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“Sword of the court”) is a light one-handed sword designed for thrusting which evolved out of the longer and heavier rapier (espada ropera) of the late Renaissance. The height of the small sword's popularity was during the 18th century, when any civilian or soldier with pretensions to gentlemanly status would have worn a small sword daily.
This English term first came into use in the early 18th century, though the type of sword it referred to was in common usage during the late 17th century. They were primarily used as a military (army and navy) sidearm in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and for officers and NCOs in the latter part of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
The English term "rapier" comes from the French rapière and appears both in English and German, near-simultaneously, in the mid-16th century, for a light, long, pointed two-edged sword. It is a loan from Middle French espee rapiere , first recorded in 1474, a nickname meaning ' grater ' .
Colichemarde smallsword with a silver guard, 18th century. The abrupt narrowing of the blade, the defining feature of the colichemarde, is visible. Vevey historical museum. Colichemarde is a type of small sword (often written "smallsword") blade that was popular from the late 17th to the mid-18th century.
The present chronology is a compilation that includes diverse and relatively uneven documents about different families of bladed weapons: swords, dress-swords, sabers, rapiers, foils, machetes, daggers, knives, arrowheads, etc..., with the sword references being the most numerous but not the unique included among the other listed references of the rest of bladed weapons.
A precedent for the swordstick would be used by 17th century spy Alonso de Contreras, who would hide a sword inside a staff while disguised as a pilgrim. [2] The swordstick became a popular fashion accessory for the wealthy during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Parrying daggers were an important development of the ubiquitous quillion dagger form, appearing in the early to mid-16th century starting with the so-called left hand dagger. Although this is often used as a term of convenience for parrying daggers in general, it also refers more specifically to the earlier and simpler form of the weapon.
With the 17th century came the popularity of the rapier and a new century of masters, including Salvator Fabris, Ridolfo Capoferro, and Francesco Antonio Marcelli. Unlike the manuals of the previous century, those written in the 17th century were generally restricted to covering only the rapier being used alone or with a companion arm (such as ...