[QUOTE=Jim McDougall]Thank you so much Cornelis! Absolutely outstanding and detailed description, and for clarifying these. My knowledge on this field is admittedly limited, and I feel lucky to have gotten that close in the hours of research before I wrote my post!!
Hi Jim,
this is a yoke, there is nobody I know in the field (and that are a lot of people) with your wide orientated amount of knowledge of antique arms.
Concerning early swords ,as you know, there is only 1 theory/work of classification that makes us understand the shape of a sword in a period and the reason for that shape.for a quick refresh-course in a day; there is a splendid book from oakeshott "sword in hand" (absolutely his best work) a series of articles originally published in Gun report magazine.
kind regards from Holland