A type of military backsword – a British 1796 heavy cavalry sword purchased by Sweden in 1808.
A backsword is a type of sword characterised by having a single-edged blade and a hilt with a single-handed grip.[1] It is so called because the triangular cross section gives a flat back edge opposite the cutting edge.[2] Later examples often have a "false edge" on the back near the tip, which was in many cases sharpened to make an actual edge and facilitate thrusting attacks. From around the early 14th century, the backsword became the first type of European sword to be fitted with a knuckle guard.[2]
The term "backsword" can also refer to the singlestick, which is used to train for fighting with the backsword, or to the sport or art of fighting in this fashion.[3] Backswording was an alternative term for singlesticking tournaments in England.[4][5]
Being easier and cheaper to make than double-edged swords, backswords became the favored sidearm of common infantry,[2] including irregulars such as the Highland Scots, which in Scottish Gaelic were called the claidheamh cuil (back sword), after one of several terms for the distinct types of weapons they used. Backswords were often the secondary weapons of European cavalrymen beginning in the 17th century.[1]
↑ Allanson-Winn, R. G.; Phillipps-Wolley, C. (1890). Broadsword and Single-stick. George Bell.
↑ "Backswords". Oxford Journal. 29 May 1784. p.2. Retrieved 17 September 2021– via British Newspaper Archive. Backswords at Stow-on-the-Wold, on Thursday the l0th of June, 1784, will played for, at Backswords, a purse of ten guineas, by Thirteen a Side. To appear on the Stage at Ten o'clock, but in case no sides attend by eleven, Half a Guinea will be then given to each man who breaks a head, and Half a Crown to each Man who has his Head broken.— The blood to run one Inch. N.B. the above meeting will continued Yearly, on the second Thursday in June.
Dwelly's Illustrated Gaelic to English Dictionary. Glasgow: Gairm Publications, 1988, p.202
Culloden: the swords and the sorrows. Glasgow: The National Trust for Scotland, 1996
Further reading
Włodzimierz Kwaśniewicz, Leksykon broni białej i miotającej, Warsaw: Varsavia, 2003.
Pierre Goubert & Maarten Ultee, The Course of French History, London: Routledge, 1991.
Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, Oxford: Blackwell, 1984 ISBN0-631-13142-6
R. G. Allanson-Winn & C. Phillipps-Wolley, Broad-sword and Single-stick: with chapters on quarter-staff, bayonet, cudgel, shillalah, walking-stick, umbrella, and other weapons of self-defence (All-England Series.) London: George Bell, 1890.
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region.
A quarterstaff, also short staff or simply staff is a traditional European polearm, which was especially prominent in England during the Early Modern period.
A falchion is a one-handed, single-edged sword of European origin. Falchions are found in different forms from around the 13th century up to and including the 16th century. In some versions, the falchion looks rather like the seax and later the sabre, and in other versions more like a machete with a crossguard.
This is a list of types of swords.
A longsword is a type of European sword characterized as having a cruciform hilt with a grip for primarily two-handed use, a straight double-edged blade of around 80 to 110 cm, and weighing approximately 2 to 3 kg.
Swordsmanship or sword fighting refers to the skills and techniques used in combat and training with any type of sword. The term is modern, and as such was mainly used to refer to smallsword fencing, but by extension it can also be applied to any martial art involving the use of a sword. The formation of the English word "swordsman" is parallel to the Latin word gladiator, a term for the professional fighters who fought against each other and a variety of other foes for the entertainment of spectators in the Roman Empire. The word gladiator itself comes from the Latin word gladius, which is a type of sword.
Historical European martial arts (HEMA) are martial arts of European origin, particularly using arts formerly practised, but having since died out or evolved into very different forms.
Singlestick is a martial art that uses a wooden stick as its weapon. It began as a way of training soldiers in the use of backswords. Canne de combat, a French form of stick fighting, is similar to singlestick play, which also includes a self-defense variant with a walking stick.
The English language terminology used in the classification of swords is imprecise and has varied widely over time. There is no historical dictionary for the universal names, classification, or terminology of swords; a sword was simply a single-edged or double-edged knife.
Stick-fighting, stickfighting, or stick fighting, is a variety of martial arts which use simple long, slender, blunt, hand-held, generally wooden "sticks" for fighting, such as a gun staff, bō, jō, walking stick, baston, arnis sticks or similar weapons. Some techniques can also be used with a sturdy umbrella or even with a sword or dagger in its scabbard.
A swordstick or cane-sword is a cane containing a hidden blade or sword. The term is typically used to describe European weapons from around the 18th century. But similar devices have been used throughout history, notably the Roman dolon, the Japanese shikomizue and the Indian gupti.
A seax is a small sword, fighting knife or dagger typical of the Germanic peoples of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages, especially the Saxons. The name comes from an Old English word for "knife".
Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley, also known as Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq, was an Irish peer and a prominent convert to Islam who was also one of the leading members of the Woking Muslim Mission, alongside Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din. He also presided over the British Muslim Society for some time.
The gothic hilted swords were a family of swords carried by officers and some NCOs of the British Army between 1822 and the present day. They were primarily infantry swords, although they were also regulation pattern for some other officers such as surgeons and staff officers. The term "Gothic hilt" is derived from a perceived similarity between the curved bars of the guard and the arches found in Gothic architecture. They were elegant aesthetically pleasing weapons, although they were considered by some to be mediocre fighting swords. The weapon and its variants had a very long service life.
Dha is the Burmese word for "knife" and "sword" similar term to daab or darb in Thai language for a single edge sword. The term dha is conventionally used to refer to a wide variety of knives and swords used by many people across Southeast Asia, especially present-day Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Yunnan, Laos, and Cambodia and Northeast India.
The parrying dagger is a category of small handheld weapons from the European late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. These weapons were used as off-hand weapons in conjunction with a single-handed sword such as a rapier. As the name implies they were designed to parry, or defend, more effectively than a simple dagger form, typically incorporating a wider guard, and often some other defensive features to better protect the hand as well. They may also be used for attack if an opportunity arises. The general category includes two more specific types, the swordbreaker and trident dagger.
The firangi was an Indian sword type which used blades manufactured in Western Europe, particularly Solingen, and imported by the Portuguese, or made locally in imitation of European blades.
A claymore is either the Scottish variant of the late medieval two-handed sword or the Scottish variant of the basket-hilted sword. The former is characterised as having a cross hilt of forward-sloping quillons with quatrefoil terminations and was in use from the 15th to 17th centuries.
The basket-hilted sword is a sword type of the early modern era characterised by a basket-shaped guard that protects the hand. The basket hilt is a development of the quillons added to swords' crossguards since the Late Middle Ages. This variety of sword is also sometimes referred to as the broadsword, though this term may also be applied loosely and imprecisely to other swords.
The Elmslie typology is a system for classification and description of the single edged European bladed weapons of the late medieval and early baroque period, from around 1100 to 1550. It is designed to provide classification terminology for archaeological finds of single-edged arms, as well as visual depictions in art. It includes swords which are from the Europeans Middle Ages and currently breaks them down into five main types, which each have several subtypes. Historian and bladesmith James Elmslie introduced the typology 2015, as a complement to the Oakeshott typology which covers double edged swords of the same periods.
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