trip to Musee de l'Armee, Paris

[Greg Coffman]

Recently I got to see the collection at the Musee de l'Armee in Les Invalides in Paris. Here is the link to my photobucket account where I posted the pictures:http://s397.photobucket.com/albums/pp51/gcoffman06/. There is also an album of sword-related artwork in the Louvre. I though I'd post a couple of pictures and share what I learned from them.

First picture: Rapiers and Cut&Thrusts

I love this picture because of what it says about rapiers. I guess previously I had thought that the arming sword turned into the cut & thrust. Then the cut & thrust gave birth to the rapier though both existed side by side for a while. And then the rapier finally supplanted the cut & thrust. But that is not what I see here.

Notice that the hilt furniture is all basically the same form, which says to me that the swords are all from about the same time period (second half of 16th century). The blades are all either diamond or hexagonal cross section. Some of the diamond blades and all of hexagonal blades in the picture are too narrow to be cutting swords and the edges too wide as well. Among the wider blades, at least one blurs the line between rapier and cut&thrust, but some of the blades blur the line between cut&thrust and dedicated cutting sword (of course with the diamond cross section they will thrust pretty good too). So by the time of the development of the 'true rapiers' (no substantial cutting edge) we still have very dedicated cutting swords, and we have everything in between. And then there is the messer/dusack which just won't go away either.

[Greg Coffman]

Halberdiers (Louvre illuminated stained glass)

The clothing of these guys matches the fighters in Meyer's 1570 manuscript. Instead of katzbalgers which were the preferred side arm of the landsknechts, they carry longswords. Are they landsknechts? Are they town guard? Are the battlefield soldiers? Do infantry still carry longswords on the battlefield? Seems like it. One carries a baselard/holbien/swiss dagger, so are they Swiss instead of German? Did the Swiss never adopt the katzbalger in large numbers like their landsknecht rivals did?



Here is a wooden landsknecht (from the Louvre) with a longsword/greatsword.

[Greg Coffman]

Case of two-handers
The kriegsmesser has larger proportions that Albion's kriegsmesser. Though its emphasis is definitely more on the cut than the rest of the swords in the case, it could hold its own against them. The left-most zweihander has a highly tapered blade and looks like it is right out of Morrozo's 1568 text minus the side rings. The next sword is proportionately similar to the swords in the Goliath manuscript. However, I thing of the germanic flared cross style as being later than the Goliath manuscript although the single side ring is also reminiscent of Goliath. I'm not sure if the narrowest blade would make any decent cuts. It might be just a large two handed tuck. The two swords on the right are typical of the later germanic flamboyant style of zweihander. Notice the rondel for the pommel.



Next, late 15th/early 16th century
Lots to see here. There is a sword with the same design characteristics as the Albion Munich (not the only one of those I saw, either). The sword with the fishtail/half-moon pommel is a tuck with a triangular hollow-ground blade. Several of the longswords on the left resemble Lutel longswords and have both lenticular and diamond cross-sections. At least 3 swords on the right and one on the left have Oakeshott type XVII blades and fit into the Sempach family. Four swords in the middle share characteristics of down-turned cross, wheel pommel, and wide cutting blade but one of them has a longsword grip. The plaque said that the straight-wide blade sword with the long grip is ceremonial. Really, the only way to tell that would be by handling it. If it is functional, I think it would be interesting in a fight. We don't really talk much about the tuck. There isn't source material on it and it is primarily meant for armoured combat. But seeing one made me think, what would it be like to fight with that? Could I fight with it unarmoured if that's all I had at hand? It's like a two-handed rapier but earlier than the rapier came about.



Last one tonight
The baselards/Holbien/Swiss daggers at the bottom are just like the ones in the stained-glass of the halberdiers. On the left are some longswords and one-handers. Notice that the one-handers are longer than the longsword (bastard) on the far left. The lower longsword resembles the concept art for Albion's Markgraf. The plaque said that the swords on the right were all landsknecht swords. To me, I think of the landsknechts using katzbalgers primarily, and the katzbalger here is not typically what i see in artwork or what is depicted in modern reproductions. One of these on the right has a longsword lenght blade with a handle in hand-and-a-half (bastard) proportions. There is just so much variety in blade shapes, lengths, hilt configurations. All of my norms for specific categories of swords have just blurred. And yet patterns do emerge in how the swords would seem to function. And they are all impressed upon me their brutal effectiveness.

[Benjamin Smith]

Wow! Those are some beautiful pieces. Thanks for sharing.

[Keith Culbertson]

thanks---yeah, many different styles of sword all together in same time, when most types had been developed; guess people could choose their favored style, eh?