Swords, Rapiers and Horse-riders

There is much confused thinking about swords, the way they were used and the influence of their users on their form. An extreme case is that of the late Harold Peake who, describing a sword-type, said: ‘These weapons, which must have been used as hatchets as well as for slashing, are called leaf-shaped swords’. He may, of course, have meant that they were used for hacking as well as for slashing—uses which, as I shall show, differ more than one would think; but it does sound as if he thought that the Late Bronze Age warrior used his prized sword for chopping firewood.Take nomenclature and definitions first. In the apparent absence of agreed definitions, each writer has to invent his own or leave it to the reader to do so. Peake, on the same page as the sentence just quoted, makes his definitions by stating that the dagger gave birth to the dirk and the dirk to the sword. I shall adopt this clear and concise nomenclature, but divide swords into two groups—long and short.