Why sword & dagger were never used in war in renaissanc

[YIzhe LIU]

From film,histoeical picture,I can hardly see the infantry ever used both sword and dagger[Right hand uses with sword,left hand uses with dagger] in the battle field in the 16th century to 17th century?Why?

Wasn't there no enough room to wave both sword and dagger in the battle field in the 16th century to 17th century?

By the way, I wonder if it was popular for infantry using sword and buckler in 1500AD-1670AD?

[Stacy Clifford]

A dagger provides a useful defense against a single opponent, or maybe a few, but it has a smaller margin for error than a buckler and becomes a lot less useful in mass combat. Bucklers are well suited to the battlefield and were commonly used. The Spanish were known to use sword and buckler men to get inside pike formations and disrupt them, and various manuals in the late 1500s still taught it.

[YIzhe LIU]

A dagger provides a useful defense against a single opponent, or maybe a few, but it has a smaller margin for error than a buckler and becomes a lot less useful in mass combat. Bucklers are well suited to the battlefield and were commonly used. The Spanish were known to use sword and buckler men to get inside pike formations and disrupt them, and various manuals in the late 1500s still taught it.

Is that mean sword and dagger only suitable for 1 vs 1 combat,but unsuitable for gang fight and war?Because I saw that infantries would rather use single sword than using sword and dagger in the16th century-17th century.

By the way,a question,was sword and buckler pupular in using for infantries in 1600-1680?

[Stacy Clifford]

Is that mean sword and dagger only suitable for 1 vs 1 combat, but unsuitable for gang fight and war?

Generally I think so, although an exceptionally skilled fighter might be able to make it work. There are exceptions to every rule.

Because I saw that infantries would rather use single sword than using sword and dagger in the16th century-17th century.

What is your source for this?

By the way,a question, was sword and buckler popular in using for infantries in 1600-1680?

I'm not as familiar with the history of that time period, others here might be able to answer that question better. I'm sure its use had not disappeared completely, but I don't know how popular it was.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

By the way, I wonder if it was popular for infantry using sword and buckler in 1500AD-1670AD?

No. You will read many modern works stating the "sword-and-buckler man" as an important type of soldier in Renaissance European warfare, but unfortunately this well-meaning statement is technically wrong. The swordsmen seen on European battlefields in the 16th up to the early 17th centuries were more properly called "targeteers" or "sword-and-target men" since they carried large shields (known as the "round target") strapped to the arm rather than proper bucklers handled in a fist grip. They seem to have been most popular in the very early decades of the 16th century, but by the middle of the century you only see them as small numbers of specialist troops (or officers in Spanish/Imperial armies) and by the time of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) not many armies still retained them in significant numbers. They probably were no longer a factor in European wars past the 1650s.

As for sword and dagger, their use seems to have been quite uncommon on the battlefield, but that doesn't mean they were altogether absent. Francisco Pizarro was said to have wielded sword and dagger during the ambush against the Inca emperor while Sir John Smythe had a(n admittedly rare) passage about how a pikeman might fight with both sword and dagger once he had lost or discarded his pike. So you probably won't see large numbers of men duking it out with sword and dagger on a Renaissance European battlefield but you probably could expect to run across a soldier fighting with sword and dagger maybe once or twice in a lifetime (rather like seeing a trigger-happy lunatic blaze away with two pistols in modern times).