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Sword

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A sword (from Old English sweord; akin to Old High German swerd lit. "wounding tool", from the Proto-Indo-European *sver- "to wound, to hurt") is a long edged bladed weapon, consisting in its most fundamental design of a blade and a handle. The blade, normally made of metal and often ground to at least one sharp edge, usually has a pointed tip for thrusting. The handle, called the hilt, can utilise many materials, but most commonly wood covered by leather, fish-skin or metal wiring. The basic intent and physics of swordsmanship remain fairly constant, but the methods of using those physics vary widely from culture to culture. Most of the variations result from the differences in blade designs around the world. The names given to many swords in mythology, literature, and history reflect the high prestige of the weapon (see list of swords).

History

Humans have manufactured and used bladed weapons from the Bronze Age onwards. The sword developed from the dagger when the construction of longer blades became possible, probably in the early 2nd millennium BC. The hilt at first simply allowed a firm grip, and prevented the hand from slipping onto the blade when executing a stab.

Iron swords became increasingly common from the late 2nd millennium BC. Iron, stronger and less dense than bronze, has the added advantage of mass-production due to the wider availability of the raw material. The Hittites, the Mycenean Greeks, and the early Celts figured among the early users of iron swords.

Eventually smiths learned that by adding an amount of carbon (added during smelting in the form of charcoal) in the iron, they could produce an improved alloy (now known as steel). Several different methods of swordmaking existed in ancient times, including most famously pattern welding. Over time different methods developed all over the world.

In Pre-Columbian South America and Mesoamerica several cultures made use of sword-like weapons without developing metallurgy; for example swords -- known as maquahuitl -- with obsidian "teeth" mounted along the "edges" of a wooden "blade".

During the 17th and 18th centuries, a smallsword became an essential fashion accessory in European countries, and most wealthy men carried one. As the wearing of swords fell out of fashion, canes took their place in a gentleman's wardrobe. Some examples of canes -- those known as swordsticks -- incorporate a concealed blade. The French martial art la canne developed to fight with canes and swordsticks and has now evolved into a sport.

The sword always served more as a weapon of self-defence than for use on the battlefield, and the military importance of swords steadily decreased during the Middle Ages. Even as a personal sidearm, the sword began to lose its pre-eminence in the late 18th century, paralleling the development of reliable handguns.

Swords continued in use, although increasingly limited to military officers and ceremonial uniforms, although most armies retained heavy cavalry until well after World War I. For example, the British Army formally adopted a completely new design of cavalry sword in 1908, almost the last change in British Army weapons before the outbreak of the war. The last units of British heavy cavalry switched to using armoured vehicles as late as 1938. Cavalry charges still occurred as late as World War II during which Japanese and Pacific Islanders also occasionally used swords, but by then an enemy armed with machine guns, barbed wire and armoured vehicles would usually completely outmatch swordsmen.

Types of swords

See also list of swords.

Swords can fall into categories of varying scope. The main distinguishing characteristics include blade shape (cross-section, tapering and length), shape and size of hilt and pommel, age and place of origin.

  • The 3rd millennium Sumerian bronze "sickle-sword", together with the bronze dagger ranks as a proto-sword
  • Bronze Age swords with typical leaf-shaped blades first appear in the 2nd millennium BC around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and in Mesopotamia.
  • European swords
  • East Asian swords
    • Dao (刀 pinyin dāo) - a Chinese single-edged curved sword, sometimes translated as sabre or broadsword in English.
    • Jian (劍 pinyin jiàn) - a Chinese double-edged thin straight sword.
    • Saingeom - ancient style of korean sword with a 90-centimeter (35 inch) long hammered blade from the Joseon dynasty. As many as 20 steps and craftsmen went into the manufacture of saingeom swords
    • Hwandudaedo ancient Korean sword from the Three Kingdoms era (4th to mid-7th centuries), exported from Korea to Japan before the 6th century. Numerous copies of this Korean long sword with a round handle have survived in Japan.
    • Katana (刀; かたな) and Tachi (太刀; たち) - Japanese samurai swords - see also Wakizashi and tanto.
    • Kampilan - Ancient Filipino sword. Traditionally, the kampilan measures about 40 to 44 inches in length, with a carved hilt, a single edge, and a pommel in the shape of “crocodile jaws.” The tip varies with spike or split teeth. Its cutting force compares with that of the Japanese katana.
    • Barong - a sword of the Tausugs of the southern Philippines that looks like an oversize and elongated leaf. The width of the blade make it more suitable for cutting than for thrusting.
    • Bolo - The most basic and widely-used sword in the Philippines, based on an agricultural machete. Typically, the bolo features rough and unfinished blades due to agricultural use. Variations include Tabak (more for cutting), and Tusok (more pointed, for thrusting)
    • Pinute - a Filipino sword: long, straight, and well-balanced. It represents a variation on the agricultural bolo machete. The Visayan warriors of Cebu favour it.
    • Kris - Kris swords apparently originated in the 13th century on the island of Java in the Indonesian archipelago, and migrated to the Philippines, Malaysia, and various Southeast Asian countries.
    • Korambit - The Korambit developed in the Indonesian archipelago around the 13th century from roots in the Philippines and Malaysia.
    • Talibon - A short sword of the Christian community in the Philippines. Its wooden grip has cane binding.

Single edged weapons

One strict definition of a sword restricts it to a double-edged weapon used for both slashing and stabbing. However, general usage of the term remains inconsistent and it has important cultural overtones, so that commentators almost universally recognize the single-edged Asian weapons listed above as "swords", simply because they have very similar prestige to the prestige attached to the European sword.

Europeans also frequently refer to their own single-edged weapons as swords -- generically backswords. Other terms include scramasax, falchion, scimitar, dussack, Grosses Messer, cutlass, sabre, szabla, and mortuary sword. Many of these are essentially identical weapons, and the different names may refer to their use in different countries at different times.

A machete (or, in Southern Africa, a panga) as a tool resembles such a single-edged sword and serves to cut through thick vegetation, and indeed many of the terms listed above describe weapons that originated as farmers' tools used on the battlefield. The scramasax, for example, usually lacks a cross-piece or any kind of guard, and is more properly functions as a war knife. Such weapons lacked much of the prestige and mystique associated with a 'proper' sword (usually reserved to the nobility, and designed exclusively as a weapon). This lack of prestige may have kept these weapons from use even in contexts where they would serve well. Already Xenophon recommended using the curved makhaira for cavalry (On Horsemanship 12:11), because of the nature of mounted combat. The Crusaders confronted the Islamic scimitar, but largely failed to adopt the weapon, also because of the symbolism contrasting the cruciform Christian sword with the "crooked" "heathen" weapon.

Morphology of the Western sword

Basic parts of a sword
Basic parts of a sword

The blade functions as the cutting part of a sword. Single-edged swords have a non-cutting edge of the blade -- known as the back.

The blade may also have grooves or fullers with the purpose of lightening the blade while allowing it to retain its strength, in the same manner as an "I" beam in construction.

The hilt functions as the handle of a sword, and consists of the guard, the grip, and the pommel. It may also have a tassel or sword knot.

The name scabbard applies to the case which houses the sword when not in use.

The ricasso or shoulder identifies a short section of blade immediately forward of the guard. Most swords have no ricasso. The ricasso is not sharpened, which sometimes allows a finger to be wrapped around the blade for better control. On some large weapons, such as the German longsword, a leather cover surrounded the ricasso, and a swordsman might be grip it in one hand to make the weapon more easily wielded in close-quarters combat. The ricasso normally bears the maker's mark. On Japanese blades the mark appears on the tang under the handle.

The tang consists of the extension of the blade structure through the hilt and the grip.

  • In a rat-tail tang, a thin rod is welded to the end of the blade at the crossguard that goes through the handle (20th-century and later construction). This is most commonly seen in a cheap sword like object. This construction method is not seen in traditional swords and is not meant for traditional sword usage.
  • In traditional construction, the tang is forged as a part of the sword rather than being welded, and goes through the handle. This is much more durable than a rat tail tang. It is peened over the end of the pommel. A modern variation of this method is to have a pommel and a pommel nut that holds the pommel on, thus having the ability of being dismantled.
  • In a "full" tang (most commonly used in knives and machetes) the tang has about the same width as the blade. In European or Asian swords sold today, many are advertised "full" tangs, which usually means it is made with a forged tang as in the bullet above.

The term CoP (Center of Percussion), also known as the sweet spot, identifies the part of the blade that can deliver the strongest blow with the least vibration. Most swords will have two of these points along the blade. The secondary one nearest to the hilt becomes a particularly poor point to have struck by another sword, if the user should make the mistake of believing popular mythology and using a sword edge to parry. Being struck at this point will subject the stricken sword to the maximum force of the blow, and may cause a sword to suffer catastrophic failure.

From the 18th century onwards swords intended for cutting, i.e. with an edge, have been curved with the radius of curvature equal to the distance from the swordman's body at which it was to be used. This allowed the blade to have a sawing effect rather than simply delivering a heavy blow. European swords, intended for use at arm's length, had a radius of curvature of around a metre. Middle Eastern swords, intended for use with the arm bent, had a smaller radius. Many European swords in the 19th Century suffered significantly from the use of metal scabbards which tended to make them blunt, and this consequently gave Eastern swords a fearsome reputation amongst European troops.

Swords intended for stabbing normally had straight blades, as this made accurate handling easier. European light cavalry (and infantry officers, who usually fought on horseback) invariably had curved swords for slashing rather than straight ones for stabbing, because if a thrust from a moving horse missed, then a rider would have difficulty in making a horse go backwards to repeat the thrust. This proved particularly important during skirmishes, the normal form of fighting for such troops. Heavy cavalry, which tended to charge en masse and not skirmish, usually had straight swords for thrusting.

Classification

Jan Petersen in De Norske Vikingsverd ("The Norwegian Viking Swords", 1919) introduced the most widely-used classification of swords of the Viking Age, discriminating 26 types labelled A – Z. In 1927 R. E. M. Wheeler condensed Petersen's typology into a simplified typology of nine groups, numbered I – IX.

Ewart Oakeshott in The Sword in The Age of Chivalry (1964, revised 1981) introduced a system of classification for medieval sword blades into types, numbered X – XXII as a continuation of Wheeler's system.

Type X

Oakeshott X describes the type of sword common in the late Viking age, remaining in use up to the 13th century. They feature broad and flat blades, with an average length of some 80 cm and with a fuller, generally very wide and shallow, running almost the entire length, but fading out shortly before the point. The point is typically rounded. The grip has the same average length as the earlier Viking swords (some 9.5 cm). The tang, usually very flat and broad, tapers sharply towards the pommel. The cross is generally of square section, about 18 to 20 cm long, tapering towards the tips, in some rare cases slightly curved. It is narrower and longer than the typical Viking type, representing a transitional type to the knightly sword of the high Middle Ages. 10th-century Norsemen knew this type and called it gaddhjalt (spike hilt). The pommels usually take a Brazil-nut form, and sometimes also a disk-shape. [1]

In 1981, Oakeshott introduced the a subtype Xa, including swords with similar blades but a narrower fuller, originally classified under type XI. Many of the type X blades have inscribed the ULFBERHT mark.

Type XII

Typical of the high Middle Ages, these swords begin to show a tapering of the blade with a shortened fuller, resulting in improved thrusting characteristics while maintaining good cutting capabilities. A large number of medieval examples of this type survive. It certainly existed in the later 13th century, and perhaps considerably earlier, since the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum in Zurich posesses an example that has a Viking Age-type hilt, but clearly a type XII blade. The subtype XIIa (originally classified as XIIIa) consists of the longer, more massive great swords that appear in the mid-13th century, probably designed to counter the improved mail armour of the time, and the predecessor of the later longswords. The earliest known depiction of a type XII sword in art forms part of the Archangel Michael statue in Bamberg Cathedral, dating to circa 1200. The Maciejowski Bible (circa' 1245) depicts other examples.

Type XIII

This typifies the classical knightly sword that developed during the age of the Crusades. Typically, examples date to the second half of the 13th century. Type XIII swords feature as a defining characteristic a long, wide blade with parallel edges, ending in a rounded or spatulate tip. The blade cross section has the shape of a lens. The grips, longer than in the earlier types, typically some 15 cm, allow occasional two-handed use. The cross-guards are usually straight, and the pommels Brazil-nut or disk-shaped (Oakeshott pommel types D, E and I).

Subtype XIIIa features longer blades and grips. They correspond to the knightly great swords, or Grans espées d'Allemagne, appearing frequently in 14th century German, but also in Spanish and English art. Early examples of the type appear in the 12th century, and it remained popular until the 15th century. Subtype XIIIb describes smaller single-handed swords of similar shape.

Very few exemplars of the parent type XIII exist, while more examples of the subtype XIIIa survive. A depiction of two-handed use appears in the Tenison psalter. Another depiction of the type appears in the Apocalypse of St. John manuscript of circa 1300.

Type XIV

Ewart Oakeshott describes swords of Type XIV classification as "...short, broad and sharply-pointed blade, tapering strongly from the hilt, of flat section (the point end of the blade may, in some examples, have a slight though perceptible mid-rib, with a fuller running about half, or a little over, of its length. This may be single and quite broad or multiple and narrow. The grip is generally short (average 3.75") though some as long as 4.5"; the tang is thick and parallel-sided, often with the fuller extending half-way up it. The pommel is always of "wheel" form, sometimes very wide and flat. The cross is generally rather long and curved (very rarely straight)."

Sword-like objects

The emergence of sword-like objects is a relatively current phenomenon (1900s and on). Also known as "SLO"s, the term is given to the abundance of objects appearing to be swords that cater to the contemporary growing interest in the glory and mystique of the sword. These cheap wallhangers are not true swords, as they do not have the correct characteristics of a true sword. Such factors include: correct metal, shape, weight, heat treatment, construction, and durability. Sword-like objects are not designed to work as an actual sword, and most likely would not function as such.

Symbolism

The sword can symbolise violence, combat, or military intervention. Jesus' statement, "Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword" uses the term in this sense. Another example of this metaphorical significance comes in the old saying "The pen is mightier than the sword" -- attributed to Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Swords form a suit in the Tarot deck (replaced by spades in modern cards), and often function as symbols of masculinity and particularly of the phallus.

See also

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