Strange long rapier

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

... On the length of rapier blades issue, as Fernando has well noted, the blades of both Portuguese and Spanish rapiers often reached almost ridiculous lengths, to the point that royal intervention even tried to regulate the length of them. The one mentioned (132cm or over 51 inches) would have been virtually impossible to wield successfully in the French or Italian schools of fencing, and would have been more aligned with the mysterious Spanish 'destreza' style, which Im sure was equally practiced throughout the Iberian peninsula...

I would take it that, based on simple crude reality, those who fancied such limitless blades were by no means masters of 'dexterity' but searched for a way to keep their foe at distance; no fencing abilities at stake .