The Long Sword
For Guy Windsor, my first teacher in the chivalric martial arts, and Sean Hayes and Greg Mele, from whom I have learned so much and who have been unstinting in their provision of time and research; to Aurora Simmons and Christopher Duffy, who have suffered with all my mistakes, and to Michael Edgar, who set me on this road in 1980.
Title Page
THE LONG SWORD
CHRISTIAN CAMERON
CONTENTS
Arming
sword
– A single-handed sword, thirty inches or so
long, with a simple cross guard and a heavy pommel,
usually double edged and pointed.
Arming Coat
– A doublet either
stuffed, padded, or cut from multiple layers of linen or
canvas to be worn under armour.
Alderman –
One of the
officers or magistrates of a town or
commune.
Bailli
–
A
French royal officer much like an English sheriff; or the
commander of a ‘
langu
e
’ in the Knights of Saint John.
Bas
i
lard
– A dagger with a hilt like a capital I,
with a broad cross both under and over the hand.
Possibly the predecessor of the rondel dagger, it was a
sort of symbol of chivalric status in the late fourteenth
century.
Some of them look so much like Etruscan weapons
of the bronze and early iron age that I wonder
about influences
. . .
Bassinet
– A form of helmet that evolved during
the late middle ages, the bassinet was a helmet that
came down to the nape of the neck everywhere but
over the face, which was left unprotected.
It was almost
always worn with an
aventail
made of
maille
which fell
from the helmet like a short cloak over the shoulders.
By 1350, the bassinet had begun to develop a moveable
visor, although it was some time before the technology was
perfected and made able to lock.
Brigans
– A period term
for foot soldiers that has made it into our lexicon
as a form of bandit – brigands.
Burgher
– A member of
the town council, or sometimes, just a prosperous townsman.
Commune
–
In the period, powerful towns and cities were called communes
and had the power of a great feudal lord – over
their own people, and over trade.
Coat-of-plates
– In
period, the plate armour breast and back plate were just
beginning t
o
appear on European battlefields by the time of
Poitiers – mostly due to advances in metallurgy which allowed larger
chunks of steel to be produced in furnaces.
Because large
pieces of steel were comparatively rare at the beginning of
William Gold’s career, most soldiers wore a coat of
small plates – varying from a breastplate made of six or
seven carefully formed plates, to a jacket made up of
hundeds
o
f very s
m
all plates riveted to a leather or
linen canvas backing.
The protection offered was superb, but the
garment is heavy and the junctions of the plates were
not resistant to a strong thrust, which had a major
impact on the sword styles of the day.
Cote
– In
the novel, I use the period term
cote
to describe
what might then have been called a gown – a man’
s over-garment worn atop shirt and doublet or pourpoint
or jupon, sometimes furred, fitting tightly across the shoulders and
then dropping away like a large bell.
They could go
all the way to the floor with buttons all the
way, or only to the middle of the thigh.
They
were sometimes worn with fur, and were warm and practical.
Demesne
– The central holdings of a lord – his actual lands,
as opposed to lands to which he may have political
rights but not taxation rights or where he does not
control the peasantry.
Donjon
– The word from which we get
dungeon.
Doublet
– A small garment worn over the shirt, very
much like a modern vest, that held up the hose
and sometimes to which armour was attached.
Almost every man
would have one.
Name comes from the requirement of the
Paris Tailor’s guild that the doublet be made – at
the very least – of a piece of linen doubled – thus,
heavy enough to hold the grommets and thus to hold
the strain of the laced-on hose.
Gauntlets
– Covering for
the hands was essential for combat.
Men wore maille or
scale gauntlets or even very heavy leather gloves, but by
William Gold’s time, th
e
richest men wore articulated steel
gauntlets with fingers.
Gown
– An over garment worn in Northern
Europe (at least) over the kirtle, it might have dagged
or magnificently pointed sleeves and a very high collar and
could be worn belted, or open to daringly reveal the
kirtle, or simply, to be warm. Sometimes lined in fur
, often made of wool.
Haubergeon
– Derived from
hauberk
, the
haubergeon
is a small, comparatively light
maille
shirt.
It does not
go down past the thighs, nor does it usually have
long sleeves, and may sometimes have had leather reinforcement at
the hems.
Helm or haum –
The
great helm had become
smaller and slimmer since the thirteenth century, but continued to
be very popular, especially in Italy, where a full helm
that covered the face and head was part of most
harnesses until the armet took over in the early fifteenth
century.
Edward III and the Black Prince both seem to
have worn helms.
Late in the period, helms began to
have moveable visors like
bassinets
.
Hobilar
– A non-knightly man
-at-arms in England.
Horses
– Horses were a mainstay of
medieval society, and they were expensive, even the worst of
them.
A good horse cost many days
’
wages for a
poor man; a warhorse cost almost a year’s
income for a knight,
and the loss of a
warhorse was so serious that most mercenary companies specified in
their contracts (or
condottas
) that the employer would replace the
horse.
A second level of horse was the lady’s
palfrey – often smaller and finer, but the
m
edieval warhorse was
not
a giant farm horse, but a solid beast like
a modern Hanoverian.
Also,
ronceys
which are generally inferior smaller
horses ridden by archers.
Hours
– The medieval day was divided
– at least in most parts of Europe – by the canonical
periods observed in churches and religious houses.
The day started
with
Matins
very early, past
nonnes
in the middle of
the day, and came around to
vespers
towards evening.
This
is a vast simplification, but I have tried to keep
to the flavor of medieval time by avoiding minutes and
seconds.
Jupon
– A close fitting garment, in this period often
laced, and sometimes used to support other garments.
As far
as I can tell, the term is almost interchangeable with
doublet and with pourpoint.
As fashion moved from loose garments
based on simply cut squares and rectangles to the skin
tight fitted clothes of the mid-to-late 14th century
, it became necessary for men to lace their hose (stockings
) to their upper garment – to hold them up!
The simplest
doublet (the term comes from the guild requirement that they
be made of two thicknesses of linen or more, this
‘doubled
’
) was a skin-tight vest worn over a shirt
, with lacing holes for ‘points’ that tied up the hose
.
The pourpoint (literally, For Points) started as the same garment
.
The pourpoint became quite elaborate, as you can see by
looking at the original that belonged to Charles of Blois
online.
A jupon could also be worn as a padded
garment to support armour (still with lacing holes, to which
armour attach) or even over armour, as a tight fitting
garment over the breastplate or coat of plates, sometimes bearing
the owner’s arms.
Kirtle
– A women’s equiv
a
lent of
the doublet or pourpoint.
In Italy, young women might wear
one daringly as an outer garment.
It is skin tight
from neck to hips, and then falls into a skirt
.
Fancy ones were buttoned or laced from the navel.
Moralists
decried them.
Langue
– One of the sub-organizations of the
Order of the Knights of Saint John, commonly called the
Hospitallers.
The ‘langues’ did not always make sense, as they
crossed the growing national bounds of Europe, so that, for
example, Scots knights were in the English Langue, Catalans in
the Spanish Langue.
But it allowed men to eat and
drink with others who spoke the same tongue, or nearer
to it.
To the best of my understanding, however, every
man, however lowly, and every serving man and woman, had
to know Latin, which seems to have been the order
’s lingua franca.
That’s more a guess than something
I
know.
Leman –
A lover
.
Long Sword –
One of the
periods most important military innovations, a double-edged sword almost
forty five inches long, with a sharp, armour-piercing point
and a simple cross guard and heavy pommel.
The cross
guard and pommel could be swung like an axe, holding
the blade – some men only sharpened the last foot or
so for cutting.
But the main use was the point
of the weapon, which, with skill, could puncture maille or
even coats of plates.
Maille
– I use the somewhat period
term
maille
to avoid confusion. I mean what most people
call chain mail or ring mail.
The process was very
labor intensive, as real mail has to have each ling
either welded closed or riveted.
A fully armoured man-at
-arms would have a
haubergeon
and
aventail
of maille.
Riveted
maille was almost proof against the cutting power of most
weapons – although concussive damage could still occur!
And even the
most strongly made maille is ineffective against powerful archery, spears
, or well-thrust swords in period.
Malle –
Easy to confuse
with
maille
, malle is a word found in Chaucer and
other sources for a leather bag worn across the back
of a horse’s saddle – possibly like a round-ended
portmanteau, as we see these for hundreds of years in
English art.
Any person traveling be he or she pilgrim
or soldier or monk, needed a way to carry clothing
and other necessities.
Like a piece of luggage, for horse
travel.
Partisan
– A spear or light glaive, for thrusting but
with the ability to cut.
My favorite, and Fiore’s
, was one with heavy side-lugs like spikes, called in
Italian a
ghiavarina.
There’s quite a pretty video
on
Y
ou
T
ube of me demonstrating this weapon
. . .
