Epee (or rapier) - light and long, versatile, capable of chopping and stabbing, long-bladed weapon. It is a sword with a narrow, rather flexible blade, up to 1 meter long, with a straight handle with a pommel, with a complex guard of various shapes, which provided good protection for the hand. Weighing up to 1.5 kilograms.
The epee is the same age as a firearm. With the advent of the first guns and rifles, armor ceases to be relevant, and with them a heavy sword that can cut through or pierce armor ceases to be relevant. Gradually, one-handed swords were replaced by swords, this began to happen in Spain in the middle of the 15th century. More precisely, in the 60s of the 15th century, nobles began to wear blades that were somewhat narrower than combat swords and had a more complex guard - arches appeared to protect fingers, pass-dane rings (a ring on the side of the crosspiece of a sword or dagger located perpendicular to the axis of the blade), etc. These swords quickly spread among the nobility and nobles: they were lighter than swords, which made it possible to carry them with you all the time; and they turned out to be "more beautiful" - the gradual abandonment of armor (in particular, from plate gloves that prevented the use of firearms), led to the fact that swords, to protect the hand, developed complex guards: baskets made of metal strips, cups, plates with crosshairs and finger arches - these guards began to be decorated with gilding, stones, embossing, etc. And most importantly, swords made it possible, no worse than swords, to protect their lives if necessary, allowed them to successfully both attack and defend themselves in battle. Gradually, the sword spread to almost all branches of the army, displacing the sword. Until the 18th century, the combat sword was in service with both the infantry and the cavalry, until it began to be supplanted by the saber and broadsword. But it didn’t completely disappear. Even at the time of its dawn, the sword was divided into combat and civilian. Civil swords were slightly lighter and narrower, often sharpened only near the point. Such swords were worn as weapons - despite the lightness, such a sword was precisely a weapon, and as a piece of clothing. The military wore them in peacetime instead of military weapons, noblemen and bourgeois in ceremonial attire, some commoners. Right, or we can say that even students had a duty to carry swords. Almost until the 20th century, swords remain a part of ceremonial clothing for nobles, not a military weapon of officers (in Russia until 1917, a sword was mandatory for cuirassier officers out of order, generals), for civilian officials at a parade (even officials of the Ministry of Education, Education, with ceremonial uniforms they wore swords), and weapons for duels. So, somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, the sword becomes a ceremonial, often award, dueling and sporting weapon.
The epee and its appearance gave a powerful impetus to the development of the art of fencing with long bladed weapons. I don’t want to say that before that, they were cut with swords without training, as God will put on their souls, but it was the lightness of the sword that made it possible to invent all the variety of fencing techniques. Fencing schools emerged: Spanish, English, French, German and Italian, each of which had its own characteristics, and whose adherents argued whose school was better. Fencing textbooks are being written: for example, Ridolfo di Cappo Ferro "Gran Simulacro dell'arte e dell'uso della Scherma" ("Great image of the art and practice of fencing") of 1610. In each country, knowledge of fencing is systematized and supplemented with something new. For example, the first systems of epee fencing in Germany and Spain were guided by chopping techniques, and the principle of "killing with a sharp point, not a blade" appeared in Italy only in the middle of the 17th century and, gradually, it was the Italian school that became dominant. Fencing became fashionable, it was studied in prestigious educational institutions. In the reigning houses, and not only, there was a position of a fencing master - a fencing teacher. The sword becomes a sign of a noble person, a nobleman, a bourgeois, sometimes a commoner, a defender of a person's honor in a duel (not only for men, but also for women), losing honor, a person also lost a sword - it was simply broken over a person's head. The production of swords was located in the same places as the production of other edged weapons. German Solingen, in which world-famous examples of cold weapons were made, English Sheffield, French Tire, Spanish Toledo. Blades were forged, metal handles and tops were cast, guards could be stamped or welded. But if in the manufacture of a sword it was enough to be a blacksmith, then a swordmaster should have been more versatile. The guards of swords, and then the blades, were decorated with embossing and carved patterns, gilding, ink, setting precious stones and so on.
So, directly the sword itself: a long, relatively narrow blade, double-edged or having only a sharpened edge; one-handed straight handle with a massive counterweight pommel; a complex guard that protects the hand well. By the way, it is the different guards that are the criterion for the classification of swords, created by Eworth Oakeshott. He distinguishes: guards woven from strips or twigs - baskets; guard-bowls in the form of a hollow hemisphere; saucer guards - slightly curved disc; loop guards - in the form of a simple arc that protects the fingers, and so on. Well, just like that somehow.
Like almost any object that has been used for a long time, the sword has gone through a certain path of modifications. Firstly, this concerned the blade - from a fairly wide double-edged, to a thin faceted, having only a sharp end. Secondly, this concerned the guard: from a simple cross with a finger arc, to a complex woven basket or a solid bowl, and again to a simple small disc. Historically, many researchers, Oakeshott, for example, divides swords into three types:
- reitschwert (literally "horseman's sword") - a heavy sword suitable for chopping blows - it is she who is called "combat sword". Appearing in the 15th century, this type of sword was the most popular in the cavalry of the 16th century, but from the 17th century it began to be supplanted by sabers and broadswords. Although in some countries, Russia, Sweden, it was used in the 18th century both in the cavalry and in the infantry.
- espada ropera (literally "sword for clothes") - designed to be worn with civilian clothes, a little lighter and narrower than a combat sword, but with a double-sided sharpening. This type of epee was most popular in the 16th century, but from the middle of the 17th century it began to be supplanted by even lighter swords.
- smallsword (literally "small sword") - was an even lighter version of the sword with a shortened blade. Appearing in the middle of the 17th century under the influence of the French school of fencing at the end of the 16th century, it later practically supplanted other types of swords. It was this type that became an exclusively thrusting type of swords, even with a blade it was inconvenient for them to cut due to its low weight. Most of these swords had a faceted hexagonal blade, which was replaced by a triangular cross-section with valleys, which can still be seen in a sports sword. By the way, the lightness of this type of sword made it possible to lengthen the blade "painlessly" and swords of almost one and a half meters in length appeared.
Well, now directly the second part of the topic: "Epee or rapier?"
To begin with, a quote from The Three Musketeers: “… escaped from Athos when he saw Kayuzak's sword fly off twenty paces. D'Artagnan and Kayuzak simultaneously rushed after her: one - to get it back, the other - to take possession of it. D'Artagnan, more agile, ran first and stepped on the blade. Kayuzak rushed to the guardsman whom Aramis had killed, grabbed his rapier and was going to return to d'Artagnan, but on the way ran into Athos, who had time to catch his breath in these short moments … So, judging by the text, albeit artistic, in one place, at the same time and, practically, in one branch of the military, there are two types of weapons, judging by the name. Kayuzak loses his sword, but raises the rapier. Is this a mistake of the author or translator? Or do people from the same military branch have different weapons? The most widespread opinion: a sword is a weapon that can be chopped and stabbed, a rapier is only stabbing weapons. A modern swordsman, without hesitation, will answer in the same way. which only stabbing blows are allowed, and a sword that has a flat triangle in cross section, with a hint of sharp edges that allow accentuating the chopping blow. But this is a sporting weapon. Am I an antique weapon? If we turn to literature, artistic and scientific, we will see descriptions of chopping blows with a rapier or only stabbing technique of using a sword. Sometimes the rapier is described as something double-edged and wide, and the sword, as something narrow, only with a sharp end. Again inconsistencies.
To understand, you need to look into history. More precisely, the first name of the sword. In Spain in the 15th century, "espadas roperas" - "sword for clothing" appears. Many researchers in the translation of this name make two mistakes: they translate "espadas roperas" either, as "a sword for civilian clothes"; or translated as "sword for clothes". For example, such a translation is given by John Clements, well-known in the circles of historical swordsmen. And, proceeding from this inaccurate translation, the wrong conclusions are made about the sword and the rapier. But the word "espadas" comes from the Latin "spata" - a sword, as the long cavalry sword of ancient Rome was called. And "for clothes" means "clothes, not armor", and not civilian clothes, since the concept of "civilian clothes" did not exist yet. After reading carefully "espadas roperas", it is easy to see that the words "sword" and "rapier" are two parts of this name: "espadas" - sword, "roperas" - rapier. In many languages, these two names simply do not exist: in Spanish, all the weapons described above are called "espada"; in Italian - "spada"; in French - "epee"; the British use the word "sword" - sword: court sword - court sword, town sword - city sword, scarf sword - sword for the order ribbon, small sword - small sword, to denote a sword in relation to more massive English swords; in German, the word "degen" is used to refer to everything that we are accustomed to call a sword or a rapier. In practice, only in Russian they use these two names, in other languages they use only one: either "rapier" or "sword". Yes, and these names are prefabricated, among the swords or rapiers there are own names - papperheimer and the Valonian sword, for example, the comischelard - a type of sword in which 1/3 of the blade was much wider than the other 2/3. Even if these conclusions based on the analysis of the names are wrong, it is very difficult to argue with the collections of museums, which contain exhibits with similar, clearly piercing-cutting blades, differing only in the shape of the guards, but called either swords or rapiers. At the same time, they were made in different countries and at different times, and for weapons, their changes and development, and 20 years - a lot.
In the photo with various guards, all four types of weapons are called rapiers, not looking at the fact that only the 3rd and 4th blades can be called piercing, and the first two have pronounced chopping blades. Strange, isn't it?
Here are five types of blades: two clearly chopping, one something in between and two thin stabbing. But they are all called rapiers.
So, we can safely assume that the piercing-chopping light swords that appeared in Spain in the 15th century, which, subsequently, differed only in the structure of the guard and the length of the blade, can be called both a sword and a rapier at the same time, and not be mistaken. Because, initially, the epee and the rapier are one and the same. And it is possible that the first was the name of the rapier. And the confusion arose later, when the "old" cutting-thrusting foil-swords and "new" exclusively thrusting foil-swords began to exist at the same time. Later, these names were fixed for sporting weapons, in order to emphasize the differences in the structure and principle of action of sport swords and foils. The most interesting thing is that it is quite difficult to prove or refute my conclusions based on the works of gunsmiths, so I do not refer, for example, to von Winkler, Oakeshott or Beheim in this matter - their opinions on this issue are very different. And some researchers call swords or rapiers and estoks with konchar - exclusively stabbing swords (although this is simply ridiculous - the sword appeared when armor began to disappear, and konchar or estok appeared to pierce this very armor), and ancient narrow Irish swords made of copper and bronze …
