Why the longsword?

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

The answer I do not know, but one thing is sure: you have to ride a horse, and than think about it again <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />
I just started riding half a year ago, with the intent to joust, fight on horseback and ride in plate in a few month' time. What a moron I was! Well, now I am happy if I could sit on a horse with plate in a year or two.... <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />
Like, you do almost never let go the horse with both hands. So a weapon, like the longsword, which CAN be used with one hand, but needs both to be fully effective, does not make much sense on horseback. Then, you can't just hack and chomp and stomp with a horse, you have to take care for your mount as well. That nasty neck of the animal always tends to be in the way <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />
So if you do not want to hurt yourself and your horse, you certainly will use a weapon that is good for mounted warfare. I would not like to swing around a longsword with 2 kgs hours long one-handed.
The other is, you certainly see arming swords on the plates of Talhoffer, for example, and not longswords, and even so, they are using the thumb-grip on the pics. Like said, just by sitting on a running horse I finally begin to grasp why... It's anough trouble not to fall out of the saddle.

BTW., I just can't understand how a fullplate gothic knight could ride fullspeed with a lance in his hand and NOT fall down <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

Szab

[JeffGentry]

Hey Szabolcs

I just can't understand how a fullplate gothic knight could ride fullspeed with a lance in his hand and NOT fall down

I have spent some time on horse back, and actualy a full run is very smooth when you get up to speed, i can see couching a lance and riding, now doing that and hitting or being hit with a lance would definately be a learned skill, from what i can tell looking at art work the saddle's are not like any we use today they look like a very specialized piece of equipment.

Jeff

[philippewillaume]

Hello
This is probably a bit of topic but
I am jousting in a 35 kg milaneses harness. I have jousted for 4-5 years
I have been riding for 25 years, I have been taking lesson for 12 years (French classic), and I have done jumping, 3 days event and dressage completion.

I have jousted on horse that had two speeds fast and very fast. Trust me I have the proof that some jousting horses are star treck fans (as in warp 9 mister zulu).
If your armor fit (and on horseback it need to) the Armour is not really a more of a problem (you have limitations but not really as far as riding proper is concerned)

Here are my personal views on the topic
I can teach anybody that can ride how to couch a lance and to hit your opponent 80 % of the runs in a joust of peace in 1 hour&amp;#8217;s tops.
If you know how to couch a lance, it will take me 10 years to teach you how to ride.

Lance, sword and wrestling on a horse are just lance, wrestling and long sword on foot applied to horse riding.

You do not need to swing your sword; you just need to present it.
Put a melon on a post, take a wooden spoon, gallop towards it just present the spoon no swing no nothing, you will be amazed how sharp a wooden spoon is.
So one hand one a long sword is truly good enough.

Fighting on horse is quite close to jumping; you are using your horse as a spring
Instead of fighting with your body, you are fighting with the horse body and that is the tricky bit.

philippe

[s_taillebois]

A few comments to an already well explained thread.
About the Roman's, exposure to Parthian mounted units also played a role in their adaptations. Parthian calvary was very effective.
About the longsword, some economic factors may have played an indirect role. For a brief period (prior to the spreading use of the rapier) some longswords (1 1/2s) were also a traveling weapon for some of the upper merchant class-in those countries which allowed such activities. And the social changes brought on by the guilds, black death and the economic boom of the post 1400 era...made the relative cost of these weapons drop, and the access to them, by heretofore 'excluded' classes more likely. As did the political instability in Italy and the German states-and all the mercenaries, ironically often being paid for by the merchant cities. And the block printing of the later fightbooks, was in part intended to be marketed to these new clientele (initially courtesy of the Venetian printers...who put out editions on about anything). So some ways, possession of a longsword was a type of new status symbol, as vexing as that might have been to the heriditary aristocrats. Later of course, the rapier filled this niche.
In this context I wonder how many of our swords could also be considered a retro-status symbol.