Five Ball Hilt spadroons

[Chris Evans]

Hi Manolo,

Originally Posted by celtan

Would a 7-ball Eaglehead be considered a spadroon?

This is what Castle had to say on the Spadroon:

The back sword, of which so much is heard in connection with gladiators stage fights, had a basket hilt similar to that of the Claymore, but a very much slenderer blade, deprived of point, like the modern Schlaeger.

A cutting sword of still narrower dimensions, and with a much simpler guard, approximating to that of the small sword, was called "Spadroon" in England; It was in fact, similar to the German cut and thrust rapier of the eighteenth century, which had been called Spadone or Spadrone since the disuse of the regular two handed swords, in the same way as the Claymore retained the old name of a very different weapon. The Germans Spadroon was a regular double edged sword, but any very light back or shearing sword was so called in England. Its play was essentially that of our modern single-stick (CE: Circa 1890), with a free use of the point, and the addition of a few drawing cuts with the false edge.


By way of an explanation, I should add that the Claymore was originally a large Scottish medieval two handed sword and later its name was given to the basket hilted swords that nowadays we associate with that country.

Some have considered the Spadroon as the precursor of the light Italian dueling sabre.

Cheers
Chris