Rapier
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 2019-03-08

Rapier, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38352 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Historical_fencing
#Early_Modern_European_swords
#Renaissance-era_swords
#English_Civil_War_weapons
Rapier

Rapier (), or espada ropera, is a loose term for a type of slender, sharply pointed sword. With such design features, the rapier is optimized to be a thrusting weapon, but cutting or slashing attacks were also recorded in some historical treatises like Capo Ferro's "Gran Simulacro" in 1610. This weapon was mainly used in Early Modern Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. The term Rapier is also applied by Archaeologists to a type of Bronze Age sword, however; the Bronze Age weapon is not related to the later Renaissance weapon. 

The word "rapier" generally refers to a relatively long-bladed sword characterized by a protective hilt which is constructed to provide protection for the hand wielding the sword. Some historical rapier samples also feature a broad blade mounted on a typical rapier hilt. The term "rapier" can be confusing because this hybrid weapon can be categorized as a type of broadsword. While the rapier blade might be broad enough to cut to some degree (but nowhere near that of the wider swords in use around the Middle Ages such as the longsword), it is designed to perform quick and nimble thrusting attacks. The blade might be sharpened along its entire length or sharpened only from the center to the tip (as described by Capoferro). Pallavicini, a rapier master in 1670, strongly advocated using a weapon with two cutting edges. A typical example would weigh and have a relatively long and slender blade of or less in width, or more in length and ending in a sharply pointed tip. The blade length of quite a few historical examples, particularly the Italian rapiers in the early 17th century, is well over and can even reach .

The term "rapier" generally refers to a thrusting sword with a blade longer and thinner than that of the so-called side-sword but much heavier th...