repurposed rapier blades

[urbanspaceman]

One thing is for certain, and that is the balance/weight of the rapier blade in a smallsword hilt: it is much further forward compared to a trefoil blade. This will certainly influence the style of fighting; the rapier blade will demand a great degree of destreza compared to the modern smallsword techniques. I would imagine this alone would influence to repurposing of the rapier blade.
I will pull down some swords from the wall and measure them to include in my next post.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

One thing is for certain, and that is the balance/weight of the rapier blade in a smallsword hilt: it is much further forward compared to a trefoil blade. This will certainly influence the style of fighting; the rapier blade will demand a great degree of destreza compared to the modern smallsword techniques. I would imagine this alone would influence to repurposing of the rapier blade.
I will pull down some swords from the wall and measure them to include in my next post.

Well observed Keith! The destreza is much different in that there is much less contact, more traversing (circling) one guard (right angle, point and shoulder in line). There is less blade to blade contact.
With the small sword, more dynamic, faster and more blade to blade, parrys etc.
The balance on this espadin is remarkable. Blade 31.5".

[urbanspaceman]

Well… so much for my theory!
I compared the Portuguese, rapier bladed, smallsword with a typical silver-hilted French hollow blade smallsword and surprise, surprise: both have 32" blades and both have a balance point at 4" from the shell; identical!
Admittedly, 32" is generally the maximum length for a small-sword, although colichemardes tend to be at least that, and often a little longer.
If you look carefully, you will see that the tang of the rapier blade has been reduced at the ricasso as well as being shortened at the foible, producing this balanced weight.
All together, I would imagine there is little to choose between the two as far as technique is concerned which would have been very satisfactory back then with all those rapier blades to choose from.
ps
Note the King's Head punzone on the ricasso.

[Jim McDougall]

Im not sure your theory is deflated Keith, and I cannot speak with any authority on the trefoil smallsword blades, Ive never handled one. What I know is this is by far well balanced and light, certainly well suited for destreza in which your arm is extended directly in line with the shoulder. This is the prime guard for destreza, in fact the only guard position.

As you noted earlier, and I was remiss in not noting, if Fernando was here he could truly set these matters straight as his knowledge on Iberian rapiers was beyond reproach. He is truly missed.

[urbanspaceman]

One thing I didn't indicate was the weight of the two swords:
the hollow blade French smallsword is c.35g
the rapier blade Portuguese smallsword is c.40g
So, a little heavier, which is apparent when holding them.
I see no-one has jumped in to tell me they have seen many hollow blade Peninsular smallswords... I don't know if this is significant or not. Maybe they are waiting for the weekend.

[urbanspaceman]

Up here in the North of England, and over into Scotland, there existed (I know this because many still do) a lot of smallswords with narrow double edged blades.
It seems that, at first, the hollow blades were not popular up North.
I have two Shotley Bridge smallswords from 1688, with 28 and 29 inch double-edged, 1 inch wide (at the shell) blades. Both have very sharp edges but are not especially pointed.
One is 60g, the other 65g, with mainly the hilts contributing to the difference. Balance points: 4 and 4.5 inches.
I believe we are seeing a lack of accessible instruction for the new smallsword techniques, but predominantly a 'dyed-in-the-wool' confidence in weightier, sharp-edged swords.
The hollow blade smallsword was not everyone's cup of tea.

[Radboud]

Keith, do you mean 600 and 650g for your two smallswords? If that is the case, they are very much on the heavy side, especially with those short blades (might have lost a little from the tip over time?).

Are there any markings on the blade to suggest a military use? That might be one reason for the extra weight.

Personally I’m not a big fan of the ‘re-purposed rapier blade’ theory. I’m sure it happened, but logically it should have been rare. The effort needed to re-profile a 40 inch blade into a 30-32 inch one and get the distal taper and balance correct would have been considerable. Furthermore, who would do the work? A cutler? Their speciality would have been mounting blades on hilts, so the blade would have needed to have been supplied re-profiled. This does lend to the ‘family blade’ possibility, which we know happened, but it just increases its scarcity in my view.

We know from surviving examples that a whole plethora of blade profiles were used throughout the history of the smallsword and into the courtsword period. But this is to be expected, the majority of these swords were individual purchase custom pieces. Even ones that follow a pattern, very, very often have custom blades. It is the nature of the smallsword, and while there are facts we can determine, such as the need for specialised equipment to economically produce tri-foil blades, that can’t be used to fix a lenticular blade to any specific era or location. Just because Solingen had the tools to make tri-foil blades, didn’t mean that they stopped making lenticular ones. Of that French customers stopped buying them.

Looking at the fencing styles of the period is very useful, and what stands out from the confirmed Iberian smallswords is that they often have functional annuletts, long after they became decorational in the French styles. This allowed the user to pass their finger over the cross-guard ‘ala-rapier’. Additionally, because the Iberian / Southern Italian fencing styles retained some of the rapier cuts, the longer ‘rapier style’ blades were retained.

My main issue I have with the “re-purposed rapier” or “transitional rapier” names is that they are all to oftern miss-used by sellers to upsell what is a perfectly normal and honest smallsword. It’s like the black grip Lugers were sold as SS “black widow” Lugers when all the evidence points to it being a simple production change. And yet the myth persists.

And while Keith’s blade may be a re-purposed rapier, there are other simpler reasons for the placement of the mark or ricasso modification, that are also possible. Maybe the cutler needed to re-profile the ricasso to get the balance correct on the hilt. Or the tang broke, or it was miss-struck by a drunk worker maker didn’t care enough.

Keith, if you’re looking to increase your sample size of smallsword dimensions, I keep the details of my eight smallswords here: Sword Measurements (the 8th sword is listed under French swords, as m1767 infantry officers sword)