no doubt that the heyday of the longsword on the battlefield was over by 1500.
Bloßfechten
Plate armour
Plate armour is a historical type of personal armour made from iron or steel plates.While there are early predecessors such the Roman-era lorica segmentata, full plate armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, especially in the context of the Hundred Years' War, from the coat of...
Mail (armour)
Mail is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh.-History:Mail was a highly successful type of armour and was used by nearly every metalworking culture....
The lack of significant torso and limb protection leads to the use of a large amount of cutting and slicing techniques in addition to thrusts. These techniques could be nearly instantly fatal or incapacitating, as a thrust to the skull, heart, or major blood vessel would cause massive trauma. Similarly, strong strikes could cut through skin and bone, effectively amputating limbs. The hands and forearms are a frequent target of some cuts and slices in a defensive or offensive maneuver, serving both to disable an opponent and align the swordsman and his weapon for the next attack.
Harnischfechten
Plate armour
Plate armour is a historical type of personal armour made from iron or steel plates.While there are early predecessors such the Roman-era lorica segmentata, full plate armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, especially in the context of the Hundred Years' War, from the coat of...
.
The increased defensive capability of a man clad in full plate armour caused the use of the sword to be drastically changed. While slashing attacks were still moderately effective against infantry wearing half-plate armor, cutting and slicing attacks against an opponent wearing plate armour were almost entirely ineffective in providing any sort of slashing wound as the sword simply could not cut through the steel. Instead, the energy of the cut becomes essentially pure concussive energy
Impact force
In mechanics, an impact is a high force or shock applied over a short time period when two or more bodies collide. Such a force or acceleration usually has a greater effect than a lower force applied over a proportionally longer time period of time...
. The later hardened plate armours, complete with ridges and roping, actually posed quite a threat against the careless attacker. It is considered possible for strong blows of the sword against plate armour to actually damage the blade of the sword, potentially rendering it much less effective at cutting and producing only a concussive effect against the armoured opponent.
To overcome this problem, swords began to be used primarily for thrusting. The weapon was used in the half-sword
Half-sword
Half-sword, in 14th- to 16th-century fencing with the longswords, refers to the technique of gripping the central part of the sword blade with the left hand in order to execute more forceful thrusts against armoured and unarmoured opponents. The term is a translation of the original German...
, with one or both hands on the blade. This increased the accuracy and strength of thrusts and provided more leverage for Ringen am Schwert or "Wrestling at/with the sword". This technique combines the use of the sword with wrestling, providing opportunities to trip, disarm, break, or throw an opponent and place them in a less offensively and defensively capable position. During half-swording, the entirety of the sword works as a weapon, including the pommel and crossguard which function as a mace as shown in the Mordstreich.
See also
- Historical European Martial ArtsHistorical European martial artsHistorical European martial arts is a neologism describing martial arts of European origin, used particularly to refer to arts formerly practised, but having since died out or evolved into very different forms...
- Oakeshott typologyOakeshott typologyEwart Oakeshott's typology of the medieval sword is based on blade morphology. It categorizes swords into 13 main types labelled X to XXII. Ewart Oakeshott introduced it in his The Archeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry in 1960.The system is a continuation of...
- RicassoRicassoA ricasso is a part of sword and knife blades. It is the section just above the guard or handle. It is sometimes unsharpened and unbevelled.The first unsharpened ricassos were found on Middle Bronze Age swords...
- Side-swordSide-swordThe spada da lato or "side-sword" is the Italian term for the type of sword popular during the late 16th century, corresponding to the Spanish espada ropera....
- ClaymoreClaymoreThe term claymore refers to the Scottish variant of the late medieval longsword, two-handed swords with a cross hilt, of which the guards were in use during the 15th and 16th centuries.-Terminology:...
- WasterWasterA waster is a practice weapon, usually a sword, and usually made out of wood, though nylon wasters are also available. The use of wood or nylon instead of metal provides an economic and safe option for initial weapons training and sparring, at some loss of genuine experience...
- JianJianThe jian is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. The first Chinese sources that mention the jian date to the 7th century BCE during the Spring and Autumn Period; one of the earliest specimens being the Sword of Goujian.Historical one-handed versions have blades...
- KatanaKatanaA Japanese sword, or , is one of the traditional bladed weapons of Japan. There are several types of Japanese swords, according to size, field of application and method of manufacture.-Description:...
- TachiTachiThe is one type of traditional Japanese sword worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan.-History and description:With a few exceptions katana and tachi can be distinguished from each other if signed, by the location of the signature on the tang...
- TrainingTrainingThe term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of...
External links
- "Oakeshott's Typology of the Medieval Sword: A Summary", Albion Armorers, inc. 2005, retrieved May 22, 2010.http://www.albion-swords.com/articles/oakeshott-typology.htm This quick survey lists the types and sample illustrations of the Oakeshott Typology. Extremely useful, but note, the webpage updates the statistics of the original Oakeshott Typology, with the findings from later research.
Further reading
- Clements, John. Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques. Paladin Press, 1998. ISBN 1-58160-004-6
- Clements, John et al. Masters of Medieval and Renaissance Martial Arts: Rediscovering The Western Combat Heritage. Paladin Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58160-668-3
- Lindholm, David & Peter Svärd, Sigmund Ringeck's Knightly Art of the Longsword, Paladin Press (2003), ISBN 1-58160-410-6
- Lindholm, David, & Peter Svärd. Knightly Arts of Combat - Sigmund Ringeck's Sword and Buckler Fighting, Wrestling, and Fighting in Armor. Paladin Press, 2006. ISBN 1-58160-499-8
- Oakeshott, R. E., European weapons and armour: From the Renaissance to the industrial revolution (1980), 129-135.
- Thomas, Michael G. The Fighting Man's Guide to German Longsword Combat, SwordWorks (2007), ISBN 1-90651-200-0
- Tobler, Christian H. Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship (2001), ISBN 1-891448-07-2
- Tobler, Christian H. Fighting with the German Longsword (2004), ISBN 1-891448-24-2
- Windsor, Guy. The Swordsman's Companion: A Modern Training Manual for Medieval Longsword (2004), ISBN 1-891448-41-2
- Zabinski, Grzegorz & Bartlomiej Walczak. The Codex Wallerstein: A Medieval Fighting Book from the Fifteenth Century on the Longsword, Falchion, Dagger, and Wrestling. Paladin Press, 2002. ISBN 1-58160-339-8