A New Acquisition !

[Guest]

I bet that these are rapiers. the guy on the left has created an opening, maybe he parried first, with his dagger and is going to land a "sottomano" (undehand) to the belly with the fist in tierce. Maybe he was originally in a left leg leading stance and stepped in (the numbers under the feet make me think so).
This is my bet.

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi All,

I find it interesting that the weapons have only a basic cross. By this time most weapons in common use had some type of complex hilt, even if just a side ring or two. The fact that neither fighter is fingering the cross is not indicative of this being a rapier manual.

So John, how much cutting does their seem to be in the system? This might be a key to working out what we are dealing with here.

I agree with Shane that if we simply go from the way the swords look, then these are just cruciform single handers. As cruciform single handers of this type would seem to be out of period, I am not sure that looking at the weapons for evidence is such a good idea.
Cheers,
Stu.

[Shane Smith]

The sword pommel is clearly visible in the enlarged image.The guy on the left is holding a single-hander for certain.Look at the round pommel,it is of the same round profile as the daggers'. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Randall Pleasant]

John

Might they be using cut &amp; thrust type swords?

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Randall,

If this is a 15th century manual from Germany, then a "cut and thrust" sword is both out of period (the term is actually a late 17th Early 18th century one and refers to a spadroon or shearing sword) and also geographically incorrect (since the term cut and thrust sword was English). I may be sounding slightly pedantic here but I think these distinctions are important to our understanding of historical sources. Trying to do Di Grassi with a spadroon or shearing sword (ie cut and thrust sword) would be as problematic as trying to do Hope with a Spada da Filo or even worse, a Spada da Striscia don't you think?

If you mean these to be representative of Spada da Filo then I would have expected them to be about 7 inches shorter (to scale) than they have been drawn.

These swords would seem to be of "true rapier" Spada da Striscia length and therefore well capable of reliable single time defences which a Spada da Filo is not except when defending a thrust. This doesn't make thing any easier at the moment as it also makes them good candidates for being Longswords.

I think when John comes back with how much cutting there is in the manual, this will put us on the right track. As we all know, cutting with a long rapier is something only occasionally done whereas an edgesword is used pretty much 50%-50% cut/thrust in the manuals I have read.
Cheers,
Stu.

[steve hick]

The clothing looks "Spanish inspired" and with the ruff, well probably late 16th century. You know, the clothing doesn't even look German......

Having a plain hilted sword used to illustrate a manual is common, I would date this to the last quarter of the 16th century.

Now if we could see the hand, and had someone versed in paleography, it could be dated really closely, and located as well.

Steve

Steve

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Guys,

The above two posts make sense, unlike my post where I made the beginners mistake of confusing the 1500s and the 15th century. <img src="/forum/images/icons/crazy.gif" alt="" />

[George Turner]

The picture does look very photographic. Especially how the left arm only has part of a sleeve visible, viewed almost end on. There was no temptation to draw the whole arm, as it exists inside the mind's eye. I don't recall often seeing an arm depicted this way.

[Guest]

[Deleted previous comments because they were already pointed out, Sorry!]
I'm in fact not familiar with Meyer at all, but i want to ask after reading a little of George Silver. This question also hinges on whether the plate was drawn to scale (when it came to blade length would be the important part of it). Would it be possible that these Swords are of extra length that Silver writes against?

I also take this time to apologize. I just wanted to add an opinon, and it's my hope that I do not come as an annoance.

Michael Pierce