Category Historical sword

It is stored in the museum Muzeum Wojska Polskiego in Warsaw.

French boarding saber of 1845. It is stored in the museum Muzeum Wojska Polskiego in Warsaw

The French boarding saber is kept in the Museum of Muzeum Wojska Polskiego in Warsaw, blade length 676 mm, width 37 mm, thickness at the base 9 mm, single-blade, with wide lobes, the lobes reach a double-edged pen.

The sea anchor is knocked out on the sides of the blade. On the butt of the blade, the name of the weapons factory is stamped: «Manufre Role de Châtellerault 9bre 1845.» The cup is iron, closed, painted black. The cup is connected to the headband. The headband is iron, octagonal in cross section. The lower edge of the headband is obliquely cut. At the top of the headband I saw a riveted hovostovik blade. The handle is iron, octagonal, tapering to the headband. The headband and hilt are painted black.

A boarding saber is perhaps the most famous personal weapon of a sailor. Its popularity probably stems from the fact that it is short enough to be usable during clashes in a small space on a ship. Another advantage was its ease of use. Successful mastery of a boarding saber required less training than mastery of a rapier or a sword, and was also more effective on a narrow deck than using long-blade weapons. With the improvement of artillery and the introduction of mechanical power plants, the use of boarding was discontinued, although in some countries boarding sabers were the armament of sailors until the 1930s.

Our version is slightly different from the original.

Reconstruction of a sword from southern Germany, circa 1520

In working on this sword, we based on 2 surviving swords. These swords date back one year and are created in the same geographical area. Outwardly, they are similar.
We took the blade from the sword with the following description:
A sword from southern Germany, circa 1520. A blade with a double-edged blade with half lengths on both sides, brass inlay and a stylized wolf pattern on one side of the blade. The top and guard are twisted in a spiral. Wooden handle wrapped in cord and leather (slightly cracked). Length: 120 cm.
We took the hilt set from the sword with the following description:
Sword from Southern Germany, circa 1520. Thin, double-edged diamond-shaped blade. There are two small, serrated blacksmith marks on one side of the blade. The straight guard is twisted in a spiral with corrugated tips. The pear-shaped corrugated top is twisted in a spiral. The handle is covered with leather on top of the cord. Length: 118.5 cm.

Bastard Sword Southern Germany

The result is a solid one and a half sword with an interesting set of hilt.

A sword of type XIIIa according to Oakeshott, found in Bohemia, dates from 1480-1510. from a private collection.
A characteristic feature of this type (whose subtype contains most of the surviving examples) is the blade, it is almost straight, with a hilt noticeably longer than that of the usual one-handed sword of the previous types — 8.2 or 11.1 cm.

Subtype XIIIa is the ‘Great War Sword’, with a very large blade, the length of which was on average 81.2 — 101.7 cm and the length of the hilt from 15 to 25.5 cm. the swords preserved to this day can be different, although types I to K predominate.

Crosses, both at archaeological finds and at fine sources, are almost always straight, as a rule, of style 2.

In poems, annals, and inventories, they are often referred to as “Swerdes of Were,” “Grans Espees d’Allemagne,” “Schlacht-schwerte,” “Grete Swords,” “Espees de Guerre,” “Grete War Sword,” and so on. Always indicating large size.

These swords are usually of German origin, as evidenced by the frequency of their appearance in German sculptural images on tombs of the 14th century; they are found almost as often in Spanish tombs of the same period, and sometimes in English.

Those shown in art, as a rule, date back to 1250 — 1370 years; German and Spanish images between 1320 and 1370. However, there is archaeological evidence that very convincingly suggests that one and a half-handed swords were not uncommon in the 12th century.