It's how I explain things to my students during lectures in history. It really is a very accurate way of understanding how the world works before civil societies are invented

You are correct, sir. I have 3 (4 if you count the Windlass 1796, which by all accounts is a very good reproduction), and while they generally move well, none of them are what I would call a "fencing" blade. I'd like to expand my collection to officer's swords, which would probably be more like "duelling" sabers. For HEMA I use the VB v5 Military, and the Castillon Economy, which probably represent the extremes of common use.

I agree to an extent, but there's a very real problem in HEMA where most of the sabers being used are light, 600 to 700 grams, and in history, there are very little examples of these sorts of sabers, furthermore, all of these light sabers where thrusting weapons with very little in the way of the cut. Almost all military sabers where in the 750 to 800 gram range. So when people start to use light practice sabers in a way that these heavier sabers can't be used, then we loose the martiality and history of the weapons, and start following the path olympic saber fencing, where history and martiality are wholeheartedly ignored.

@@iantheduellist Hi Iantheduelist, well, yes, and no... HEMA, by and large, uses sabres that are too heavy for much use on foot. Some tournaments even specify nothing under 900g--good luck doing anything beyond direct attacks with those. There is a persistent myth, despite research and a more than ample sample-size, that sabres were heavy. Most were not. Yes, there are some, but the context for them reveals a lot: "most" are for use by cavalry troopers who, by definition, will not be doing anything complex blade-wise. I can't upload it here, but the article I mentioned, J. Christoph Amberger's "Inference and Imposition: Anachronisms in Fencing Historigraphy," _Fencers Quarterly Magazine_ (Summer 2004): 25-28 is worth a read if you can find it. If you can't, let me know and I can send you a pdf of it via email or the like. There is also an ever-growing sabre specs sheet that Chris Holzman, among others, has created feature the weights of antiques. I won't say that the antiques are all over the map in terms of weight, but very few of them are super heavy.

@@jemmons70 You are totally correct. Most sabers aren't cavalry weight sabers. The ones that exceed 900 grams are indeed exeptionally heavy, but then there's the other side of HEMA that only use 600 to 550 gram sabers, which are even rarer. Most sabers of the late 18th and 19th century are between 750 and 800 grams. So when people use fencing techniques with 600 gram sabers, that wouldn't be viable or posible with an 700 or 800 gram saber, its quite problematic.

oops!

except theyd get the same sabres for the duel you bozo EDIT: also italian fencing sabres = / = duelling sabres, having lighter fencing sabres meant you as a coach could take 100s of thrusts a lesson and not really feel the impact, it also makes teaching teens at cadet schools more easy if they dont have the muscle for a heavier fencing sabres as for military sabres, they vary in weight, you get anything from 1780s 500g infantry sabres to the M1904 1,1kg cav sabre. both italians and hungarians had military sabres and duelling sabres varying in weight also italians didnt win cause their sabres were lighter but because their fencing system fundamentally challenged the meta in austro-hungary

the Italians who used super light training sabres came from the cavalry officers’ academy. Giuseppe Radaelli himself saw fellow soldiers on horseback during the unification wars who couldn’t cut their targets effectively and proposed a new system, one that became popular both for sabre when riding and when on foot. his was not a ‘duelling sabre’ any more than a British 1796 HC. as Russ said, duels were always with matched weapons, usually chosen on the day by the challenged party from a selection of blades. this could be a pair of cavalry pallasches if those looked like the right tools for the job - duelling was not a matter of hardware.

Jo napot Csatadi! That's the "scholarly commonplace," but it turns out that the picture between Hungary and Italy was already more complex. Sebastian Seager has done yeoman's work demonstrating that the preferred Italian sabres *were* lighter than those initially preferred by Austro-Hungarians, but on the margins, similar to the difference between a Castille 18mm vs a lighter but still same-league Hanwei Pecoraro, which does give a slight disadvantage in blade speed....but I used that matchup this weekend in a tournament and hit 7th out of 50, so it's not a huge problem. And that was *by average,* with 8-9-vonal sabres being common in KuK training circles even when going for issue weapons like the M1904 which are quite heavy (my original weighs 1300g!!).

@@yolloswronson9063 Yollos, please refrain from ad-hominem and personal insults in discussion. This is your one and only warning. While you are absolutely correct in the facts, I do not allow reddit-style slagging in my comments section.

@@jonharker9028 Correct. While nobody got into a duel *trying to lose,* the purpose of the duel is to restore honor, NOT to slaughter the other guy. PLENTY of Austro-Hungarian duels were non-lethal. Arlow (who is in print) and Sebetic (who will be shortly) both discuss this at length.

Kat ofc, she's *disarming!*