Specialized KNIGHTLY LONGSWORDS of Fiore dei Liberi & Vadi 

One of my favourite tabletop RPG ideas - which we speculated about but never tried - was the sword caddy. An essential NPC who hands you just the right sword at just the right time. I think our GM suspected that this luxury would be abused to destroy his scenarios, he was right.

You need a Golf Bag for your swords. _"Oh, it's the French, pass the 9 iron Jeeves"_

"What the..." "You said a sword, this is a sword!" Takes the concept of "sword shaped object" to a different level...

You guys' shirt choices are on point today

"That pommel gives me special feelings" Now we need pictures of him with it in the snow!

It would have been nice if you could have laid-out all the swords together, so we could better appreciate the differences. Or maybe just stand further away from the camera. And a less dark and busy background would also help. Cheers.

I really enjoy your videos with guests bouncing off each other - your passion really comes through!

Long swords may indeed vary in form quite a bit...but they are all invariably beautiful.

This is in my opinion the best sword specific video you have produced that I have seen. Absolutely lovely watch

For me its mind-blowing how many variants they had and we don't even know about - loads of specialised versions. Love it!

Btw, this polish name can be (roughly) pronounced as "Mattsiey Koptchu" ;)

This is what it’s like when “Matt’s” collide! Are you ready for swords, cause I’m ready for swords, what you gonna do baby, baby!

Rules judge: You MUST use a longsword exclusively in this duel. Fiore: Bet.

Great vid! I went into this topic in our Sterling armory oakeshott series video on type XVs. There is such a variety!

Can we please take a moment and also appreciate those AMAZING t-shirts!?

Love the ‘Dune’ T-shirt!

11:39 well a certain amount of stiffness will be needed in order for penetration to happen

😵 Well that specialized monster of a "sword" is mind boggling. I wonder how it compares to a quarter staff and poleaxe for armored dueling. I didn't even know those existed, I suspect you're correct about a cheeky knight bending the rules of a duel with it.

Just a point to cutting through armor. You have two things to take into account. The first is always going to apply but it's going to be different a very different scale for both. The first is going to be sectional density. And with that you can add in that the edge is going to require sufficient mass to resist the force of hitting the target. When you think of it that way it's easy to see that armor has no problem draining the energy out of a cut but the thrust with the whole sword and the weight of your body behind it is something totally different. The next thing is hardness. Hardness is going to dictate what sort of failure will need to happen. There are two types of steel armor failure. The first one you could say is a ductile failure. This is where so much energy comes in that the armor is basically pulled apart. You will see the area elongate where this happens. The second type is going to be where you have something much harder and you can cause shearing. This takes far less energy. Metals tend to be weaker under shear forces and the energy required is localized and doesn't let the metal engage a larger area. Cutting and shearing are the same thing. The higher the superiority if hardness the less material needed to form the edge. As edge angle drops less material is being forced through leading to lower energy being required to start penetration and with less energy being required there is less strain being transferred into the surrounding material before shearing can begin leading to a lower total amount of energy required for a material to shear. Shearing cracking and tearing are all very similar. So once a hard point makes it through if it has some sort of edges and you can get cracking started in the armor it will lower the force required to open that gap compared to a smooth round point. This is why something like a war hammer spike may not have a huge advantage in hardness it has enough sectional density to punch through and once the tip is through the edges on the point can begin a shearing action that will gain leverage from the plate itself too help propagate that shear line like a crack.

Greetings and great T-shirt’s btw 👏 great that you are referring to proper swords for practice and measurement on Fiore practice 👏 all the best from Colombia 🇨🇴 ⚔️

Those specialty swords are friggin gorgeous

The "That Guy" of swords that last one is :P

Fiore practitioners rejoice!

"I am the sword, deadly against all weapons. Neither spear, nor poleaxe, nor dagger can prevail against me. I can be used at long range or close range, or I can be held in the half sword grip and move to the Narrow Game. I can be used to take away the opponent’s sword, or move to grapple. My skill lies in breaking and binding. I am also skilled in covering and striking, with which I seek always to finish the fight. I will crush anyone who opposes me. I am of royal blood. I dispense justice, advance the cause of good and destroy evil. To those who learn my crossings I will grant great fame and renown in the art of armed fighting." - Fiore dei Liberi "Since, when bearers of weapons are armoured in white and heavy armour and fighting on horseback, they use, above all other weapons, what is called stocchi [estoc] in the vernacular..." - Pietro Monte

Last sword is evidence that rules lawyering is at least older than print

Seriously Love those T-Shirts! Where the heck did you get them? Sorry, 🤷‍♂back to the video.

Frontal cross-sectional area of a blade meeting flesh seems to experience drag more directly and dramatically than lateral surface area of a blade. So a blade's thickness is more of a detriment to cutting through the air and flesh than its width.

Thinking about this more seriously. I doubt the under performing cuts is really an issue on flesh. Katana are rather thick and narrow.. the curve isn't really enough to help in most cases unless we're talking antiques and even then. But there are modern blades and edo period swords that are beastly cutters. Some of these armored fighting swords might still be good for cutting through daily wear type clothing. Apparently some of the sempach type swords display rather good cutting ability along with thrust orientation for armored fighting. Remember the stiffness can help in the cut. With the right edges put on and really good edge alignment and technique you could probably still give someone a rather nasty cut with that sword.

For a channel focused on swords, armor and other things medieval i see a lot of sci-fi nerdom :)). Nostromo (i think that is from Alien) and Dune obviously :)).

Dune and Nostromo, nice easter egg here boys :D

The Dune shirt….. amazing

Dune shirt ftw 🤣❤️

Hahaha “special feelings”! You two crack me up! You guys must represent the only community of internet nerds that nobody would ever dare call nerds lest they be cleft in Twain with a casual flick of the wrist

That sword at 11:37 is is gorgeous and the work on the pommel is exquisite, I wish I had the money I'd love to get a handmade piece like that.

I love y’alls’ sci fi shirts

Those custom swords are amazing. I would be interested to know if the first one is perfectly flat ground if if it might have a large diameter hollow grind. The are not common in modern blades but they cut so much better than a flat ground blade without thinning it to much. I would guess that the were far more common in original swords. Even swords that were not ground on a stone often were shaped with hardened scrapers. Besides cutting better a round scraper would have been easier to use like you see in fullers. Given that scraper and files were common tools in sword making I would think that it's likely that blade geometry was far more complex than we see on modern weapons. Those bar like swords could easily have had the center of percussion scraped into a mild hollow to improve cutting. That dueling sword could definitely be made to have a cutting area although there wouldn't be a reason unless you wanted something like it on the battlefield. Given it's offensive use on the handle end it makes sense for it to be sharp on all edges. At close range those edges near the handle could be used to cut straps.

2:38 Ah yes, the nobility's favourite hobby: carving up peasants.

Are you doing the LK Chen Ribaldo review?

One thing I've always wondered about the more thrust centric type IV blades, is are they more effective at draw cutting? Another thing is the compare to rapiers when used in the same cuts rapiers are recommended.

OK one is wearing a Dune shirt, the other is wearing an Alien shirt. You are massive nerds, I love it.

I can picture the guy bringing the last sword at a duel, his opponent and all the witnesses looking at him with wide open eyes full of disaproval and him being like: "you said a sword duel...it's totally a sword. Do you really want to argue what a sword is right now ?"

Do we think that the heavy pommel on the Windlass is to provide a counterballance to the thick blade as well as giving one another weapon?

Good video & information. Thanks guys

Love the ALIEN shirt.. Fantastic Colab.. I learned a ton!

The longer sharpened edge could probably your could hamstring a guy while levering him in half sword. A man is not getting if you sever the tendons in the back of his knees while throwing to the ground or using his with severing his elbow.

Howdy Matt, I'd love to see a video on the flaws, weaknesses and limitations of the Fiore system. Fascinating stuff as always, cheers.

Drooling over that beautiful beast at the end with the half-sword cut out.

That shirt look great!

Really interesting, great video! Would be glad to see Siege (Matt Lewis) back again at some point.

The last sword is a fantastic piece of craftmanship (as the other ones as well, but the last piece was outstanding)! Could we see in the future a reproduction of the specialized antiarmour swords that have a rondel guard near this secondary hilt?

Nice Alien shirt, Matt!

Hot Matt on Matt swordplay

🍻

I use Fiore too. I learned about Long sword and Shield, Arming sword and Buckler and Rapier. Not halberd, Axe or spear yet for 4 years.

these are cool, but id like to see more cut centric bastard swords

I have a 48" Broad or Long Sword that I have been trying to research. I have not found it's equal yet. Do you think you could help me out?

Knights trapped in their horses underwater needed glass breaking pommels obviously.

Came for the weapons... now I want to know where to get those awesome shirts!

Good stuff. I am really liking the way different RU-vidrs are collaborating. It's helping to progress knowledge within the field much faster.

"Go on, whip it out, let's have a look."

could you post links to the various sword makers?

Will this video help me decide what weapon to use in Skyrim?

Fascinating! If you know exactly what situation you'll be facing, you'll want a tool specifically designed for it. But the battlefield is chaos. You want the best all-around weapon you can afford.

Back in the day I saw the movie First Knight where the evil knights had these jagged rusted swords with their unpolished, rough saw edges and lots of spikes on their hilts and pommels and I thought "Nah, that's ridiculous! They just made those guys look more like barbarians, typical Hollywood!" Alright, fast forward to today and I see that..."knightly sword" at 20:00 and I just have to laugh out loud.

Matt I was wondering what you know about the command structure of medieval armies. You've mentioned they had units, how large were the units and did they have commanders? Was there commanders in between unit commanders and the army general?

Matt please do a review on the Albion Warwick

Your offsider seems to be a stern chap that only comes into his own once he picks up a sword.

I rate the shirts.

Are any of those pommels solid throughout, or are they all partially hollow?

Why dont you show us the sword you are talking about

Do they have a Messer version of The last blade you guys had on the video?

Love the Jurassic park reference 🎯

I could not find that windless sword :(

If the rondel managed that much armour penetration, imagine what an alspich? Alspitz? Would do. I literally know nothing about this weapon, but it must compromise plate harness more than anything else?

Maybe the variant at around 22:20 with blunt section / cutout in the middle of the blade for half-swording was to be sharpened to minimize the chance of grapping it? Just wildly guessing.

Link to that polish dude?

Is "Mr Shanky Stab" any good as a cutter or just thrusting/half swording/bashing?

Sword, long. 1 ea.

Here is a toityet, use it wisely

Good steel.

Love seeing Matt wearing a reference to Joseph Conrad.

Great video! N.B. Fiore is a treatise (pl. treatises) and not a treaty (pl. treaties).

00

I hope you have a dedicated arming sword video soon! Please!😁

I ordered an Albion Mercenary last year... my first real longsword. Been 14 months and still waiting.... They say they are backed up. If you want one make sure to get the order places ASAP and be ready to wait like 18 months....

Seige Perilous? As in the Balance of Judgement?

were there post medieval anti armour swords with more hand protection?

I know your focus is on the manuals but I'm wondering if you could comment on the Oakeshott xviiie and it's similarity, if there's any relation to these armoured fencing swords.

Wow is that a qualificated mordhau sword?

I mean its a sword...technically.

good examples and explanations - thanks.

🙂

DUNE

maille aka chainmail aka maille aka chainmail

So wait... apologies if this is a stupid question but... I'd always heard Falchions were for fighting against some forms of armor, since they had some of the weight of an axe? Is that not true then? (Sorry that bit just stuck out at me immediately, I'm far from an expert so I figure I'll just ask.)

Much like guns, the jack of all trades is master of none.

I have heard the Italian schools were really flashy and became popular or all the rage in "fashion" as it pertains to duelling, but that the REAL schools of European swordsmanship and warfare were hidden in techniques of the "German" schools (or the schools that could be found within the bounds of modern day Germany, Austria and Poland as well as parts of Bohemia (Czech Republic) and were not "advertized" or bandied about nearly as much. Care to comment on that one?

Let the man speak from time to time... you talk enough in your videos already! ; P

Caveat. If you clicked on this to see swords. The swords aren't held up to the camera much. It's a video of two men.

Brilliant video.