"… took his sword and took it out of its scabbard"
(First Kings, 17:51)
The history of weapons. Last time we finished examining medieval swords on swords "type XII", noting that they begin to change the shape of the blade: the valleys become short, and the blade narrower. But it's still a slashing sword.
But then the first overhead plates appeared, attached to chain mail, and the soldiers immediately faced a problem, but how to hit such "shells"?
This happened already at the beginning of the XIV century. And, although outwardly, under the surcoat, the metal plates were not visible, everyone knew that they could well be there. This means that such a shell cannot be taken with a sufficiently flexible sword with a rounded blade. Useless!
This is how swords of a fundamentally new type appeared: with a rhombic cross-section blade in the form of an elongated triangle, with a pronounced point. It is clear that this process did not begin immediately, but was gradual. And he touched, first of all, not the blade, but … the handle. It has become longer and easier to use.
And now let's turn to the already familiar "Bible of Matsievsky". In the past material, purely chopping blades were shown there. But let's turn a few pages.
And we will see another miniature, which shows completely different swords - thrust-chopping, transitional, belonging to the "type XIV", as well as one sword "type XV" with a very strong narrowing to the point. That is, for some time there were parallel swords cutting, cutting-cutting and thrusting.
It is interesting that, although the fight is equestrian, however, it is depicted so close that a knight in a white helmet, for example, grasps the chain mail hood of a Negro knight with his hand and cuts his neck with his sword. And the rider in the hat-helmet completely captures the enemy by the neck, and inflicts a fatal blow on him under the helmet with a dagger. And yet, judging by the picture, not even one. Such is their fierce fight going on there. But drawing is drawing, but when exactly the "type XV" swords appeared, it is rather difficult to say for sure.
However, since this chronicle was created for more than one year, then, most likely, we have on the miniature images of a somewhat later time, namely the very middle of the XIV century. Sword "type XV", as a rule, had a length of about 90 cm, with a blade length of 80 cm. Weight - one kilogram. The blade has a diamond shape.
Swords "Type XVII" were distinguished by their large size and weight. In the Oakeshott collection there was a sword weighing two kilograms. But the sword in 2.5 kg is also known. The "master of swords" himself called them "boring", because there was nothing interesting about them - a typical sword "one and a half hands" of great length and weight.
An interesting feature, most likely adopted by Europeans in the East, was the characteristic holding of the sword with the index finger placed on the crosshair of the sword. For example, in the oriental instructions on fencing, the Arabian horsemen were asked to first strike with the sword at the enemy's sword in order to … chop off his index finger at the crosshair. And only then, when he dropped the sword in pain, deprive him of his head with one blow.
It is interesting that for a long time the Arabs were cutting with swords, not stabbing. Thus, the Arab knight and commander of the 12th century Osama ibn Munkyz wrote in his Book of Edifications:
“I grappled with the assassin … He held the dagger to his forearm, and I struck him so that he cut both the blade and the forearm, causing a small notch on the blade of my sword. The blacksmith in my city said he could remove it, but I told him to leave it as it is, as this is the best mark for my sword. And this mark has been preserved to this day."
Naturally, the finger on the crosshair had to be protected somehow. And that's how the "ring swords" appeared. It is believed that the finger on the bow of the crosshair allowed for better control of the sword. One way or another - it's hard to say. But we know that at first one ring appeared on the crosshair, and then a second one, so that even accidentally “not to get your finger into the sky”.
The earliest evidence of a crosshair finger ring dates back to 1340–1350. There is a diptych "Baptism and Mourning" by the masters from Siena, which depicts, however, not a sword, but a falchion, but … all the same with a ring. And since the rings were on the falchions, then they were on the swords.
Interestingly, there are very early images of purely thrusting swords. So it is probably worth emphasizing once again that different types of medieval swords could well coexist "peacefully" in parallel, and not just replace each other sequentially.
