Basket-hilted sword

"Broadsword" redirects here. For other uses, see Broadsword (disambiguation).

Portrait of Donald McBane, a Scottish fencing master, from Donald McBane's The Expert Swordsman's Companion (1728). This image portrays McBane in the "Inside Guard" with a broadsword, while the table next to him has both broadswords and smallswords. The wall behind him has a targe with flintlock pistols on each side

The basket-hilted sword is a sword type of the early modern era characterised by a basket-shaped guard that protects the hand. The basket hilt is a development of the quillons added to swords' crossguards since the Late Middle Ages. This variety of sword is also sometimes referred to as the broadsword, though this term may also be applied loosely and imprecisely to other swords.[1][2]

The basket-hilted sword was generally in use as a military sword. A true broadsword possesses a double-edged blade, while similar wide-bladed swords with a single sharpened edge and a thickened back are called backswords. Various forms of basket-hilt were mounted on both broadsword and backsword blades.[3]

One of the weapon types in the modern German dueling sport of Mensur ("academic fencing") is the basket-hilted Korbschläger.[4]

  1. ^ Clements, John (2022). "Broadsword or Broad Sword? Settling the Question of What's in a Name". The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  2. ^ Oakeshott 1980, pp. 156, 173, 175.
  3. ^ Martyn 2004, pp. 6, 29.
  4. ^ see Korbschläger article in German Wikipedia.