THROUGH THE AGES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1933, Page 14

THROUGH THE AGES

HISTORY OF THE SWORD ROMANTIC WEAPON

Major C. J. Ffoulkes, curator of the Tower Armouries, London, knows a great deal about the sword, so he was asked to talk on that subject before the London Society of Antiquaries, at Burlington House; recently. He did not do bo, however. He-smilingly introduced another man, who, he, said, knew more about the-blade "whose point was a reality before which phantoms vanishev' than-any-one in the world. ' _■■ ' This was J. G. Mann, who proved to be as great a mystery as the weapon of which- he appeared to be the interpreter. He said that no weapon had occupied large a place in man's imagination as.the sword. It had been the symbol of war, ot justice, of civic dignity, and of knighthood. Swords with miraculous properties were prominent in legends and romance, and it was a flaming sword with which the angel drove our,'ancestors from the Garden of Eden. , , , '"'. The full history of the sword had yet to be written. Sir Richard Burton had stopped after his first volume, and the speaker after nine years' work found the end still far from sight, since the history of the sword was bound up' with the history of mankind. , . , , The' bronze leaf-shaped' swords which had been found in considerable numbers throughout.Europe were usually badly balanced, and had not a good cutting edge. More practical bronze swords of a pointed variety were uncommon, though they had been found as far apart as1 Crete and Ire-, land. Of the transition age from bronze to iron many fine swords had been unearthed, some with large mushroomshaped hilts, while the most striking sword? of the iron age proper were the Iberian falcatas, curved swords with blades closely resembling the Ghurka kukri. The Roman sword was of two kinds, a long and a short sword, straight-bladed, with a globular pommel and shaped .grip. . Viking swords were important not only for their fine quality, but because the medieval knightly sword proceeded directly from them. It was simplicity of form and balance which made the medieval knightly sword remarkable^ It was a two-edged weapon with a round or brazil-nut shaped pommel, and the quillons gradually increased in length. The swords were usually two-edgdd for striking, as well as pointed for thrusting, but there was also a curved single-edged sword or falchion for- cutting,. and a . later development was the bastard- of "hand-and-a-half" sword, which enabled the owner' to use both hands it' necessary.

.With the Renaissance the disuse .of armour -and the wearing of swords in civilian costume, necessitated a growing complication' of guards to the hand, developing into the so-called "swept" and basket-hilted swords of ■ the sixteenth century and the first half of" the seventeenth century. The long rapiers brought in with • Ita-lian fencing and mentioned by Shakespeare had guards of this kind. By the-middle'of*-the seventeenth century the rnpier was replaced, by the court sword. The broadswords and tucks of the Civil War continued 'in Scotland in the familiar basket-hilted broadswords still worn in' Scottish regiments .and miscalled claymores. The court sWord was worn throughout the eighteenth, century with' civilian dress, a heavier variety being used in war. In the-latter half of the century the heavy curved cavalry sabre came in with the Hungarian Hussars. After this the history of- the sword was one of War Office regulations.