The rapier is the most common style of sword in the Renaissance period. There are quite a few styles of hilt and different blade combinations that make up the variety of this population of swords.
Our video today is going to look at one aspect of these weapons, the blade. It is often an over looked element of the rapier as the hilt forms and styles are usually what the descriptions focus on. Style being a very important characteristic to the original users of these weapons. They were personal weapons, often used to display good taste and wealth by the wearer as well as being relied upon for protection.
These swords were excellent weapons for self defense and one of the main reasons is the long and in most cases slender blades they were mounted on. So below take a look at our video discussing important elements of what makes a good rapier blade and the challenges of combining different attributes into these dangerous weapons.
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