Last use of the falcata

[john roberts]

Does anybody know when the falcata went out of use? My impression is somewhere in the early first century AD, but that is just an impression. Also, why did it fade from use? It was used to great effect for at least 500 years and can hardly be beat for a dedicated cutter, even if it wasn't really practical for legionary use. Was it the legions' near-monopoly on arms that doomed the "barbaric" falcata?

[Cerco 21]

Here in Portugal we had the Falcata being used for a long time. You can find a lot of references on the "Falcata Lusitana", so naturally when we practice historical fencing we would use replicas of falcatas.

From my experience I can say that it is a weapon with a very different balance than a gladius or a latter viking sword. It swings well, but you can't really thrust with it.

So it would be a slower weapon (considering a thrust speed versus a swing speed) but it could cleave better (the design tends to concentrate the force on the inside middle). It cuts more or less like an axe.

Also from a manufacturing point of view, I feel it would be harder to produce than a double edged gladius.

Simply speculating I'd say that with harder manufacturing, and a wartime use akin to an axe it simply was to much trouble for little gain in the battle field.

[PMBardunias]

It swings well, but you can't really thrust with it.

I have no problem thrusting with a machaira- the bend actually puts the point in line with my arm with the wrist at a more natural angle than a straight sword. The problem is point control, because it is so front heavy. Is that what you find, perhaps the angle a bit different?

Is the Falchion descended from the falcata? Was there a version of the sword, like the Greeks had, that looked more like a machete?

[Thersites]

Last documented use: achaeologically, certainly c. 70 BC-c. 50 BC; literary sources: c. 45 BC (Seneca, De Beneficiis). Possibly in use by Augustan period. No later.

The falcata was already in decadencie by the first century BC, replaced by the straight sword that in turn became the gladius hispaniensis.

The falcata (an original or a good replica) is perfectly adept at thrusting, as much as slashing. Later kopides work the same. Etruscan machairai or early greek ones are only slashing weapons, without a dorsal edge and a more pronounced curve.

Cheers

[caiusbeerquitius]

I think there are some simple falcatas from Pompeji, with bronze eagle-head handles.

[Cerco 21]

It swings well, but you can't really thrust with it.

(...) Is that what you find, perhaps the angle a bit different?

When I say thrust, I mean thrust the way you'd use a "large foil" strait bladed weapon, like the gladius, or a short sword, thrusting comming from a down to up angle (not sure if I making myself clear imagine a vector around 16 to 22º from the horizontal), not thrusting like you would with a Rapier or "Espada" in an almost horizontal angle or comming in slightly downward angle.

They were different weapons meant to pierce diferent types of armor (in the latter case it being only skin). So while the combined angle of wrist and Falcata can come up at horizontal, I'm not sure it would be the best to defeat chain or even heavy hide.

Is the Falchion descended from the falcata? Was there a version of the sword, like the Greeks had, that looked more like a machete?

Not sure on the second one. The falchion ascent is most likely the Sarracen sabre brought to europe from the crusades, again a heavy blade meant to defeat armor, or break the bones beneath it. The Sarracen sabre, much like it's sucessors, was a cavalary weapon. The falchion not so much.

[Sean Manning]

Maybe the OP should define falcata? I thought it was a rather vague ancient term for curved swords.

It swings well, but you can't really thrust with it.

(...) Is that what you find, perhaps the angle a bit different?

When I say thrust, I mean thrust the way you'd use a "large foil" strait bladed weapon, like the gladius, or a short sword, thrusting comming from a down to up angle (not sure if I making myself clear imagine a vector around 16 to 22º from the horizontal), not thrusting like you would with a Rapier or "Espada" in an almost horizontal angle or comming in slightly downward angle.

I don't understand. 16th/17th century Italian swordsmanship includes rising thrusts (stoccate), descending thrusts (imbroccate), and horizontal thrusts. So do earlier systems like Fiore's.

They were different weapons meant to pierce diferent types of armor (in the latter case it being only skin). So while the combined angle of wrist and Falcata can come up at horizontal, I'm not sure it would be the best to defeat chain or even heavy hide.

Is the Falchion descended from the falcata? Was there a version of the sword, like the Greeks had, that looked more like a machete?

Not sure on the second one. The falchion ascent is most likely the Sarracen sabre brought to europe from the crusades, again a heavy blade meant to defeat armor, or break the bones beneath it. The Sarracen sabre, much like it's sucessors, was a cavalary weapon. The falchion not so much.

Why do you think there were a lot of sabers during the crusades? From my reading most Moslem swords in that period were straight, and the deeply curved swords came later. None of them, as far as I know, tended to be heavy.

[PMBardunias]

When I say thrust, I mean thrust the way you'd use a "large foil" strait bladed weapon, like the gladius, or a short sword, thrusting comming from a down to up angle (not sure if I making myself clear imagine a vector around 16 to 22º from the horizontal), not thrusting like you would with a Rapier or "Espada" in an almost horizontal angle or comming in slightly downward angle.

So you are stabbing in an arc described by the rotation of the arm at the shoulder? While I was describing a straight thrust like that of a rapier. I have done some fencing, and stabbing with the machaira reminds me of thrusting with a pistol-gripped foil. In playing with it I even want to loop my index finger around the lower quillion-like projection- it often projects past the blade in the Greek form. It also helps if the blade has a pronounced double curve rather than a simple forward arc.

[Cerco 21]

@ Sean Manning:
Although "Fiore Del Librei" and others do relate the rising thrusts, they were made mostly with short blades. Or from a low vantage position, reach is far greater comming from above. During the 15th and 16th cent. Portuguese fighting style during the "Discoveries - Descobertas" was that of Sword and Dagger, with a sword with something called a "Carangueja" which were two finger protections that extended over the guard (allowing a finger over the guard for better thrust) that was the first time when thrusting started to be very efficient (no room for heavy armor on a ship deck. That's why I say that you can't really use a Falcata as a thrusting weapon (and we tried, although I favor the Gladius and Axe I've had a lot of practice with a Falcata).

Regarding the curved shape of the sabre, as far as I know during the muslim invasions of the Iberian Peninsula the Sarracens already had curved blades, if memory serves even in "La Chanson de Roland" there are references to the Sarracen curved sabres.

Also regarding the Falchion I meant that it is a very different weapon than a sabre. It's curved and that's it.

@PMBardunias:

It's a common enough mistake comming from modern fencing to historical fencing to put your finger over the guard, as well as putting your "sword foot" foward. It's far more efficient these days when you don't need to put huge strength behind the blow to break the bones that were protected from the slasshing cuts by chain, boiled leather, brigadine or other types of armor that made cutting really pointless.

Edit: One of our "Strait Falcatas"
[attachment=308]DSC07588.JPG[/attachment]

[Gaius Colletti]

I don't think that the argument is that the falcata was ineffective, but that the gladius was just that much more effective. I am under the impression the auxillary quite often used a diverse variety of weapons, if so the falcata may have been an auxillary weapon in the Late Republic, that would explain why we have fewer examples of it

[Cerco 21]

Exactly the gladius was more effective and "easier" and less costly to make.