A Breefe Discourse on Warre

It is a common belief that swords were useless in war, or hardly used at all (or only used when the situation was not ideal). And these are not strawmen! I have personally seen all of these things (and more) said! Even the some of the most generous claims are still quite harsh and backhanded ("only good for duels", "great civilian weapon", etc.). But the fact of the matter is, the sword was a weapon of war, carried for centuries, sometimes in areas where they didn't have refined metallurgy either! So how could that be if swords were useless against armor and defeated entirely by reach? I have gathered up quite the collection for this one over the years (which I posted on the internet before, so you may find them out there), so enjoy! The Reach Disadvantage These ideas regarding the sword are largely based on (poor) logic (and HEMA tests done by those who rarely train with mixed weapons; or hardly use spears at all, and fencing skills naturally transfer from one

This one will be a short one; I will be discussing infantry close-order tactics of the High Medieval (1000-1300 AD), with emphasis on the relationship with the shield-bearers and the archers (or crossbowmen). There will be some Islamic world sources to compare with the Christian European ones, so buckle up! Las Huelgas Apocalypse , ~1220 "Our people arranged themselves as best as they could to receive their terrible assaults. So that they could hold together more firmly and remain steady they each placed their right knee on the ground and fixed the toes of their right foot in the soil and held the left foot forward with the left knee bent. They held a buckler in front of them in their left hand, or a targe or some other type of shield. In their right hand they held a lance, with the blunt end fixed into the ground, and the sharp end with its iron head pointing forward threateningly towards the attacking enemy.   The king, who was very skilled in warfare, placed a crossbowman betwe