The smallsword is an elegant and dangerous sword. It was one of the last styles of blade carried in the west on a daily basis by the general public. Its light weight and stiff blade made for a serious weapon but one easy to wear in public. It did not run into the difficulties that heavier and longer rapiers would have in crowded streets or fancy salons.
One of the chief elements of making a smallsword work, is of course the blade. It is very lightweight but often designed with the stiff thrust as its main objective and while they were sharp enough to cut one would have had the point as their main focus in both offense and defense.
This, as is often the case, can be achieved in a couple of different ways. So we are going to look at some original blades and a newly finished example of one of our replicas to illustrate the deadly elegance of these very cool swords.
The three elements to focus on with these blades is the weight, the cross section and the distribution of the mass in the blade, usually achieved by distal taper.
Weight can often be surprisingly light with these blades, many originals will come in below 200 grams or about 7 ounces.
Cross sections vary greatly from traditional diamond section to hexagonal and even square. Then of course you have the classic triangular or pyramidal crosssection blades with their deeply hollowed planes and very thin bodies.
Distal taper were the blade can be quite beefy at the guard and then tapers in thickness and dimensions as it progresses towards the tip. This puts the mass near the guard and allows the tip to have that very responsive action as there is little control needed to place it were one desires. This is also one of the reasons we see the classic colichemarde blade shape in the triangular blade shapes.
So take a moment an watch as we explore some smallsword blades!
Nathan Clough, Ph.D. is Vice President of Arms and Armor and a member of the governing board of The Oakeshott Institute. He is a historical martial artist and a former university professor of cultural geography. He has given presentations on historical arms at events including Longpoint and Combatcon, and presented scholarly papers at, among others, The International Congress on Medieval Studies.
Craig Johnson is the Production Manager of Arms and Armor and Secretary of The Oakeshott Institute. He has taught and published on the history of arms, armor and western martial arts for over 30 years. He has lectured at several schools and Universities, WMAW, HEMAC, 4W, and ICMS at Kalamazoo. His experiences include iron smelting, jousting, theatrical combat instruction and choreography, historical research, European martial arts and crafting weapons and armor since 1985