THE GENESIS OF THE SWORD. 



81 



edged, and in time pointed. Finally, the Romans made the gladius 

 sharp, of highly-tempered steel, and strongly piercing the first real 

 sword (Figs. 17, 18, 19), of which only five specimens are now known 

 to exist. 



The well-tempered and well-made Saxon sword was the property 

 only of those who had the rank of thane. As a rule, it was a straight, 

 cut-and-thrust Made, with a double edge and a broad point, though 

 other shapes have been found. 



Of the three ways in which a sword may be used for cutting, that 

 called chopping, in which the work is done with the shoulder and fore- 

 arm and little play of the wrist, and the blow comes down straight with 

 a whack, is of the most value against body-armor. The medieval 

 swords, therefore, were stout, straight, and wide (Figs. 20 to 23), and 

 adapted to that kind of work. The hands being clad in mail, no at- 

 tempt was made to protect them, and the hilts were plain and simple, 

 except that a groove was sometimes made in the side of the blade to 

 diminish the weight of metal without causing a loss of strength. The 

 character of the sword varied little except as to the fashions suggested 

 by fancy, till armor was done away with about 1600. Then, the change 



u 



21 22 



Medley al. 



24 25 



Eapiers. 



of the sword into the single-edged weapon or the rapier-blade began 

 to become common. While rapiers with flat or very slightly triangu- 

 lar blades, and often immoderately long, were used in France, Spain, 

 and Italy in the sixteenth century, the full development of this form 

 of arm (Figs. 24, 25) took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 

 turies. The blades were narrow, the hilts had merely a single nar- 

 now guard for the back of the hand, with a broad base to protect the 

 fingers in thrusting, and the rhomboidal or triangular section of the 

 blade was altered, lightened, and stiffened by grooving (as in the group 

 of figures, 26). 



VOL. xxi. 6 \ 



