|
Post by Cold Napalm on Oct 31, 2010 18:19:01 GMT
Yes but 18+ is still 16+ no?
|
|
|
Post by MOK on Oct 31, 2010 18:26:27 GMT
Honestly, it's kinda hard to tell without any solid measurements, especially with the museum photos where you can't even compare them to other things of roughly known size (like the people and other weapons depicted in the artwork). Just saying, it looks like a tiny sword but feels like a huge dagger - it could just as easily be either, neither or both. It's one of those transitional in-between things that muddy the waters and showcase that all our typologies and taxonomies are descriptive guidelines, not hard and fast prescriptive rules. It's worth noting that these kind of borderline designs (and not just in swords/daggers, either) seem far more common historically than in the modern market. Perhaps understandably so: it's hard to market something if you're not sure what to call it, for one. I'm not so sure that assumption holds water, really. There are plenty of swords of all sizes with thin and narrow blades, and lots of daggers of all sizes with thick and wide ones.
|
|
|
Post by Cold Napalm on Oct 31, 2010 18:42:46 GMT
1) Well I'm actually familiar with a lot of those pieces and they are in the 12-14 inch blade range.
2) You are right. Historically, they had more of those inbetweens then we do in modern replica. And even in swords, some type XIIs could be XIVs and some XIVs could be XVIs and some XVIIIa are just plain old confusing. These weapons were made as weapons and not some type. They DID find some designs to be more effective then others which is why we have general types we can categorize. And dagger with 16+ inches isn't something we see often...and we can theorize from that such blades had some intrinsic flaw in that made them less popular options. I have place my theory as to what that flaw is based on my knoweldge of bladed weapons.
3) And yes rapiers and are considered delicate blades as well. However, It was assumed that we weren't talking about that era with the talk of the coustille. If we are, then 16+ inch daggers are actually quite common and we are not on the same page as to what is being discussed.
|
|
|
Post by MOK on Oct 31, 2010 19:08:24 GMT
Ah, well, you have a most unfair advantage over me, there. But thanks for the info, that's good to know!Personally, I think the "flaw" was simply that once you got up to a foot and a half, you might just as well add another inch or two and call it a sword. I wasn't thinking of rapiers, actually... but anyway, my point is, the tang must be proportional to the rest of the blade, and the blade built so that it can survive the kidn of use it's intended for. A larger blade needs a larger tang. Swords have larger tangs than daggers only because they are, by definition, larger overall. If you make a dagger longer than the norm, you have to make the tang more substantial in proportion - thus, larger daggers would have proportionally larger blades and tangs, rather than follow some standard defined by smaller weapons that leaves them too weak for their own size. After all, the people who made and used these things were not working from a rigid template, nor were they stupid.
|
|
|
Post by Cold Napalm on Oct 31, 2010 19:40:47 GMT
Well not that simple. Dagger have narrow blades compared to swords (once again, ignoring late era rapiers and such). That means even if you did make a 16 inch dagger, it would have a more narrow tang then a short sword with a blade of the same length. And if you have a 1.5 inch wide dagger that is 16 inches long compared to a 2.5 inch wide at the base short sword, the 1.5 inch dagger will be the more delicate weapon. Take that 16 inch dagger and compare it a normal 12 inch dagger and once again more delicate...this time due to the length.
Being anachronistic, but take a XVIa longsword with a 35 inch blade vs a rapier with a 35 inch blade. Is the rapier a delicate blade in comparison (assuming same quality of workmenship)? That is the difference between a 16 inch dagger and a 16 inch short sword. Wider blade, wider tang for the sword.
|
|
|
Post by MOK on Oct 31, 2010 19:52:27 GMT
I disagree on account of two points: 1) daggers do not necessarily have narrow blades, and 2) narrow blades are not necessarily delicate. Look at cinquedeas, ranging from small dagger to arming sword size, for one example of very broad blades all along the scale; and then, most rondel and ballock daggers (and estocs, on the sword side of things) have narrow yet extremely sturdy blades.
|
|
|
Post by Cold Napalm on Oct 31, 2010 20:10:58 GMT
Cinquedes is more sword then dagger (even the dagger sized ones). Rondel and ballock once they reach the 16+ inch range were not exactly sturdy blades unless your including the tri bladed rondels...which like the estoc didn't exactly have a cutting edge. Yes those are sturdy blades, but they are elongated ice picks and not so much your standard sword or dagger blade...or really a blade at all as they have no cutting edge.
|
|
|
Post by MOK on Nov 1, 2010 21:43:27 GMT
Granted, although personally I'm of the opinion that the defining difference between a dagger and a sword is more in how the weapon handles and it's optimal usage, rather than shape or raw dimensions (and certainly not strength of construction - a weak weapon is a crappy weapon, no matter how you classify it). Anyway, I'm trying to decide on a dagger to accompany my Windlass German Bastard Sword, and am myself getting more and more interested in the extreme long end of the scale - a long stabbing dagger just seems a nicely complementary companion for such a short and stocky cutting sword, you know? So I've been looking into this a bit. An afternoon of googling brought up surprisingly little besides a thread and an article on myArmoury.com (ye gods, I love that site). First, the spotlight article on rondel daggers features several historical artifacts with blades around 16 inches long, and one (the Royal Armouries X-599) with a 19" blade remarkably similar to the daggers depicted in the Codex Wallerstein. The thread is a discussion on historical dagger lengths - so directly relevant here - but one particular point of interest to me is when Bill Grandy again brings up the Codex Wallerstein. I dug out my copy and he's right: the daggers are consistently depicted as very long, and what's more, many of the techniques simply make no sense with shorter daggers (or delicate ones, at that), especially the ones where you grab your own blade for leverage to aid in grappling, much like you would with a sword. You can see scans of the plates (albeit without translations, but I can provide those if you'd like) at the ARMA site; look at scans 56 and 62, for example.
|
|
|
Post by Cold Napalm on Nov 1, 2010 23:30:06 GMT
Okay first of all, that 19 inch blade rondel in the royal armoury is one of my absolutely favorite looking daggers. And they did pick out some of the longer rondels for that article as the one directly above it and the two below are pretty close to 16 inch blades as well. Along with the last example given. Oddly enough, the tri-foil examples they give are kinda short . Usually I see it the other way around.... Anyways, delicate does not mean a useless weapon. It means a weapon that must be used a certain way. I get the feeling you think I'm saying that they are not good weapons. And remember I mean delicate in relative terms...these dagger would be pretty dang stout compared to a side sword. As far as the techniques in the codex...well I have done it using 12 inch blades and it works just fine. I do admit that using 9 inch daggers is not really feasible however with some of those techniques. The daggers in the codex maybe refering to very large daggers being common...or they can just be drawn larger so you can see what to do better (or look cooler...or both). The surviving samples implys the latter more then the former.
|
|
|
Post by MOK on Nov 2, 2010 7:01:40 GMT
Absolutely! Murderously sleek, deceptively simple and oh! so very large - the only way it could be more macho is if it was a ballock dagger. Oh, no doubt. But it goes to show that daggers of this size were far from non-existent. Ah, see, when you say "delicate", I thought you meant it in a structural sense, as in easily broken. Po-tay-to, to-mah-to... Maybe... or maybe it just means the writer preferred long daggers. I can make most of the techniques work with a blade around 12", but anything shorter than that gets awkward in a hurry, and a longer blade makes them a lot easier and more reliable. Now, I'll admit this could be a simple matter of me being crap with daggers, but pride demands I think that highly unlikely!
|
|
|
Post by Cold Napalm on Nov 2, 2010 7:29:42 GMT
Well I never said such daggers never existsed...just that they were rare. I got to handle two samples with 16+ inch blades after all...personally.
As for the codex techniques...I find 12 inch blades plenty long enough. I can even do a good chunk of it using 9inch blades. I just think it's drawn big so you can see where things are suppose to go. If they drew those pictures with a 12 inch blade dagger, I don't think we could really figure out what is going on honestly. But who know, maybe the guy did have a big dagger fetish.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2010 0:45:56 GMT
|
|