Talk:Basket-hilted sword

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Untitled[edit]

It is not conclusive that the Basket-hilted sword was first found in Germany. It would be hard to trace the exact origin of any sword. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.70.192.218 (talk) 15:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, an early basket hilt was recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose, an English warship lost in 1545.--Triskele Jim (talk) 17:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Walloon Sword[edit]

There seems to be some serious confusion here. A Pappenheimer is normally defined as a rapier or cut-and-thrust sword, not a basket-hilt. The review of the Phoenix Metal Pappenheimer doesn't mention the word "Walloon" and shows a rapier very different from the broadsword-bladed basket hilt called a Walloon in the article.--Triskele Jim (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Illustration mistake[edit]

The sword illustrated as a "Mortuary sword" is in fact a British 1788 Pattern heavy cavalry sword. The term "Mortuary is used for swords of the 17th century which often incorporate images of a bearded human male face on the guard. The legend grew that the faces represented Frederick V, Elector Palatine who was a Protestant hero (and brother -in-law of Charles I of England) who lost the throne of Bohemia, or were a remembrance of Charles I himself who was beheaded, hence "mortuary." Urselius (talk) 08:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa160/shinumo/DSC01960.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D95762&usg=__HbnpsaFvH_16WdBORxNxTgXTCLU=&h=640&w=508&sz=120&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=goY4CcpuyFO5sM:&tbnh=137&tbnw=109&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1788%2Bheavy%2Bcavalry%2Bsword%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Royal Armouries Mistake[edit]

Last time I checked, the Royal Armouries museum was in Leeds, not London. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.75.129.200 (talk) 16:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cromwell's sword is now displayed at the Royal Armouries' site within the Tower of London (and has been for a couple of years, now), so I've changed the article to reflect this. Anglo-Norman (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Mortuary sword"[edit]

Based on this, it seems plausible that the term referred to actual mortuary swords, i.e. swords that were dedicated to the memory of the deceased king, until at least the 1840s. It appears that the association with Charles I wasn't so much an "interpretation of embossed heads", but that swords were made explicitly depicting the bust of the "martyred" king as a memento and call for vengeance. Originally, then, the term "mortuary sword" would obviously only refer to this particular kind. Perhaps then due to a misunderstanding this became the term for "Civil War era broadsword" in general.

Here (1917) is a reference which, while still aware of the term's meaning, might be construed to apply the term to the type in general.

Perhaps here (1942) is an early example of the generic use of the name. Definitely here (1962).

From the above, I conclude that "mortuary sword" as used by the article is really a misnomer, in use only since the 1940s or possibly the 1960s. --dab (𒁳) 18:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Basket hilted sword not the same as a Broadsword.[edit]

One term refers to the hilt, the other to the blade. There are basket hilted backswords.Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:47, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just because the term "basket-hilted", refers to the hilt in the term itself, but not the blade, and that "broadsword" refers to the blade (indirectly), in the term itself, but not the hilt, is of no relevance. Just because a part isn't specifically referred to, in the term itself, that doesn't mean that the term doesn't require that part to be a certain way. Backswords, whatever their hilt, are not "basket-hilted swords", for example. The term basket-hilted sword refers to a two edged weapon. A mid-bronze age leaf shaped sword is broad, but it's not a "broadsword".--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 08:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I do strongly support to split Broadsword and Basket-hilted sword into two articles - but it cannot be done like this...! --Trofobi (talk) 23:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you support splitting Broadsword and Basket-hilted sword into two articles , you should establish how and why "broadsword" is not mainly just another term for "basket-hilted sword".--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, we could just summarize the differences at Classification of swords. bd2412 T 00:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A good summary of what the terms "broadsword" and "basket-hilted sword" mean, in Classification of swords would be very good. In fact, that article is generally in sore need of improvement...--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, yes it is. bd2412 T 00:55, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have written a few sword-related articles and sword nomenclature is not straightforward. A basket-hilt sword is any sword with a fully or partially (half-basket) enclosing guard made up of bars, or mostly bars. The blade of a basket-hilted sword can be of varied form, straight two-edged, straight one-edged or curved. Common usage tends to contrast the broadsword blade to narrower estoc or rapier blades, however, in the realm of historical arms research "broadsword" is used to describe a sword with a two-edged blade in distinction to the single edged blade of a "backsword" - though a two edged narrow rapier-like blade would not usually be called a broadsword blade. So a Sinclair-hilted sabre, a mortuary backsword, a mortuary broadsword and schiavona would all be variants of basket-hilt swords. Basket-hilt swords were initially developed when armoured gauntlets fell out of general use as the hand needed increased protection in combat. Like it says on the tin, the term "basket-hilt" refers to the hilt of a sword it does not carry any implication as to the type of blade that might be attached to the hilt. Urselius (talk) 14:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - any references you could provide would be most appreciated. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:42, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I rather disagree.
Many rapiers have a hilt that is fairly basket like, yet these are known as rapiers or swords, but never as "basket-hilted swords".
In a similar vein, I rather doubt that backswords (which, by definition, had a basket-hilt) were ever called "basket-hilted swords". "Broadsword" was used to distinguish the basket-hilted broadsword, from the rapier and smallsword, in that it was broad compared to them. It was not used to distinguish it from the backsword. That is putting the cart before the horse. The term "backsword", was used to distinguish backswords from broadswords (in that they had a back. Hence backsword). Not the other way around.
Curved blades of the time period concerned, however, are sabres. Not "basket-hilted swords". Even if they have a basket-hilt, thus making it a sword that has a basket-hilt, that doesn't matter. What they were called, was "sabre". Not "basket-hilted sword". Did sabres with a basket hilt even exist? (and just one or two, rare, custom made specimens, doesn't count)--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 15:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Curved blades mounted to basket hilts were apparently common enough to have a name - turcaels. You can see one in a portrait of Alastair Mhor of Clan Grant.
Didn't some of the Highlands regimental broadsword patterns have two interchangeable guards- a basket and a crossguard?--Triskele Jim 17:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Broadswords are also called cruciform swords[edit]

If a sword is not of a shape that has a heavy crossguard that resembles a cross, then most likely it is not a broadsword. An example of this is the Scottish Highlands claymore. A rapier is not a broadsword in any form as it does not have a heavy crossguard. This is my opinion, according to what I have researched for development of role playing games. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kargandarr (talk • contribs) 02:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What basis do you have for your assertion? What you say, goes completely against what is said in this article, or by any of what the authorities on swords I know of, would claim (also, please note that none of the pictures in this article, shows any swords with cross guards), so you would certainly need to provide some evidence for it. Not that you don't always need to show evidence, but it is needed here more-so than otherwise.
You say your opinion is based on some research you have done. Please show what it is, that you have read/heard/watched/examined, in this research. Cite your sources, please.
Also, would you please explain what you mean by a "heavy" cross guard?--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 15:51, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

1828 / 1831 Pattern Highland Broadsword[edit]

Why is there no mention of this sword on this page? It fits well into the category. --Nozzer71 (talk) 18:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[whatever year] Pattern Highland Broadswords, are merely specific models of Scottish broadswords. Scottish broadswords are mentioned. To mention every single model, would simply be ridiculous.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 20:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to create a list article of British pattern swords and sabers, you can. That would be better than cluttering up this article. --Triskele Jim 23:13, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Such a list would not really be of much interest to most readers, but... Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopaedia, after all. If anyone wants to make such a list that's fine ...but, as you say, it would need to be a separate article.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 19:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Move[edit]

I'm sure there are perfectly fine reasons to have the page here. They don't matter. This is not a close-run thing. Scholar has 13000 for broadsword versus 200-odd for this term.

If the PRIMARYTOPIC of broadsword is the content here, then this page's COMMON ENGLISH name is broadsword and that's where this page should be. (If there are some basket-hilted swords that are not broadswords, that's fine too: the broadsword treatment should be at its common name and any exceptions should be dealt with here.) — LlywelynII 15:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's a template for requesting such a move at Wikipedia:Requested moves. I have no opinion one way or the other. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A much-needed address to the pressing dilemma of the 'broadsword'/'basket-hilted sword' terminology conflict[edit]

If you want the long and short of it, here you are: Basket-hilt sword. Then, now, and, hopefully, forever. The term 'broadsword' is little more than a frivolous victorian contrivance, ergo, it is our duty as an encyclopedia to expose it for the apocrypha that it is.

But, being the good little wikipedian that you are, you naturally desire *warrant* for these actions. Well, allow me assuage your pangs of hunger:

It's almost gallingly risible just how poorly we are interpreting our sources. The first source cited for the 'also called a broadsword sentence' actually explicitly states that it is a common superfluity of a term!

And I quote, verbatim:

"Expressions such as "two-handed broadsword" or "Viking broadsword" are not uncommon in television, movies, games, and fantasy literature. Even in casual conversation curators of arms collections can be found using the term when discussing Medieval swords. But the manner of using the term in these ways is unsupported by any evidence and can be thoroughly discredited."

"Arms collectors, theatrical-fighters, sport fencers, fantasy-gamers, and even museum curators have helped make the term a common, but historically incorrect misnomer for most any Medieval sword."

If this is a credible source, then we are thoroughly misrepresenting its lessons.

At the very least, we should note that the term 'broadsword' is chiefly *colloquial*. That's a bare minimum requirement, frankly.

However, considering the widespread and ever pullulating nature of this misconception, I'd much rather devote an entire section of the article to addressing this topic.

And, look, Mr. 'I can Google Scholar', quantity is *not* the apotheosis of correctness. You're just contriving a number compounded by the amount of times the word 'broadsword' is employed by random sources which GS arbitrarily deems are pertinent to your query. Get a hold of yourself.

Plenty of people believe that you would ever actually lock blades with your opponent in a duel--millions upon millions, I'm willing to wager.

What are you looking for, though? Quantity, or credibility?

The beginnings of a pontification are already beginning to congeal, so please allow me to continue it:

If you're just looking to churn out edits in the most expedient fashion possible, you're invariably not going to read the handwriting on the wall. As such, quite a bit of misinformation will be disseminated, all thanks to you. You can't judge the veracity of a statement based purely upon Google Scholar. You have to employ...hold on, I have to gasp for a moment...deductive reasoning. That is, you have to scrupulously examine just what it is that those sources are saying, and whether or not that is in any way pertinent to the matter at hand. And, spoilers, in this particular instance, it isn't. You have to be punctilious. There is no way to automate these things--every subject has its own individual machinations and idiosyncrasies. Stop trying to gain brownie points by judging the merit of a statement with an arbitrary GS search in order to churn out edits more quickly, if that's what you're doing.


Anyway, with that digression completed, let's get back to the more salient subject brought up by this little imbroglio.

Let's address the second source, shall we?


.....It's a link to another Wikipedia article! To Ewart Oakeshott's article!

There simply has to be some manner of breach regarding citation policies, there. References for statements made should not be links to other articles on Wikipedia. At best, that's circuitous, and, at worst, that's outright fallacious.

Moreover, said article doesn't make any salient mention of 'broadswords' at all--please recall that the oakeshott typology is purely numerical, if you will.

So, yes. It's 'also called a broadsword'. But, by who? And why? We need to address these questions, posthaste. We can't just be expounding superfluous pabulum; we have standards.

How about "While frequently called broadswords (which, by the way, I've never actually heard in reference to a basket-hilted sword outside of this context--though I have heard 'broadsword', much to my chagrin), the term 'broadsword', in and of itself, is largely meaningless. Though popular in colloquial contexts, the term possesses no historical or martial parallels within the current expanse of academic knowledge. As such, the term is frequently applied to a very disparate variety of swords which do not truly share many specialized characteristics, including comparative breadth."

You know, something like that. Additionally, after that has been inserted into the lede, we should append a new section which elucidates the origins and apocryphal usage of the term--statements which we shall not bolster with citations from Wikipedia.

As always, I invite your input. The more salient facets of this dilemma seem rather cut and dried, to me, though. Ghost Lourde (talk) 08:09, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Scottish broadsword[edit]

The article calls this type of sword a claybeg, which however doubtful as an historical term, would mean small sword in Gaelic. In the following sentence the same sword is described as a claymore, or great sword and this terminology is repeated a couple of paragraphs later. Calling Scottish broadswords claymores can be argued against although it is probably the most common designation they receive, but calling the same sword 'small' and 'great' in the same article has to be wrong. Dvcas1 (talk) 21:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Schiavona pronunciation[edit]

Is it 'SKI-a-VO-na' or 'sha-VO-na'? The Venetian pronunciation and/or orthography may also be different from the standard Italian.Lyphatma (talk) 11:33, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The British basket-hilt[edit]

I think the article may be pandering to populist notions rather too much. Although the basket-hilt is popularly connected with Scotland and to Highlanders in particular, this form of sword was heavily used in both England and Ireland from c. 1620 to 1775. Indeed, the basket-hilted backsword was the most common type of sword in use in British army cavalry regiments (only one of which was Scottish) in the mid-eighteeth century. There were and are distinctions between Scottish forms of the sword and others, which modern collectors and historians are aware of and use in classification, however, the general form of hilt can be clearly seen as being characteristic of the a British Isles as a whole. A typological gradation of related forms can be traced from the Mary Rose example (clearly not Scottish) through the English Civil War period, the mid 1700s dragoon swords to the official Highland officer regimental swords of the 19th century. Urselius (talk) 10:51, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification on Modern/Popular Usage[edit]

I've always been under the impression that a 'broad-sword' is a heavy, double-edged blade, shorter than a long-sword, with a perpendicular cross-guard; like the type of sword preffered by the Norse. This is due to how I have consistently heard the term used. I understand that, in many areas, modern terminology has greatly diverged from that used in contemporary sources, but should the modern/popular definition of the term 'broad-sword' not be noted in the article? --Jarnskinn (talk) 11:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Broadsword is not a Victorian Term[edit]

I'm not sure how they snuck into the article without citations, but broadsword is not a victorian term. There's a large number of Broadsword manuals from the 18th century, and I'm aware of a number from the 19th century that call them broadswords. http://www.the-exiles.org/Manual%20Zach%20Wylde.htm https://linacreschoolofdefence.org/index.html

The first link is a link to a manual that teaches smallsword, broadsword, quarterstaff and wrestling. The second is a website that has a large number of manuals which mainly teach broadsword and smallsword, along with the only broadsword and targe manual that goes into any detail.

Hell, this is a book written in 1911 that teaches "Broadsword and Singlestick" past the point where anyone uses broadswords anymore. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31214/31214-h/31214-h.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.137.132 (talk) 21:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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