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Chevaux de frise: sword blades chained together to incapacitate people trying to charge into a breach in the walls. Investment: surrounding an enemy fort (or town) with armed forces to prevent entry or escape. Military mining, undermining of defence positions either fortifications or enemy front line trenches (see also camouflet). Parallel trenches
A sword belt is a belt with an attachment for the sword's scabbard, used to carry it when not in use. It is usually fixed to the scabbard of the sword, providing a fast means of drawing the sword in battle. Examples of sword belts include the Balteus used by the Roman legionary. [108]
Egerton Castle, Alfred Hutton and Mouatt Biggs giving a demonstration of "Old English sword-and-buckler play" before the Prince of Wales at the Lyceum Theatre in 1891 (The Graphic). Attempts at reconstructing the discontinued traditions of European systems of combat began in the late 19th century, with a revival of interest from the Middle Ages .
The term is modern, and as such was mainly used to refer to smallsword fencing, but by extension it can also be applied to any martial art involving the use of a sword. The formation of the English word "swordsman" is parallel to the Latin word gladiator, [1] a term for the professional fighters who fought against each other and a variety of ...
Like many swords from around the world with an etymology derived from a term meaning simply 'sword', the talwar has in scholarship, and in museum and collector usage, acquired a more specific meaning. However, South Asian swords, while showing a rich diversity of forms, suffer from relatively poor dating (so developmental history is obscure ...
In Old English and other Germanic languages, which were spoken across much of Northwestern Europe, tribal groups often had names that appear to be based upon the names of weapons; for instance, the Angles may have taken their name from the Old English term angul (meaning "barbed" or "hook"), the Franks from the word franca ("spear," or possibly ...
By the early 1870s combat experience had convinced many American military officers that swords had, at best, a tertiary role in the modern army. [4] [5] Given its lack of usage during the American Civil War and Indian Wars, many objected to the weight of carrying the Model 1850 Army Staff & Field Officers' Sword. This led to the adoption of the ...
Of these, "bastard sword" is the oldest, its use being contemporaneous with the weapon's heyday. The French épée bâtarde and the English "bastard sword" originate in the 15th or 16th century, originally in the general sense of "irregular sword, sword of uncertain origin", but by the mid-16th century could refer to exceptionally large swords. [4]