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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 ' .
After the death of Queen Anne the British crown passed on to George, the Elector of Hanover.In his entourage George I brought with him a number of German courtiers, including his mistress Melusine von der Schulenburg, whom he later created the Duchess of Kendal (known as the Goose) and his half-sister Sophia von Kielmansegg (commonly referred to as the Sow).
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.
“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.
More manuscripts survive from the 15th century, and during the 16th century the system was also presented in print, most notably by Joachim Meyer in 1570. The German tradition was largely eclipsed by the Italian school of rapier fencing by the early 17th century. Practitioners of the German school persisted at least until the end of the 18th ...
The oldest surviving manual on western swordsmanship dates back to the 14th century, [1] although historical references date fencing schools back to the 12th century. [2] [3] [4] Modern fencing originated in the 18th century, influenced by the Italian school of fencing of the Renaissance as modified by the French school. [5] [6]
Frenchmen adopted the Italian duelling sword and mastered it, and it is believed that between 1600 AD and 1700 AD well over 70,000 Frenchmen died in duels, many of them mortally wounded by a Rapier. From the late 16th century, Italian rapier fencing attained considerable popularity all over Europe, notably with the treatise by Salvator Fabris ...
During this time, civilian swords evolved to side-swords, also known as "cut and thrust" swords, and progressed towards the thicker, tapering sword that eventually became the 17th century rapier. This new weapon was popular for both protection on the street and as a tool in the duel , but found little success on the battlefield.