01-23-2006, 02:47 PM
Quote:Sounds to me as if the sword wasn't the primary arms in the formations any longer. Maybe the oval shield is a suggestion that the spear is the offensive weapon and the spatha is more of what they call an armingsword in medieval classification. A secondary tool to use when formation is broken or you find yourself in more of a man to man type of combat as in a skirmish or duell.
But wouldn't the fact that the sword got bigger and longer argue against it becoming a secondary weapon? It seems to me there is a general tendency throughout the ages for swords to get longer, culminating in the huge two-hand and one-and-a-half-hand swords that were introduced around 1300 after plate armour made the shield obsolete and freed both hands for using weapons.
The only time swords become shorter seems to be when they are definitely backup weapons, like the Katzbalger swords used by the German landsknechts or the smaller swords used by medieval archers.
Quote:I had heard it was an absolute thrust sword, with only later ones also cut swords.
I'm a bit sceptical about the entire idea of thrust-only swords. For one thing it seems terribly unpractical. It also seems there are very few examples, e.g. the medieval thrusting swords designed for piercing plate armour could also be used for thrusting.
The gladius seems to have acquired a reputation as a thrusting sword somehow, but how much evidence is there really that it wasn't always a cut and thrust sword? Cf. the persistent idea of calling the gladius a short sword even though it's in fact quite debatable if you look at blade length. Maybe the thrusting gladius is simply one of those old ideas that have gotten stuck somehow?
Regards, Nicholas.
