I have a theory about the square versus triangular blade cross-section in foils versus épées. These weapons were not just for sport, but were for training for deadly combat. With a stiffer épée it would be more difficult for a teacher to judge the difference between a touch and a decent light thrust in a rapid engagement. With a sharp-pointed small sword a touch would barely wound and a light thrust could be fatal, so we are talking about the potential difference between winning and losing; life and death; when we consider the amount of power behind a thrust in actual combat. With a flexible foil it would be quite easy for a teacher to judge the force behind a thrust by observing how much the blade flexed after the point impacted the opponent. This would make training simpler and more effective as one could instantly distinguish between a touch and a proper thrust even if the teacher's view was partially blocked. This would seem to me to be a valuable training aid. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this idea. Thanks!
Me, literally yesterday: "Hmm, it would be nice to get a little bit more of insight about foil/epee and smallsword." Matt, few hours later: Releases a video answering my questions. This timing is just insane! Highly appreciated!
Would a longer blade help with the flexibility and make training better? i.e in training people would recognise a hit early without the full force of a stiff blade.
A longer blade could be more flexible overall, but would no longer potentially be a valid trainer for the type of sword for which it stands in. Time and distance are the two important things.
One could argument that a square section is safer in term of the edge comparatively to the triangular one. Although the edge would not be used on purpose when training, it is possible that they had an history, early on, of accidents in the heat of the combats. Just a remote hypothesis but, all the same, one to be considered.
Italian Épées to this day have finger rings, they are still legal in sport fencing albeit very rarely used. The longer grip is a variation on the French grip still in use, the Italian foils still come with finger rings, and they are still for sale by several major companies. Again in modern times people use in foil almost exclusively pistol grips, in épée the French grip is in use but much less frequently than the pistol. Why they used a square blade for practice? almost certainly because is more flexible, and later because of inertia. Remember that sport épée with a triangular blade is much more recent. Italians also used a strap (a handkerchief or a simple piece of fabric) to secure both the épée and the foil to the wrist. I have both electric épées and foils in the Italian style. Peter
My guess is that they used foils longer than smallswords because they used flex to determine a touch, and they were training to make a thrust that doesn't get stuck.
Matt, maybe the longer hilts were simply to compensate for the lack of weight on the hilt due to no knuckle-bow or finger-rings? I feel that the padded gloves theory is definitely true, but may have been a later invention to both compensate for an injury rate and take advantage of longer grips? There aren't a lot of nods to safety in what records I've read of older free-play, and although Hope heavily recommends the wearing of early fencing masks, yet he doesn't mention gloves at all, yet as far as I'm aware the foils were the same construction. (I'm no smallsworder though, I'm all sabre and rapier, so take all that with a rather large pinch of salt) (Edited for grammar because I'm drinking on a beach and didn't notice I missed a word)
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I can just imagine a military officer getting a his dress sword fitted with a dueling blade and telling the manufacturer to make sure that it weighs 480 g.
I fenced foil way back in the day. My pet theory about the purpose of only counting torso hits is that, with a smallsword, a stab to the torso is the most likely way to deliver a decisive wound to the opponent. In much the same way that single stick fencers traditionally only counted a hit to the head that drew blood, because a backsword cut to the head will almost always end the fight. Basically the sport/practice versions were training people to focus on decisive hits that would end a fight, not just draw first blood. Although, not wanting your eye poked out in practice also makes a lot of sense ;)
More vids on epee de combat please! I can find very little about these but they seem fascinating inasmuch as they seem both a bridge between fencing - hema -- and sport fencing. Also they seem to be the last civilian sword intended for use, however limited. (BTW I use junior length epee blades on my oractice smallswords for hema. And I've sharpened the point on an epee blade myself for thrusting bottles and such. Shortened to about 29 inches, a sharp one will go thru things effortlessly. I love swords but am real glad this is no longer a social convention...ouch)
The blade on the Cold Steel Smallsword can be sharpened into a real double edge cutter. It has a semi-triangular frontal portion that bevels well on a sander. Once the frontal quarter is Live, it's like a large cutting needle with slashing capabilities. The wounds it can inflict on pizza boxes and soda cans will convince you to treat it carefully.
weve got a fencing epee, it looks alot like the 19th century one. i picked it up at a jumble sale when i was a kid and managed to convince my mum to get it for me. we used it as a fire poker for years and never realised it was a real sword for about....20 years or so i think haha!
Cold Steel Smallsword is about $230. Through some distributors. Its' blade can be sharpened and blued. It's not a practice sword at all but a pretty skewer of antiquated gentlemen.
I have come up with a theory on why foil blades were longer than smallswords in theory it would help with distancing so you're used to those extra few inches in practice that way in an earnest combat or duel you will be less likely to over penetrate and get your blade stuck
I had an Hanwei swept-hilt rapier with a sport epee blade. I had 2 old 19th century foils made by a French company, I cannot remember...fairly common. I also had a fencing foil with a figure 8 hilt, handle had extensive damage. I also had 20th century sport sabres. I have had various colorful painted Toledo, Spain fencing foils. I need to own an antique small sword...I have my eye on a Spanish model. Matt, You have a very nice and unique collection.
I actually have an original Parise mod.1884 hilt, with a Hanwei OHLASP01 (oval section blade). I use it to simulate smallsword/italian duelling sword "spada da terreno", and i'm very happy with it so far; pretty close to the stats suggested on Parise's 1884 treatise.
Do you think that the square bladed foils could have been made such to ease the production of them in large numbers? If the military was buying them, surely they needed a lot, and if the grip is simply a wrapped square tang.... I would think that might be a sign of them reducing the workload without affecting quality. (Plus added safety)
It's interesting to observe the same changes between the actual and the practice weapon as with longswords. Mainly the mass distribution. The reason for not using the triangular section could be to make them less stiff.
I think they used square swords because they didn't have electric systems. The refaries might have used flex to determine whether a thrust connected or not. Or if would have been a flesh wound VS a fatal blow, for training.
That's an interesting theory, but they started using triangular epee blades for epee fencing in the mid-1800s, way before electric scoring (100 years before it was common).
scholagladiatoria In sport fencing most instructions never start with saber or elpee. There are a few reasons, the two biggest: they don't want to scare away new student (pain), and they don't want inexperienced fencers hurting others by not following the rules. Most likely it's a training thing, as you have pointed out there is a ongoing debate into training with lighter or heavier weapons. Personally I would train with what I would use, or the next closest thing.
The square section is designed to bend, and break, before it bends or breaks you. I don't know if they had cost effective padded jackets back then. I also don't know how good the masks would have been. Might have used square for safety. Also might have been for refs. Like the sword needs to bend so much to be a kill shot.
i remember reading once about duels being done at one time with something called a "dish hilt rapier" at it seemed they were assembled before it took place. it was so odd and i have never seen anything historical like that (not to give impression i have vast experience). Mat have ever heard of this? i think it was a book on the german mensur i was reading that mentioned it.
I wish there were more videos about the Italian foil, its development, variations on the design, and why it eventually faded into obscurity and suffered unnecessary stigmatization over the course of the 20th century.
This is my theory. When just the foil blade existed, it was definitely done for safety alone. The epee blade came along seems to have come about when protective gear became common, and replaced the foil in most cases except in a spectator bout. For casual sparing, the epee was sufficient between the duelists, however it would be harder for spectators see the result. This resulted in the foil being used to show landing hits to spectators and the epee being for everything else.
I must admit the figure 8 foil with the leather guard on the bladed side just seems odd. Your hand would be rubbing against the steel and/or brass figure 8 guard would be uncomfortable ...even wearing gloves. Just my thought. I have seen aluminum epee/foils with a leather finger ring below the inside of the cup.
Mr Easton, would you classify the Masonic dress swords as a small sword or just a novelty, the ones I have handled have a diamond shaped, two false edge blade with good temper and fair fittings.
I have a different theory regarding why they didn't used fingerrings anymore. In the 18th century, if we look at the triatese ofm asters, you will not see that the fencers put their fingers in their fingerrings, as you said. In historical smallsword fencing you put the indexfinger with the lenght across both rings, not the finger in them (also the rings are to small for that). We know those rings are leftovers from the rapier design. Now why did they get rid of the rings in the 19th century? I think for once because the traditional design was too expensive to mass produce (those 19th century practice weapons really look like crap designwise) and second also (as you said) because they were wering heavy gloves - but the reason was not that they couldn't fit their fingers in the rings with those gloves but the gloves preventing holding a smallsword hilt the way i described above - ou can't put a fully patted leather glove finger in length on that piece across (not in) the rings, they would also too big for that. Another reason may be, that they thought smallswords are old fashioned and new designs fit besser for their purposes. Don't underestimate the power of fashion. As seen from 17th century to mid 19th century, so much military fashion changed. Also redrading the index finger in the ring: I'am a hema fencer specialised in smallsword fencing and last time we had a sparring duel, my colleague forgot to not put the finger in the ring, and got a painful injury out of it. our blades intertangled and her grip got pulled a little bit with her finger inside the ring -> leads to injury. Whoever reads this...don't do it, trust me.
As a follow up for more data, here is the same sort of thing looking at a similar range of swords I own - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5e4orDp-H8s.html
A genuine (small) sword is going to se little if any combat. A training weapon is abused far more, to the point of the blade becoming a part that expectedly wears out and is replaced. As such, a cheaper to make foil blade is a good training tool, especially with triangular blades being rather tedious to make and heat treat. Also, I think the industrialization with its better metallurgy made triangular blades easier to make and treat consistently.
I wonder also if the longer handles are there to bring the point of balance even further back and make the points faster and nimbler for sporting purposes, i.e. landing light flicky blows as you've bemoaned in your videos on modern sport fencing?
The square practice blade and rectangular dueling blade was a strange practice. Wouldn’t the relationship between hand position and how the weapons bind be different? The most bizarre problem was the practice weapon length discrepancy. Measure is huge is fencing, why would you train in an essentially different measure than you would fight in?
Not sure if it's just me, but I'd love to see Matt play a starring role in a Star Trek series. He's just such a likable character, in my opinion. Good amount of energy, good amount of context, and good amount of humor.
Maybe it’s for a similar reason they use both blades today to separate the body targets, if the person has a foil blade you know they’re only going for the chest
Probably the epee de combat or the Scots Guards officer's epee. If I *knew* that I had to duel and the weapons were not made equal, then I'd want the longest blade and best guard possible. But usually in a smallsword duel the weapons had to be roughly equal.
Why did pistol dueling take over? I mean poking each other with pointy sticks already sounds pretty dangerous but if it's just to first blood or some sort of limitation I see the point and the sportsmenship. Shooting each other sounds like escalating it to 100.
Smallsword duels in the 18th century frequently resulted in a death and not uncommonly in both people being killed. The idea with pistols was that it was supposed to make double kills less likely and also led to a quicker death.
Here's a book that may be of interest to you: www.amazon.com/Polite-Exchange-Bullets-Gentleman-1750-1850/dp/1843835711/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1357613107&sr=8-2&keywords=stephen+banks+duel The gist, as I understand it, is this - a duel wasn't about hurting the other gentleman, but about proving a point. Specifically, the point was that the man answering the challenge was willing to put his life on the line over the matter of honor, and honorable combat was perceived to be equal. After all, if you were a superior swordsman, then by answering a challenge you weren't risking much of anything. Pistols evened the chances. To quote Conan of Cimmeria: "God created strong men, and God created weak men. Then Colonel Colt came along and ruined everything."
Yeah, it usually meant slow and agonizing death - if not from blood loss, then from infection. Medicine in the 18th and early 19th century was still pretty terrible, so the standard practice when dealing with gunshot wounds usually involved a lot of digging around for the bullet in the open wound with unsterilized instruments, and also unsterilized fingers. You can imagine how well that ended most of the time. Brr...
