In either case, combat functionality drove the designs. In terms of the blade, there were basically two diverging paths: curved European swords were for the most part adaptations, while straight swords were not. These guards and counter guards-the “swept” hilt-would take on a progressive cage-like look that would continue to transform into a solid shell, triangular sail, and eventually the basket- and-cup hilts familiar in 17th-century swords. Diagonal branches came up to meet from the cross guard and others began looping around the arms and ring on the blade side. Adjacent to the grip, a branch curved upward out of the cross guard to become the knuckle bow or knuckle guard. From these so-called “arms of the hilt” sprouted a perpendicular arc. A hook-shaped branch, sometimes called a finger ring, appeared from one side toward the blade, followed by a second branch from the other side of the cross guard. Medieval hilts had the simple cross shape to the guard, but by the early 15th century the cross guard was being modified to meet the needs of sophisticated swordplay and to better protect the hand. He might leave an additional maker mark on the blade. The hilt maker was next in the assembly line, fitting an appropriate combination of cross guard, grip of bored-out wood wrapped in leather or metal wire, and pommel and nut to hold it all together. A handsome young warrior clad in Italian light field armor stands ready to draw his German-mad Kalzbager sword.Ī sword needed a handle or hilt to hold the blade. Great sword centers of Europe shipped stock blades all over, and although trade with Islamic countries was forbidden, demand kept a steady flow of contraband shipments moving eastward, where western sword blades were highly prized for their variety and size. (It was never some sort of gutter to let the blood flow more freely off the sword, as some have claimed.) The smith punched one or several maker marks onto the blade and sent it along for market distribution. The characteristic groove, impressed down the middle of the flat of most blade surfaces in the late stage of tempering, was a clever stylistic means of decreasing weight at the center so that structural strength would not be sacrificed.

The bladesmith made the blade by repeatedly tempering and hammering into shape an iron blank in a bellows-driven fire. Evolution of the Swordīeginning with the learning curve of making soft-metal swords-bronze was the only practical success-that preceded the Iron Age in about 1000 bc, swordsmithing grew into an assembly line process by around the 14th century. At no time was the functional variety of the sword more apparent than during Europe’s Middle Ages and in the early 17th century. From its first modest appearance 5,000 years ago, the “white arm” has remained the military’s Queen of Weapons. Perhaps no other weapon in human history has lent itself so well to so many combat adaptations as the sword.

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