(WIP) "Great cutting curtilaces" - The Heavy Falchion of the Man at Arms

This will be short post on a kind of odd, shortish sword; in English, these were termed curtilace (or curtalaxe) (although by no means was this exclusively applied to them, as it is essentially a synonym for fauchion), at least by the late 16th century, probably from the French coutelas and the Italian cortelacio.

Now why do I think they are odd? Principally, it is due to their weight; while many falchions are quite light, this type of sword, invented in the 16th century, is quite heavy, at least for their length.

This mid-16th century Italian curtilace housed at the Wallace Collection has only a 2 foot long blade, yet weighs an astonishing 1.68kg/3.70lb (with still a conventional point of balance, towards the hilt)! Another mid-16th century curtilace housed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum is 1.6kg/3.53lb, with a blade around 2.4 feet in length.

Now in truth, for men at arms, these weights are not that strange; their swords (I mean their estocs and arming swords) were generally quite heavy, and in the same weight range regardless of length, perhaps 1.4-1.8kg/3-4lb. However, a shorter blade with the same mass as a longer one will generally have more mass contributing to where the cut meets its target. How much this offsets the end of a longer blade moving quicker I do not know, but at the very least I think we can admit that this heavy sword will cut with force.

Now textually, we do know these curtilaces were broadly (no pun intended) heavy (I mean the ones carried by men at arms; swords of the same typology of course come in many different weights). On the battle of Ceresole (1544), Paolo Giovio writes:

"... the French [by following] the same paths having pushed into the opening of the broken formation [phalangis], all of their rearmost ranks shamefully disordered, for they were not armed with helmets, nor corselets, as those in front, with little effort they slaughtered with broad and very heavy swords [latis et praegravibus gladiis], which [were] not dissimilar to hunting knives[, and which] they wore suspended from their saddles, [with which] they easily hacked off whole limbs of the unarmored."

However, Joachim Meyer iin 1561 warns against having this fauchion (which you may see in the thumbnail of this post), which he terms sebell, be too heavy:

"Item, the sebell should be strong; A good edge; But still not too heavy"

If these swords were not commonly heavy to begin with, I see no reason why he should have given a command to make sure they were not too heavy.

As seen above, these were worn at the saddle, as Filippo Orso in 1554 writes:

cortelacio p[er] portar al arcione

"Cortelacio for to wear at the saddle bow."

And here, we occasionally see them portrayed as roughly adjacent to maces. Francois de Rabutin writes, regarding some French men at arms of the Ordinance Companies during the year 1552:

"... the men at arms... [armed with] the lance, the sword, the estoc, [and] the coustelaz or the mace..."

However, John Smythe in 1594 writes:

"Dimilaunces are horsemen next in degree and account vnto men at armes, as well in greatnesse, and puissance of horses, as in strong and sure arming; and they ought to be apparelled, as I haue in diuers partes before mentioned... their weapons ought to be arming swords, and daggers, worne in good and strong girdles, long, and strong launces, with a curtilace of the one side of the saddle pommell, or a steele mace, or a man at armes axe on the other side as aforsaid."

And he seems to not really care which combination of weapons were worn at the saddle (curtilace, mace, or axe), although he did want an additional short saddle weapon in addition to that sword.

Now we have read of their effect on the unarmored, but Blaize de Montluc, as an eyewitness, writes of their effect of the armored (although probably not very well armed), around the 1520s:

"Our gend'armes in those days wore great cutting curtilaces [coutelas], wherewith to cut arms of maille, and to cleave [destrancher] morions. Never in my life had I seen such great cuts given."

Now it is fair to doubt this, but personally I can believe it, as these men at arms are using the force of the horse, and there are some quite poor and thin morions, and maille shirts likewise, both of construct and of material; and one does not have to hack cleanly through to the chin to still cut through, which even swords against well made helmets occasionally did, although only slightly:

"Lord Scales twice cried out loud: Saint George!, and my lord the Bastard who was on the fourcourse, if he had wanted, turned his horse’s head (without using his hands) towards his man and dealt him a stroke with his sword on the helm. It was so strong that afterwards it could be seen on Lord Scales’s helm, on the side of the visor that had been split, that it was three inches wide, and a grain of wheat could pass through the gap. By this stroke the sword was fractured in two places."

This is from codex RAR.0035(I.35), as quoted in Ralph Moffat's The Medieval Tournament: Chivalry, Heraldry and Reality. Similar and even more extreme accounts can be found in the 19th century, but I digress.

Lastly, Joachim Meyer has the sword used to cut at the gauntlets of the opponent, and thrust at the palms and inside of the joints, which you may read here, in the armored fencing section of his 1561 treatise.

These swords were probably used, in my opinion, principally for when they had little room to thrust; or perhaps were in a position where they needed to strike many times and strike quickly, which is most easily done with the cut. As Pietro Monte writes:

"Sometimes it is useful to act against enemies with great impetus. But this is in group combat, particularly when we begin to put them to flight. At such times it is better to deliver as many blows as we can. But for this we should be well armored, and have some companions, so that if the enemies avoid one of our blows they cannot harm us. And we should rarely use this fury except in necessity, for example to make our way out from some tight spot or to take some place or essential route. In general I recommend temperance."

- William