Hank Reinhardt's The Book of the Sword (21 page)

Books and movies have contributed to most of this romanticism, and I feel the reality was not quite like that. Your "adventure" is always someone else's terrifying problem. It is easy to ask how many of us would actually engage in that sort of thing if we could, and the answer is best kept to our secret selves.

Still, for all-time popularity, the rapier has an advantage that other swords lack: play and contests can be held with a practice sword that can be made to feel very much like a real weapon. Heavier epees are on the market, and there are "schlager" blades as well, and these mimic the feel of many real weapons. Alas for the katana, the shinai still feels like a stick.
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But enough of romanticism.

Although considered a weapon of the Renaissance, the origins of the modern rapier really go back to at least the 15th century. But there are swords that can only be called rapiers that go much further back. As mentioned in the chapter on bronze, there are Bronze Age Mycenaean swords that can be called rapiers, and in the Berne Historisches Museum in Switzerland there is an unusual iron sword that is most definitely a rapier. The blade is narrow, slightly over a half inch in width, four sided with somewhat shallow faces, and it tapers to a sharp and deadly point. The hilt is knobbed. This sword dates from about 2nd century BC. No one knows how these weapons were used. While it is unlikely that a form as sophisticated as modern fencing was used, I feel sure that some form of fencing was developed and used with these weapons. But nothing can be proved either way.

Bronze Mycenaean sword.

The first of the "modern" reincarnations of the rapier was the "estoc," also called a "tuck" by the English, and this is what we will call it. This seems to have developed in the first part of the 15th century and became quite popular. The tuck was a long, straight tapering sword whose primary purpose was the thrust. The cross section of the sword varied, some triangular with deeply hollowed faces, some flattened diamond, some square, without hollowed faces and edges that were for all intent and purposes useless. These are not "fencing" weapons in the common sense of the term. They are heavy, and the balance and size of many of them lend themselves to a two-hand use.

Still, as with most everything in this field, even that statement must be qualified. I have in my possession a tuck with a rather light blade that would lend itself to fencing except that it has no protection for the hand other than a wide crossguard.

However, they were stout swords, and unlike the rapier, were intended for war. The tuck seems to have been an offshoot of an earlier sword, an Oakeshott Type XV. These had thick blades that narrowed quickly to a sharp point. It was probably an earlier forerunner of this style of sword that the Sire de Joinville used at the Battle of Mansourah (1250 AD).

There De Joinville was attacked by a Saracen who struck him a hard blow on his back, pushing him forward in his saddle, and then tried to hold him there. The Sire de Joinville broke free, grabbed his saddle sword, couched it under his arm like a lance, and ran the Saracen through. (He was an interesting man. I would suggest reading his Chronicles.)

Ewart Oakeshott considered the rapier to be a development of the arming sword, and has presented some excellent arguments for this. And while I have no wish to even try to counter his arguments, and am not even opposed to them, I do feel that there are some things that must be noted. Any sword development has so many contributing factors as to be almost impossible to detail in depth, let alone describe in a neat linear progression. For instance, consider that improvements in armor led to lessened use of the shield. This in turn led to the sword being used for defense as well as offense. Make no mistake, this had been tried before, and we read of it in the Norse sagas. But the shield was very much in use then and no effort was made to further develop this style of combat.

When using the sword in any defensive movement it becomes necessary that you control the sword with more dexterity than previously. This was achieved by hooking the forefinger over the guard. This also led to losing a forefinger, and very quickly a bar was added to protect the finger. This, in turn, led to greater and greater hand protection, which reached its peak in the basket hilts of the Scottish broadsword and the Venetian schiavona and, to a lesser degree, in the swept and cup hilt rapier.

Antique basket hilted claymore, 38 inches overall length. HRC28.

In passing, I'll note that the crossguard of the classic medieval knightly cruciform sword was there to protect the hand from hitting the shield, and not from a blade sliding down the sword. Should two edges meet, there is almost no sliding that I have found in my experiments. Instead, the blades grip as the edges are nicked, and hang together. Should the blow be parried by the flat of the blade, and the opposing sword slide down, the guard offers no protection, as it extends in the wrong direction. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese swords are frequently used to parry with, and their guards extend in four directions on a plane at right angles to the hand.

Although this section is devoted to the European tuck, rapier and small sword, it is interesting to note that the Turks of the Ottoman Empire also possessed and used tucks of their own. These appear to be similar to the European but on closer observation they are heavier and thicker. Of course the use was the same as the European. However, the rapier itself was never used in the East.

By the 1400s the tuck had become a distinctive sword style of its own, and remained in use until well into the 17th century. One of the most telling differences between a tuck and a rapier is the usage. The tuck would work well in battle. It could be used with one or two hands and deliver a powerful thrust.

The rapier, although worn at times as a mark of rank, was essentially useless in combat. George Silver, the English gentleman who wrote on swords and sword play, called it a "birdspit, that cannot harm our enemies in war, and only harm our friends in peace." Today, many enthusiasts look down on Silver, and say that he was trying to defend an out-of-date fighting style, that he was merely xenophobic, or that he just didn't understand the potential of the rapier. Having played with a lot of weapons, and having met a lot of people, I feel that George Silver would have been a lot to handle, regardless of what weapon was being used. And I feel that he did understand the rapier, probably all too well.

Most telling are contemporary comments. In his excellent book
The Rapier and the Small Sword,
A.V.B. Norman quotes a bill from Robert Selkirk, cutler to James IV of Scotland, for the wrapping of a rapier, a riding sword
and
an arming sword. Even earlier, the rapier is described as being a cutting weapon, and a tuck as having three or more edges.

There is also the question as to the origin of the word "rapier." Many think of it having descended from the German word "
rapper,
" meaning to tear out, or the Spanish word "
raspar
," to scratch. Claude Blair offered another source, the
espada ropera
, or sword of the robe, i.e. civilian wear. To be quite honest, I really don't care. In many respects it's like questioning the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. If I had to choose, I would choose the Blair explanation. My reasoning is quite simple. (Many have said that I am simple as well, so don't waste your time thinking it.) The rapier is an excellent weapon for dueling, (though for multiple assailants, it leaves something to be desired—more on this later), but is useless in war. Since it is worn with civilian dress, the
espada ropera
seems to fit.

It is confusing to read that one of the earliest mentions of the rapier pertains to a cutting sword. One has to remember that not only were our ancestors somewhat lackadaisical about spelling, but had the same carelessness regarding terms. This is a very confusing area because there are no hard and fast lines that can be drawn. We live in an age where everything must be compartmentalized. It is a Ford, or a Chevrolet, it is a 21-inch TV or a 33-inch. A copper-jacketed round nose .45 caliber bullet leaves the barrel at 830 feet per second and develops a specific amount of muzzle energy. Well, it's not that way with swords, and it sure would be a lot easier if it were.

But the rapier itself is a confusing weapon. Just what is a rapier? I have seen rapiers with blades that will cut, although not too well. And these are not sword rapiers, but rather regular rapiers with slightly wider blades. I can see why our ancestors were careless about terms, as there is no specific set of rules to determine what is a rapier, a sword rapier, or just a narrow sword. There are rapiers with blades that are very thin, with no discernible edge, and yet, to my mind, the blade shape and function should indicate that it is a specific type of sword. Alas, this does not seem to work with the rapier. However, for convenience sake, I will define a rapier as a sword with a long, thin blade that is primarily used for thrusting.

Those swords which can also be used for cutting we will term "sword rapiers," and will deal with them later in the chapter on straight-swords. The term itself is quite confusing, as no one is really sure what it means.

Ewart Oakeshott offered the best way to distinguish between a sword and a sword rapier: if you pick up the sword and you think you could cut off a man's arm, then it's probably a sword rapier; if you don't think you can, it's probably a rapier.

If I am facing someone with a sword rapier, with a heavier cutting blade, and he is foolish enough to hold the sword in an "en garde" position, the moment he lifts the sword for a cut I will attack. And with the balance of my sword, it should be quicker to enable me to avoid a defending left hand that might be trying to block my attack.

Like everything else in life, it's a trade-off. If you make the sword blade wider and heavier to facilitate cutting, you make it somewhat slower and less able to "fence" should that be required. If you keep the weight the same, but shorten the blade to achieve the same purpose, you lose length. If your rapier is lightning fast due to a thin deadly blade, you can't cut, nor do you have the strength to block a heavy cut from a heavier weapon. You also stand in danger of having your sword blade grabbed by an opponent. Make no mistake, gloves were made with mail lining in the palms for just that purpose. Later, as the rapier blade became almost totally without a functioning edge, it could easily be grabbed by the left hand. A strong man could grab the blade and bend it until it was useless, or in some cases even break it. That, of course, depended on how strong the man was and on the temper of the sword.

A cutting sword has to have a relatively flat blade in order to cut. A thick blade prevents the sword from cutting deeply, but the sword also has to have a certain amount of mass behind the edge in order for it to cut at all. Machetes, with their thick backs, are excellent for light chopping, but are not as efficient as swords in combat. However, if you add just a little mass to the blade by making it only
slightly
thicker, then you can have a devastating weapon, and one quite similar to Chinese swords.

From the above, you can see that categorizing these swords is very chancy indeed. It is a constantly shifting set of values, but no set rules. Finally, add into the equation the very real fact that much of the sword's use will depend upon the wielder.

There are several things that can be considered. First, the guard: the hilt of the rapier is quite attractive, and does provide some protection for the hand. The rapier was lighter, quicker, and easier to carry than many of the standard swords of the day. Another factor is that the rapier was a lousy weapon of war. So attempts were made to solve all of these problems, and obviously they solved none of them. (Well, maybe the fashion one, as there are sword rapiers that are quite attractive).

Early rapiers were generally only a little lighter than the tucks. Many were made with wider blades that did have edges. But it was also found that these blades were slower, and that a purely thrusting blade was much quicker.