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.
Well, obviously no, but of course, something that is seen as needing to be "the default" as to how you must fight is necessarily seen as being almost required. And common knowledge says one must utilize the shortened sword as "the default" when in armor (and/or facing an armored opponent)! But is that actually true?
This is a companion to my other post. Each battle listed here is a description of swords and sidearms being used en masse, detailed in a manner that I find sufficient (which I confess, is a little arbitrarily); while most accounts of battle describe the sword being used, few describe why or when the sword was being used in the engagement.
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, so enjoy!
The miles wields the lance and shield in hand, and the sword and dagger girt at the waist. However, his person is not the only place he can keep his arms, for he is a horseman first and foremost, and, therefore, has a saddle. Saddle weapons, particularly hand weapons at the saddle, is not the most common knowledge (I've even seen it argued that it wasn't done!), and it is rarely depicted; however, there are plenty of primary sources that explicitly prove that hand weapons were carried at the saddle, and across a broad period of time.
The focus on this article will be on the saddle weapons of the knight (and man at arms); though light horsemen likewise carried weapons at their saddles as well (especially in the 16th century), for the sake of brevity and my sanity, I will be limiting the scope of said article to the armed cavalryman.
Hello and welcome to my first post! This will be a big one, so get comfortable.
Often it is said "We don't know how zweihanders/montantes/spadoni were used in war," but frankly, this is far from the truth. There is plenty of information as to their purpose and role in battle, but there is some piecing together to do.
Before I continue, it must be noted zweihander, schlachtschwert, slaugh sword, slaughter sword, montante, spadone, espadon, two handed sword, and sometimes longsword are one and the same. Even though some of these names are more common today, and perhaps more clear, I will use the term "two handed sword," as it is the most common term in period English texts.
