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Girls With Swords!, For Erin

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if I may: in italian, "spada da lato" is not everything you have at your side but the sword developped during the XV century for civil use and it is a slender version of the military one with the addition of some metallic protection to the fingers and the hand which were not protected by metallic gloves.
Spada_da_Lato.jpg
Here the XVII century rapier is normally called "striscia"
 
Kiduttaja said:
if I may: in italian, "spada da lato" is not everything you have at your side but the sword developped during the XV century for civil use and it is a slender version of the military one with the addition of some metallic protection to the fingers and the hand which were not protected by metallic gloves.
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Here the XVII century rapier is normally called "striscia"
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Protection on fingers is called ricasso and also its not serve only to protect fingers but in late medieval long swords u can catch in ricasso place sword to prolong handle and better opperate the sword
 
Eulalia said:
But clearly the Roman soldier 'classified' these different kinds of swords - by their shapes and the ways he'd use them? As, in the kitchen (where I'd have been more at home), the cook classified her tools, she knew the difference between a spatula (a small spatha) and a skewer (verula, a small veru, roasting spit) A spatha was also used in weaving, a batten like a wooden broadsword for pressing the weft up to align with the fabric. And in the Germanic languages, the cognate 'spade' is a tool for digging (and a suit of playing cards). The common (Western Indo-European) root was evidently used for any 'broad-bladed' tool or weapon.
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Of course he classified them by what they did. A Kopis was a single edged cutting sword (which means you use it in a specific manner) and actually very easy to learn because the arm motions are very similar to a hand ax, an everyday tool. A Gladius COULD cut but was mostly used as a stabbing weapon (the Kopis did have a usable point but because of the blade shape it was a very secondary usage) and some Spathas have been found that have an almost rounded tip making them strictly cutting swords (and the lack of serious point is maybe how it wound with the name Spatha).

So coming back to "broadsword" in modern terms both the Gladius and the Spatha as cutting weapons had "broad" blades but until the large scale introduction of thin bladed weapons (the premier example being the rapier) in the mind of an ancient (and even probably thru the Middle Ages) there really wasn't anything classified as a "broadsword" because other types of swords didn't (generally) exist.

And of course they adapted words already in common usage to make the transmission of concepts easier. We tend to forget that the Roman Army (late Republican thru the end of the Empire) was the first truly multicultural standardized (as in weapons and techniques) military force. The need to use common terms would have been overwhelming. And the more commonality the term\concept had across multiple cultures, the better.

Now an interesting question that we haven't answered in relation to the Sais is which came first the dagger or the hair pin? (And by the way the answer to the what came first "the chicken or the egg" is "the egg" since a chicken can not be born any other way. And the FIRST chicken was a mutation of a closely related but non-chicken parental species, just as the first homosapien born was NOT born to homosapien parents.)

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willowfall
 
And here girls with very wide fantasy swords, which probably were not usable at all.
FitNakedGirls.com-Nude-Amazon-Warriors-16.jpg girl-sword1.jpeg
 
An example occurred to me last night which makes me wonder if the terminology issue is on our (modern) end and not their end.

We use the term "Chainmail" for an ancient type of armor. And if you say that word everyone knows what you are taking about (back to the need for commonality).

If you said that word to a Roman soldier (or a Crusader or .......) they would of been thinking 'Well of course it is mail made of chain you idiot. What else would you make mail from?' To them it was just "mail" as they had no other type of "mail" (email or otherwise).

kisses

willowfall
 
321f8131e592e13ae9a96f72f411cbbf--samurai-swords.jpg Is this girl a secret female samurai?
 
Some Asian swordswoman
sword5.jpeg sword6.jpeg sword7.jpeg sword8.jpeg
 
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