Blade Length

I think I raised a few eyebrows over on Artemisia Militaris by asking about the minimum length for rapiers in Artemisia. After clarifying that I was looking for the shortest blade I could use, not the longest, I got my answer, along with the comment that Thibault recommends a sword's quillons be at the level of your navel. Now, I'm not exactly a short person. Going by Thibault, that would mean about a 42" blade. That's a long sword.

The thing is, I'm not a big fan of long blades. They tend to be slower and whippier than their shorter cousins. I prefer blades more along the lines of Silver's perfect length. His view was:

To know the perfect length of your sword, you shall stand with your sword and dagger drawn, as you see this picture, keeping out straight your dagger arm, drawing back your sword as far as conveniently you can, not opening the elbow joint of your sword arm, and look what you can draw within your dagger, that is the just length of your sword, to be made according to your own stature.

Going by this, the perfect length for my sword should be about 38". Which, considering all of my current swords are between 36" and 40", puts me right in the ballpark for what Silver considered proper.

But that doesn't answer the question of why I want a sword shorter than period masters recommended. While existing examples of period rapiers can blades from 32" to 50" in length, we have to remember that even if we call ourselves rapier fighters, rapiers weren't the only swords in use at the time. This past winter, I talked about Grosses Messers, Kreigmessers, and Swiss Sabers in The History of The Hockey Stick from Heck, but those aren't the only examples. There was the Dussack, which sported a blade between 25" and 38" or the Cutlass with a blade that averaged about 24" and Henry VIII had a hunting sword with a blade just under 26". Now while hunting swords were never intendend for combat, it wasn't uncommon to find either the Dussack or the Cutlass being used on the battlefield.

You see, that's the thing. My persona wasn't built around the idea of being a courtier, my persona is that of a soldier. Mounted infantry, to be precise. What, in 30 years, would be commonly known as a Dragoon, in fact. And I'm trying to style my blades around what my persona would have carried. I have my Swiss Saber, which my persona would have used from horseback, but my persona would have also carried a shorter Dussack or Cutlass for when the fighting got hot and heavy on foot.

That, and there's a little thing about a challenge I received at my first event after getting out of the Army. We were sitting around the encampment, talking about what our goals were in the SCA. So I mentioned that I wanted to be a T.A.N.K. (for those of you from out of kingdom, that stands for Totally Agressive, Nasty Killer). While this award has only been given to armored fighters so far, there's nothing in the requirements that say you have to be an armored fighter to get it. One of the guys I was talking to was a T.A.N.K., and he looked me up and down and said that if I went out with a 28" blade and buckler and started mopping the floor with everyone, he'd see what he could do about it.

Will I mop the floor with everyone? I don't know, but it's sure worth a try.