Glad to see I'm not the only one who assumed that. I mean, dude puts a medieval helmet on and starts talking to a camera; either he's a time traveller or he's a lunatic, and we know he's not a lunatic because lunatics parry with their fucking flat 😂
It's also worth remembering that parrying with the flat won't magically protect your sword from damage, especially considering that the flat is usually softer than the edge. I have a sword which had a notch in the blade from parrying with the flat.
Indeed, many of my swords have scratches and grooves all over their flats from use, and swords with defined fullers or mid-ribs will take deep damage there from an opponent's edge.... which in turn will be damaged from hitting the flats and guards of the opponent's blade. Basically everything gets damaged.
What?? I'm shocked 😳. Sarcasm, by the way. My Windlass Type XIV has a awesome scratch on the side when I, like a dumbass, tried to zwerk with it and lost my grip cutting water bottles. Edges fine but that polish is gone.
A classic one, and yet another situation that we still need more people to realize that, in warfare, weapons have always been ultimately consumable (not disposable, consumable) supplies.
My thoughts exactly. If you were a professional soldier, mercenary or knight, and your sword/axe/spear breaks.... you go and purchase another one. And on the matter of "what part of the item should I parry with" it seems to me the obvious answer is: What part of the weapon will keep you alive? Who cares if a specific section of iron/steel is a bit blunted or chipped if our theoretical soldier was decapitated? I suspect every swordsman would prefer to have a chipped sword as opposed to lacking a head/arm/leg/etc.
There is the case of heirloom weapons. Like a family sword in noble families. You didn't bring them to the field though. That's the point of an heirloom. It stays hung up on the wall....
@@ponfed Exactly, and it is because other contexts exist that I specified "in warfare". Technically the original discussion covered other combat contexts too but the conclusion and broad strokes are the same, and I was lazy.
@@ponfed What are the chances that the heirlooms that saw use in combat are in a ship of Theseus situation, where whole parts have been replaced to the point that none of the original exists?
So Matt, I actually got mislead by the flat parrying argument back in the early 10s, mainly because the only source of information I had at the time was the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA), which was a big proponent of the argument. I remember what finally convinced me otherwise was when you made that short video in which you said "just look at the crossguard." After that, I realized the idea of flat parries had to be a mistake.
Imagine blocking a cut, and the opponents sword sliding down yours towards your hand. If you block with the edge, your crossguard will protect your hands. If you block with the flat, your fingers will get hit.
@@lyooyiylklykyokyklky Yes. It is odd why this isn't more obvious to people. I don't do hema but I bought a couple of toy plastic arming swords for the kids (and me!) to play fence with. The number of times I parried with the flat thinking I was being clever and got a bruised knuckle for my troubles!
A parry is a parry, who cares if the tool gets some damage, what is the alternative, take a cut you could have parried because the angle was wrong and you didn't want to damage your sword? It's the same logic as saying "Don't wear hardhats on building sites, falling bricks have the potential to damage your helmet" I can see why people have these instincts, to modern people swords are beautiful shiny ornaments that we don't use in fights.
I recognize that, for me, being cautious not to damage my edge is not only a modern concept but also one developed by experience. I don't have much money to spend on swords and knives so when I was younger (and stupider) I bought junk that just wasn't built to take a beating ... I'm talking to you BudK ... now I buy much better quality products, but that means I can afford even fewer of them and even though they are hard tested and reviewed by content creators to prove their worth I still can't bring myself to risk it. I have some really nice blades that I won't carry in the field because of that and I have some that I do carry because they fall in that sweet spot of tough and affordablely replaceable.
@@kenbrown9287 Swords were not as common as tv shows you! They were expensive back then just like they are now .From economic aspect its cheaper to arm large army with spears,maces and axes and shields than it is with swords. Swords compared to axe takes long time to forge and it takes way much more skill to make sword properly than to forge a small battle axe or mace or spear. it takes more material which was sacred ,the steel quality must be better. Daggers were more common than swords. It was always expensive item because it takes a lot of time and skill to make.
@@zumbazumba1 Thanks. I do understand that swords were expensive then as they are now and I do get what you're saying about the forging processes, economics, and quality. I guess what I don't have a great grasp on was the actual prevalence of swords. Based on the historical art I've seen combined with the development of HEMA I've come to think of swords as quite common. An just to clarify, when I say the development of HEMA I'm comparing what I know of European martial arts to Asian martial arts. European martial arts focus on sword, dagger, polearm, etc (steel based weapons). along with grappling because those were what was readily available and how they were best used. By comparison, Asian martial arts are centered around (but not exclusive to) unarmed combat and while there is a strong presence of swords and polearms there are more examples of farm implements being modified into combat weapons. I know all cultures have examples of modifying farm tools into weapons, there just seems more of an emphasis on this in Asian martial arts. From my experience anyway. Maybe its all just in how they are portrayed.
@@kenbrown9287 There is one more aspect of the sword and why it was not a common weapon as people think it was -it takes time to master movements. Give a peasant a axe or a mace and he is good to go .He will do same chopping as he does in his daily routine. Some larger kingdoms had their professional armys' like romans did but for most of the time it was peasant conscripts that were if they were lucky quickly trained . To give a sword to a such low skilled person is a waist of money and time. Give them a pointy stick or axe and a wooden shield and 10 of them will kill 1 knight that practiced his whole life with a sword. In reality 1 guy with super skills does not beat 150 people like in movies and changes the battle !
@@zumbazumba1 well.. it depends. If we are talking about high middle ages yes, sword were pretty rare and prestigious. If we are talking about 1200 and after, well no: Italian communal soldiers, to say one, were expected to have a minimum equipment, and an arming sword or a falchion (the term often used is "coltella") was always a part of it. Idem for man-at-arms. Knight, obviously... Sword were expensive, but pretty standard secondary weapons in a lot of battlefields. Also, basics of swordfighting were not so hard to learn: the I33 fechtbook shows a monk teaching some commoners; a lot of students organizations in italy, germany and france had a bad reputation because they were going around armed and quarrelsome. It wasn't so hard to find a sword teacher in european cities. In Cividale (not so a big city) we have record of a cobbler (so not a so rich person) that spontaneously proposed to defend himself in a trial by combat... sign that he was pretty confident in his abilities!
Stands in a t-shirt with a comic book page on it, while wearing a helmet, holding a sword, and talking about how he and his friends ran around playing at being knights in shining armor; then says, "God I'm old!" Never, sir. Never gonna happen.
I think this also speaks to a larger context of modern versus historical mindset. The people asking these questions today, have a different relationship to the material items. WE LOVE SWORDS. We are fascinated and engaged in the understanding of items of the era, we have a personal fixation on these historical items. To us, even those engaged in HEMA, and the sale and crafting of swords/armour/whatever, we have a more unique relationship to these and other historical items than the people who would be engaging with them in their proper context. They are relatively niche and rare in our lives, tend to be quite costly, and are tied to a hobby or lifestyle. Virtually none of that is true in their original context. These were tools, more akin to a hammer, or a plane, or a nice saw or drill. If you've ever seen a builder or handyman use their tools, that's how weapons were. Sure, there are nice ones you take special care of, because of the expense or the design, but ultimately they have to do the job, and the job is messy and destructive, and they're not going to spare their tools if it means not getting the job done. Now, wearing a hammer on your belt never became a fashion, but if it had the analogy would work even better. In that case the context the tool was also serving the purpose of showing off wealth. A coral handled hunting hanger was like getting a gold plated hard hat. That's not really a work item anymore, it's an art piece using the imagery of a more conventional tool. In the era, the tool had to do the job, and it was used and maintained until it broke, then it was repaired (or much more often replaced). A sword, or a helmet, was not a terribly unique or precious object. It was made to be broken, in effect. Just as tools, hardware, and protective gear are today.
I don't entirely agree with you. People take pride in their weapons today in war, and often consider damage to them normal or even ennobling of the weapon and its service. Yes, their relationship was different, but it was one in which the sword pertains, by the will of God, to the warrior and all which he performs on the battlefield. If it's full use involved damage and eventual breakage, this was a part of its telling its story the "warrior and his weapon" duo. I do think they did have a perennial view of the sword as societally important.
@@nullifye7816 People take pride in their tools too. We have findings of weapons and armour with prayers written on them. And pieces where they've obviously had them for years, and put decoration on them. But the sword wasn't even the main weapon of many of the soldiers we're talking about. Many of them would have a spear or pike, with maybe a knife, and never used a sword their whole life. Others probably saw their sword as a symbol of their existence in the warrior cult of knighthood. But at the end of the day, these weapons have to be useable, and you can't have something you are so protective of you wouldn't use it properly (as many people treat their swords today), as your tool on the battle field. Of course a person may become attached to any tool they use, and of course several weapons throughout the ages have become symbolic. But ultimately these items were tools used by a whole society in a usage that was destructive. All weapons are treated with a certain amount of respect, these are tools for taking life, but somethings societal import isn't going to outweigh it's utility in warfare(hence why we don't use swords on the battlefield today, but they still feature heavily in our media and culture, and why they would modify historical swords they had in their collection to match the current fashion, or just replace the blades). This was my point earlier, you might have a fancy drill or a hammer of sentimental value, but if you're using it it's got to work, and if we're talking about weapons, you're not going to be sacrificing your life to be precious about it. Swords may be symbolic, and a sword may be sacred or special, but the item in general in the time it was predominant was a tool with a use.
William Patten claimed some individual pursuing cavalrymen broke multiple swords each at the Battle of Pinkie 1547. The fleeing Scottish soldiers had dropped tons of good blades, so they had plenty to use. It's not clear from the text how they broke these swords, but it does mention striking at helmeted heads.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Interesting stuff. I was not aware of a Battle of Pinkie lol. Considering the quality of the steel at the time, and the hard use they were being put to, it stands to reason this would happen a lot. Multiple times in one battle seems particularly bad though.
@@scholagladiatoria over a beer, a certain Jörg B. once mused that only people who don’t fight for their lives have time to muse over flat parries. Personally, I would add that whatever you do would, AT THE MOST, double the life of your edge, unless your opponents got the memo, too.
I've always thought that when you have a blade speeding toward your face, you block it however you can, regardless of whether it's the edge, flat, or whatever.
Concern about edge damage *in battle* always seemed silly to me. You won't cause enough damage to a blade to render it ineffective in a single engagement short of the blade bending or snapping. Yeah it might be notched and dinged to hell and less effective, but it's still going to cut. It's not exactly going to go as blunt as a federschwert in one fight. You can fuss over the state of your blade when people aren't trying to kill you.
Cheng Zong You's 17th-century manual for the Japanese-style two-handed sword specifically mentions using the back of the sword to deflect out of concern for the cutting edge. It is in the context of an opponent using "heavy metal weapons." This provides a historical basis for warriors/soldiers caring about preserving a sword's cutting ability in combat.
@@SuperFunkmachine The manual is from late-Ming China, not Japan. There was not peace across the land in China at that time; to the contrary, it was during the long Ming-Qing transition that involved considerable bloodshed.
The "parry with the flat to preserve your edge" argument still persists among a lot of people who don't actually do anything with swords but saw that argument made a lot ten or twenty years ago. They still seem to take it as fact, presumably because they haven't actually come into places where that assumption would be challenged. My biggest counter, other than the "treatises tell us to use the edge", is the fact that every system I've been taught to use tells us to use the forte in defence and the foible in attack; defending with your edge only ruins the cutting edge of the other person's sword, and they're not going to use their flat just to preserve your edge, are they?
Admittedly, I've never been in a real sword fight however anyone that has ever had to actually defend themselves knows that a fight is messy and unpredictable (I can only imagine how much messier a swordfight is). That very simple concept should logically lead people to understand that there will be instances when blocking with the flat just isn't possible or feasible to effectively stop a full force strike by someone who is also fighting for their life.
jup. in addition: due to the shape of the object, a blade is MUCH stronger edgewise, if someone hits your flat with their edge with any reasonable or earnest force, YOUR blade WILL snap. There are examples of this in the Graz Zeughaus. Trying to catch a serious blow with your flat is downright suicidal.
While I agree that all HEMA sources use both interchangeably and that the argument of "flat vs edge" has long since been dismissed as silly: "defending with your edge only ruins the cutting edge of the other person's sword" What do you think happens when THEY parry your attack? ;P
@@HipposHateWater Then they chip your edge, but you can't exactly control how the other person defends. Or maybe you attack with your flat, as another commenter suggested? :p
@@Grauenwolf Sure, sword types vary considerably in construction and hence mechanical properties. A diamond shaped cross section might withstand blows a flat section would not. But why use the flat offensively if you have an edge right next to it? Except for throwing a quick diversion, I see no reason to do that, not if you could use the edge instead.
I’ve seen a similar myth trying to be spread around of samurai being very delicate with their swords when fighting because they were as brittle as glass apparently. The truth is (whether it be battle or duel) they used swords however they needed to get the job done just like any other tool. They were insanely rich and didn’t care if a swords had to be retired because they could just afford more post battle (as Matt mentioned) Moreover there is even a technique where a samurai would stick his sword into the ground and use it as a brace to hold his matchlock arquebus. Samurai during the sengoku period undoubtedly respected the sword as a reliable back up implement, but understood that it was simply another weapon to be used. Edit: the extent of the brittleness of the katanas edge also seems to have been heavily over-exaggerated recently
I have a book about the Katori Shinto Ryu, the oldest surviving school of Japanese swordsmanship. It explicitly says to to block with the edge, not the flat. Blocking a hard blow with the edge will dull or chip a blade but blocking with the flat is likely to break or bend it.
I remember some folk claiming that Japanese blades weren't tempered, which is only partially true? From what I remember, if the edge was of medium carbon content, then tempering wasn't needed. Though if a higher carbon steel was used on the edge, then it was tempered via heating and plunging it back into water once again.
Cheng Zong You's 17th-century manual for the Japanese-style two-handed sword specifically mentions using the back of the sword to deflect out of concern for the cutting edge. It is in the context of an opponent using "heavy metal weapons."
Samurai varied massively in wealth and many were not rich at all. They couldn’t do many jobs without losing their status. Indeed it became an increasing problem that people nominally lower in the social order were wealthier than them.
@@101Mant you’re right actually, they were a huge caste with their rank and wealth being a wide range. When talking about historical nobles I tend to get caught up with the wealthiest and most successful ones. However from the rest of your comment I can tell you refer to the samurai of the Edo period when they “couldn’t do many jobs” and when “peasants could make more money than them”. I tend to always refer to the samurai pre-Edo period as they were the ones who actually fought in war and took up most of samurai history. They didn’t just have a lot of jobs available, they had nearly EVERY job available. (Infantry, gunner, spy, cavalry, scout, those are just the ones on the field). Even the poorest samurai would get paid well enough after the battle to replenish his gear so they wouldn’t try to preserve their weapons edge.
The nineties was a different time in reenactment. We struck with the flat of our blades because we didn't have much armour, you couldn't just go online and order a suit, you'd be very lucky if you could find an armourer with a backlog less than six months, so many of us just did with a helmet and gauntlets. Swords were equally hard to find so people were protective of them. So we were turning our blades to strike and parry to avoid doing too much damage to ourselves or our weapons, not because we thought that was how things were actually done. And it's possible that more blades broke because of us trying not to damage them.
I don’t know anything much about the relevant metallurgy, but I would have guessed that if you parried a great blow with the flat of the sword, there’d be a pretty good chance of it snapping.
@@callumclark3358 It's not one great blow, it's a huge amount of normal blows that weaken the sword until it snaps. Throwing great blows around is a good way of getting banned from fighting. You don't want to put your mates in hospital after all.
@@callumclark3358 Great blows weren't as common as you'd think. They take room and can leave you wide open, both of which can be very dangerous on a battle field. Of course if you're wearing heavy armour it can become a lot less dangerous.
When I'm explaining to my friends out side of the living history/hema sphere, why I'm so often fixing things or why my swords, knives, tomahawks ect, is damaged or chipped; and why on earth anyone would use such fragile things. I liken it to a modern soldiers periodic reissuing of gear and uniform, as well as how rifle barrels deteriorate with use and need to be replaced especially in a wartime setting. I think one big hold up we have in modernity is we tend not to hold onto things very long, few things other than automobiles dows anyone keep to the point they're not worth fixing. So we don't really have such an integral concept of an objects useful lifespan in the way people of the past did
In an actual battlefield, the condition of your weapon from use is irrelevant. To put it into perspective, imagine if in the modern battlefield a commander says not to shoot your rifle more than a set number of times so the barrel doesn’t overheat and get damaged. It is nonsensical because the soldier is going to put their equipment through hell and back if it means winning the firefight and not think twice, and I think it is the same for the medieval battlefield.
It's funny that you should mention that. I was looking at video the other day about world war 2(germans) and heavy mounted machine guns. I can't remember the exact name but he specifically said you can't fire that non-stop because the barrel will quickly overheat. He was talking about a movie where they were firing non-stop with that weapon on d-day if I recall. In reality they had to fire in bursts to avoid overheating the barrel and I've also read that they had replacement barrels that they could switch out. I think the point being if your weapon stops functioning then you're in trouble.
@@huldu well to my knowledge there were German gunners who went through 7-8 barrels, they always had extra barrels at their machine gun mounts. So obviously you couldn't continuously fire forever, but they were more concerned with killing enemies than preserving their barrels.
@@Adam_okaay Also if you switch out your barrel when it starts to get too hot, you won't destroy it so you can cycle it back in when it cools. Either way though, the gun will still shoot if you burn out your barrel, it will just have poorer accuracy.
This is probably the best video I’ve seen on this topic. In addition to HEMA, I train in two schools of koryu Japanese swordsmanship, wherein sometimes we parry with the edge, sometimes with the flat. Depends on the context. 👍⚔️👊
some great practical observations there. people say 'you'll damage the edge of your knife if you sue it that way' yes, that's what happens and why sharpening is a thing!
As I recall, part of the reasoning for that argument came from the fact that with Katanas, blocking was sometimes taught to be done with the flat or even the spine. Even at that time, with a little experimentation and reflection, it became evident fairly quickly that attempting to block in that manner was less than ideal, biomechanically, and would put you at a severe speed disadvantage on the counter stroke. So, if it wasn't a good idea with a katana, which has a round handguard, why would it be a good idea with the longsword, which typically has a flat handguard? Still, many people were very adamant and somewhat convincing with their "block with the flat" arguments at that time.
The myth of parrying/crossing/blocking with the flat of the blade seems to originate with Ewart Oakeshott. He was certainly a proponent of it and because he was influential in the study of arms and armour, many students of history accepted his argument as fact.
!Gasp! we do not badmouth Oakeshott in this household! Lol. The feverpitch of the debate in HEMA was largely due to John Clements, who interpreted a source incorrectly & for whatever reason couldn't change his view after hearing of his error.
@@KalteGeist - Like swords, some people are not so flexible as others. All sorts of nonsense exist, and individuals have to pick and choose. Some will believe in lie and some will live on with lies.
I would be concerned with when trying to parry with the flat I would risk my blade snapping due to presenting the weakest cross section to my opponent's strongest cross section. Maybe not so much a problem with modern tempered steels but more or a concern with period steels.
I had the same thought. As Matt said we have examples of historical swords and the damage they took but there's survivor bias to consider. A sword snapped in two won't survive for us to examine.
@@markfergerson2145 I mean unless they melted it down those broken swords should still be out there. I don't think survivorship bias applies here. I'm sure we've discovered a number of broken equipment of all types by now.
In battle and in life, there are always things you can’t control. Your opponent may fling his sword up in defense and deliberately parry with his edge. It may be harder than your edge. Will that make your sword useless? Maybe that’s why double edged swords remained so common. A fascinating discussion as always.
@@chengkuoklee5734 Before anyone replies with "but western metallurgy was far superior" or what not has to realize how similar their forging methods were to say, Japan. Spring steel didn't exist yet because modern alloy, and at best there was spring-tempering. Spring-tempering was a minority in the late medieval era, and wouldn't see wide use until the 17th century. It wasn't inherently better other than it possessing trade-offs in contrast to differential hardening. Anyway, the majority of blades in Europe by then were carbon steel edges on iron cores. Essentially, these swords acted much like katana or what not.
Battle of Svoldr, King Olaf's men's swords were not biting because they had been "blunted and notched". Now how would that have happened, when they would not have been parrying with their swords at all for the most part but with shields, and when the armor faced was largely mail? Blunted and notched mostly by hitting shields and mail ( and helmets ). It's going to happen.
I recall that sword sent to King of Spain by a warrior in the 16th century, where the sword itself, I think still preserved in Spain somewhere, was full of notches in the edge and and all bent and chewed up. He sent it to the King as proof of his having done his job. Having said that, parrying with the flat is not necessarily bad, it can have certain advantages in specific situations in a fight.
I haven't played the video yet, wanna know if I can guess at least a part of the answer. The statement "don't parry with your sword's edge" always felt bizarre to me, because I remember my young times practicing fighting cane / staff lessons, in which one of the first lessons you get is : strike with the last 4th of your weapon, while you parry with the first middle section above the "guard". Which means, if properly executed, you don't strike and parry with the same parts of the "blade"! I said "guard" and "blade" on purpose, because in staff practice I remember there was one particular school called "bâton de Joinville". The teacher said : "The techniques in this school derives from two handed sword practice", i.e. handling your staff like it had a long handle beneath your hands, using various parry and strikes, counter strikes moves (in addition to pure staff-exclusive techniques). In staff techniques you strike with the tip of your weapon (last 4th of your staff, some ppl said even less of that surface) to make more damage due to kinetic force, but this applies too to sword techniques in order to blow the most efficient cut. The parrying motions too does benefit from parrying with the closest section to your hand (the "base of your blade" so to speak), and generally it gives no advantages to parry with the farther section from your hands. I haven't had swords or HEMA lessons, but I saw you guys from UA-cam doing sword sparring and I can very tell that my description matches well with the Joinville staff practice. If I combine this to the fact that a sword has a broader blade as its base, it makes it more unlikely to break when parrying the tip of the opponent's blade (which is usually narrower) and generally speaking the tip of the blade is the part you're supposed to strike with to make efficient cuts. But if you present your flat against an edge, I can just imagine that the flat positioning doesn't absorb well the kinetic motion of the opponent's blade, and this may cause your sword to bend, or maybe worse.
Yes, exactly. Why even bother to sharpen the strong of the blade. Firstly, the parrys will destroy the sharp edge; and secondly, you are unlikely to hit the opponent with the strong of the blade. It would be interesting to see, from service sharpened sabres - medieval swords are unlikely to still have their sharp edges remaining - whether those were sharpened up to the hilt, or say only two thirds down the tip with the last third close to the hilt being not sharpened.
This video brings up an interesting point about legendary weapons. To ancient people, weapons like Excalibur that had been used in battle and survived for long periods probably seems totally fantastical, because they had a firsthand understanding of just how disposable many of their tools were.
I've long thought that if I were ordering a custom sword, I'd want the forte, say about 10" extending from the hilt, to be completely dull and rounded. Or even more of a square edge to damage the cutting edge of the sword I'm parrying. A thicker, round edged blade in that area would be stronger and less likely to break when parrying.
Lol. I remember the good old days when I first found your channel. It also is going to be a reason why swords break. Those type of sharp gouges will leave a stress riser that could be a point of failure. Weapons are never meant to last forever. I often talk about design. Even now when you go to choose a knife you should be looking at the grind and the steel and you want both of them to work for your intended purpose. If you want to look at tools saws and drill bits are made for a task and material and any other cutting implement is the same. There is no such thing as the perfect steel or sword or martial art that will let a blade do everything and last forever. Even with no damage if you keep them sharp they will get used up.
I blame the popular Eragon book series for this. There is a point in that series in which the main character loses his unbreakable super sharp magic sword, he later notices the sword his rival left behind had become chipped fighting edge to edge and concluded that normal swords were too fragile for him. This was then reinforced by a supposedly professional smith that stated everyone else deflected everything with the flat of the blade to avoid this. The idea behind this scene was that Eragon needed a new magic sword to equal the one he lost to his rival, a fine idea given that they were both magical dragon riding supermen that put their weapons through a lot of abuse, but that parry comment definitely would have been taken as fact by a lot of people who weren't huge medieval nerds like myself.
Hi Matt, hi guys, if anyone knows where i can find the episodes of Ancient Assasins where Matt appears please let me know, i'm really interested in checking them out.
Excellent points. The entire purpose of your equipment in battle is to get damaged, so that YOU don't get damaged. Like my flight instructor told me: "if you have to make an emergency landing, don't worry about the plane, its job is now to keep you alive, not to fly again" Of course, then you have people like my father.... "I don't wear gloves when i am working because my skin will grow back, but the gloves won't"
You overlooked a very important part. Due to the lower quality of steel and the much higher stresses there likely was chance of your sword shattering when struck at the flat. This would be much more of a concern than a nick or a chip in the edge.
I think your channel is great. History and historical weaponry and fighting, all around the world, is interesting enough without all the mythology around it. People were always people And people always fight and they fight the way that makes sense in the context that they do fight. There's no magic...
Can't argue at all with your logic. My way of thinking (mumble years ago) was that given the edges were likely hardened more than the center (fuller) of the blade, if you did a straight on, at right angles, parry with the flat of your blade you may well end up with a sword that looks more like the letter "L" than it does the letter "I"! Edge to edge you're going to get nicks and jagged sections, but as long as the blade doesn't actually break you'll still have a usable weapon.
I don't know much about the HEMA scene, but flat or edge debates are still a thing in self defense conversations though, usually, it's a moot point because the knives most people carry aren't big enough to figure in the conversation.
Working on and off with designing an RPG game where I decided to try giving equipment stats of Quality (effectiveness at doing it's job) and Vim (lifespan against use and abuse). In this way, if a player's character weapon strikes an enemy's helm, the weapon and helm's Quality are compared to determine which is going to come out all the better, which then determines how much Vim is removed from each. As such over time, even a richly heroic character with supreme weapons will find that senselessly butchering dozens of enemies in shabby armor by comparison is still wearing down his weapons' Vim. His weapons (and his stamina) wears down, limiting his effectiveness. He's going to need those things to be repaired sharpened, even replaced, and the longer the fight, the greater risk of his weapons breaking. Also separating the munitions stats from the shooting weapons. This video let's me know, I think, I'm doing _something_ realistically interesting. I'm not sure if other games do this, but if so I'm not aware of or don't remember them.
Cant say anything about the time before, but 2000s, when I evolved interest in the matter of historic close quarter weapon combat was a breeding ground of very esoteric problems and their consequent solutions and various notions just about anything, this being one of them. It was the alternative to already established McDojo martial arts, but for guys loving european knights.😆 Not being that much questioned before, Im still astonished how far the research were in like 15-20 years, it seems like people were pulling theories literally out of their arses before and all of the sudden, in a few years, there are some many knowledgeable people actually putting it all under scrutiny and providing great practical insight into the realities of historical combat, which I consider a blessing. (for me, personally, especially mounted combat duelling capabilies, pushing it away from imagining it being just straight line jousting at full, predictable speed, useless for anything, but showing up.)
Despite watching sword channels somewhat regularly, I totally missed the edge parrying video. Great video for those of us still thinking flat parrying was a good idea.
I agree, I would only use the flat if I needed my opponents blade to slide past ,say my left shoulder or slide down to use my cross guard to control the opponents blade or I needed to slide in for a thrust. Sharp edged blades when hit together I feel have a tendency to stick not slide, so you would have to roll the blade out to disengage then slide in for the thrust, which can be done of course. If you hold ( carefully ) two kitchen knife blades edges against each other you will see how they don't like sliding. As a side note I think a lot of the written techniques work with sharp blades not so much safe blunted blades (that slide over each other) because after all that's what they were written for. These are only my thoughts on the mater.
The treatises _explicitly_ tell us to parry with the edges. We can discuss about the pros and cons of that, and what alternative techniques one can employ and when, but that edge parries were used (and not by mistake!) should be settled. And yet, I still see people that argue otherwise.
When training with Chinese Dao, I was told that the ricasso portion would be thicker and duller and so less likely to nick, while the last few inches would be the sharpest section because it's traveling at the highest speed in the stroke and produces more cutting force.
That's pretty similar to the way i always understood it as well. The area nearest to the tip of the blade is ideally kept sharp, that's what you want to do damage with. The lower half of the blade doesn't really matter as much. The ideal part of a blade to hit stuff with, would be the point where it stays 'in the centre' if you make it vibrate. Easy to do by holding it in 1 hand, and hitting the pommel sideways with your other hand. The small area that stays in the middle gives the 'purest' force transfer into your target upon impact. (Deepest cut as a result, or smoothest water bottle decapitation) Also, parrying with a part of the blade closer to you wrist makes for a much stronger parry than trying to do the same with an area near the tip. A shorter lever for the enemy to try and push through with a longer lever and all that mechanical stuff im not good at explaining.
In an battlefield setting/warfare and using a sword against armored opponents you may have a fair point here not caring about a sharp edge. But the treatises like Meyer and Talhoffer, explicitly differntiate between fighting in Harnisch and Bloßfechten without armor. Most techniques HEMA is referencing today are from sections describing fights between unarmoured oponents. Also the meaning of "parry" must not be equaled to "blocking" with a sword. Praticing with sharp swords in a tournament or training setting we noticed you can use, by a swift turn of your wrist using your right hand thumb on the hilt as a center point, the flat part of the sword to bind, in order to slide or adjust you position on your opponents sword, since edges of sharp swords tend to bite in another and therefore not slide. While i like most of your videos on this wonderfull chanel, because of your effort in thinking through many different options and perspectives reagrding your topics, this one is obviously one sided in its arguments. While i understand that the debate is an old one and the sides are clear.
Personally, can conceive of why edge parry might be seen as contra-indicated. With some edged tools (axes of various types, brush knives such as machetes), deep notching or even blade breaks occur when a rock or another piece of metal is struck. Broke a machete cutting roots while removing some privet hedge - have seen axes with peeked over edges after hitting wire embedded in a fenceline sapling. My 2cents worth, Matt.
Geeky jocks, I'm so jealous of you! I'm around Mr. Easton's age, and what we have learned about swordsmanship, HEMA, and honestly, all martial arts has been absolutely amazing! Look what happened to computers between 1970 and now. That's what happened in martial arts! The internet really changed everything, I'm happy to have seen it first hand though
Ya internet is great 👍 it had a wonderful effect streamlining and brainwashing the youth for corporate agendas. Mainstreaming miss information. Get propaganda out there pronto as we’ve seen from COVID, Russia and Ukraine . It also helped the optometrist industry and the weight loss clinics, the carpril tunnel surgeons are just rolling in the dough and internet allows criminals to communicate in real time with encryption. But destroyed small family brick and mortar businesses with Amazon and the likes. It also gave everyone an outlet to complain and attack others for no reason. It even ended close friends and replaced them with far away contacts. Its great. 🤮 a wonderful tool used to divide and concur and condense the good simple people 👍👍 and all our data is sold behind our backs to scammers and commies without us seeing a penny. It’s also cool how anyone can hack into your bank account and transfer your funds to an offshore account in a dead persons name. It’s proven useful to dead beat selfish moms who distract the kids with unknown internet content to get some more FB time for herself and scrolling through thousands of dick pics on her single mom dating app. Kiddnappers and stalkers have found many helpful hints on the internet. The Internet is the best thing since impotency. 😃
I see no mention in the comments and am typing before the end of the vid but it occurs to me that impact against the flat is FAR more likely to fold the blade around the point of impact.
I only know about real machete fighting when I was told and shown as a child how it was done. I remember advices that tend to swat with the flat and some binding. Mind that no armor is wear, cuts are pretty fast and machetes have no hand guard at all. BTW I am relying in what my own grandpa told me and a couple of field workers demonstrated. Nowdays there are very few true "macheteros" still left. Plus machetes were pretty disposable from the begining. The funny thing is that when my Hungar Sifu (who was an old man) began to teach us the aplication of the chinese Dao it looked suspiciously similar to what my grandpa and the field workers showed, what make me think my Sifu only learned the forms and was adapting what he had learned of machete fighting to the use of the Dao.
Machete is commonly made of springy steel and can easily flex over 90 degrees and spring back true. So, it is workable to use flats. It is a single hand weapon most of the time. And single hand does not usually provide so much force as to keep chopping you through after crossing with your hand or blade.
@@MtRevDr Yes, also they are also pretty light besides being deformable, maybe, that also influences on the transmission of power along the cutting trayectory. The machete wounds I treated usually didn't cut through thick bones, like the humerus, although I did saw full amputations from time to time.
@@allopez8563 - May be many machete do not cut through body and bone. Many are not used to killing and severing bodies. For cutting up bodies with machete like blades some would go for parang and kukri. Being heavy and thick, they lose out in reach.
Just a thought: If you take a superb cutting or slashing weapon like a langmesser or falchion, and you manage to cut all the way to the bone and hit the bone with any amount of force....you´ll dull the edge. Ask me. I once got presented with 2 cow legs (for the bones, as material for replicas), and I spent an afternoon going at them in the yard, trying to seperate bone from cartilage and muscle residues. I am obviously not an expert at this, and yes, I pretty much messed up a hatchet and 2 knives, so there goes.... (fun fact, it was the 25th of december, and my mother at some point had me come in, as she didn´t think it was the sort of show for the neighbors that was appropriate for the occasion. It was bloody cold. The legs would still be fine the next few days. btw, degreasing the bones turned out to be much more of a problem)
Totally agree in that it depends on the amount and type of damage. If I have to pay a blacksmith $20 to fix it but it only costs $25 for a new one maybe not. If I can redefine the edge myself or it's way cheaper to repair then sure, repair away. I don't think there's much difference between the thought process then and now when deciding to repair something or just replace it.
Well, swords have basically no percussive energy so a notched up sword is essentially a crappy handsaw. I would imagine people were more lenient with spears and axes.
11:50 This was my immediate thought, as someone who is completely clueless about any of this. "What part of your sword should you parry with?" "Any part that prevents the incoming attack from hitting my body I literally don't care"
I think people also forget that medieval steels weren't modern spring steels. Despite being commonly pushed, it's highly debatable how many swords in Europe would have even been spring tempered in the Renaissance (not to mention medieval) period, never mind that the yield point (when elastic deformation becomes plastic deformation) still wouldn't be equivalent to modern spring steel. With that in mind, think about a sword for a moment. You have two flats with very little material between them, and two edges (or edge and spine) with quite a bit of material between them. A strike on which of these is likely to cause plastic deformation to the sword as a whole? The flats, there's less material there to absorb the stress and resist deformation. In an era where swords didn't have a lot of elasticity (having iron/low carbon cores wasn't uncommon), what's the likelihood that you're going to guard with the flats, and risk your sword permanently bending?
Great point, I recall both Ilya from That Works and Matt Easton have brought up the fact that medieval Europe had slaggy steel compared to modern steel and if spring tempering were to exist it would be far from common. This also make me wonder how modern steel limits us in historical recreation because we tend to go ham with our swords as we know full well they can take it without showing much damage. This idea that Europe, as far back as the Viking age, had spring steel was everywhere to the point where it was just taken as fact. (I don’t like to point fingers but Shad may have been the biggest proponent of this) It’s good that we are questioning it because it now helps us get a better picture of their level of technology.
@@outsideiskrrtinsideihurt699 Ah, good ol' Shad. Don't worry, he can goof up sometimes. (Cough, Truth about The Katana series cough) Anyways, the majority of European blades used a construction involving steel edges welded on an iron core. Sounds a lot like say, a katana right? This means the sword can still bend and take a set or what not. I've got a feeling that the best representation of how a medieval sword in the modern day would perform is to just use a modern, mild steel blade. (Or one with steel edges for extra points I suppose?)
I hope you find a place and some time to do some cutting tests! Its been a while since the last one, but i can easily understand why you might not want to in this heat. Stayed hydrated!
To me, it comes down to this: when you're parrying, that is to say taking an action to defend your body and your life, are you going to worry too much about doing some minor damage to your sword in the process? Absolutely not, that's completely ridiculous. You're a in a fight, you're trying not to die. However much you may like your sword, it's an object.
A very fine argument sir. They certainly both have their places though, I've taken attacks on the flat that I was able to counterattack from that I wouldn't have been able to in the case of an edge parry. An additional note, I've always used, or tried to use, the flat of the blade for parrying, a practice which I shall try to limit somewhat in the future following this video, and my swords STILL have some edge damage!
I use to be one of those who would try to argue with blocking with the flat, and there were definitely reasons but more and more I saw that you wanted to keep your blade pointed at your opponent. In between follow up movements, attacks, and just keeping yourself safe the blade stayed that way. Entering binds would still let you maneuver the point and hilt towards the person, their blade could be locked up, and even in context of battle a cut that ended tearing a bit of flesh due to a notch in the blade would be beneficial to you.
People surviving battles sometimes donated the armour that had saved them to a shrine dedicated to a saint or to the virgin. Those armours cost at least 10 times more than a good sword. Plus, they often would hit the flat of the opponent's blade with their edge, according to sources, so damage was even rarer.
Depends if you want your opponent's blade to slide off your sword in the case of using the flat so you can step aside then attack again with the blade, or lock edges with their sword (bind) then step in and attack with your pommel/guard/elbow/knee, hook a leg and push them over...
40HRC is really soft for carbon steel. Is that accurate? 55+ is more typical for knives and such. In fact 55HRC would be considered a pretty soft blade.
I agree for sure, edge damage is inevitable so why worry about it. But to the point you brought up about cutting into armor, I’m skeptical how big of a consideration that is. I know it obviously happened by accident, there’s no denying that. When we fight in harnischfechten we don’t use a lot of cuts, at least not to armor. Surely people in the past specifically avoided hitting the armor if there was a better opening available? Not out of preservation of the edge, but out of martial intent and an understanding that cuts aren’t going to do anything if you hit them in the helmet or whatever. But to agree with your point in another way, the other thing is thrusts and tip damage. Which to me as a sword owner is more painful to see than a damaged edge. If you thrust and hit a stop rib or rolled edge and you blunt, break, or roll your point, that seriously impacts your ability to get through that armor. Edge damage is fine because of how negligible it is to the actual fight. Tip damage is really hard to fix and makes it way harder to get through mail or whatever.
I have no experience with combat, medieval or otherwise. This video was the first time i head that there was even a debate in what part of the sword you use to parry. I always thought that when parrying, you parry with whatever part of the blade is going to make it easier for you to not get stabbed in the face by your opponent's attack.
I remember fairly muddily that binding with sharp edges results in them biting in together which interrupts quite a many intended to follow up maneuvers. Parrying with the flat side felt just much quicker back in my old university days when I had some acess to sharp swords.
I suppose a modern equivalent would be keeping your rifle out of the dirt. You're instructed and drilled to keep the weapon clean and safe at all times to preserve function but they've got dust covers and inbuilt tolerances for dirt intrusion because when you're in a war best practice isn't always practical.
Makes complete sense. I know that in kenjutsu/ Iaijutsu, you really don’t want to make heavy blade on blade impacts if you can help it. But there are several parrying whilst sliding in where the blade gets turned and is making a sliding contact. Also note worthy, samurai used light armor…when they wore armor and the tsuba or hand guard usually goes around the whole hand.
That's mainly because differential hardened blades are prone to getting bent when struck, this can be fixed but you don't want it to happen in the middle of combat. Also the culture of sword worship in Japan for the past few centuries has been fairly extreme by most standards, actually damaging a Japanese sword regardless of how it happened or how valuable it is would make you very unpopular.
As I watched this, suddenly the lyrics from Depeche Mode, "Policy of Truth," came to mind. In the context if the video, the lyrics are literally the truth of Matt's argument.
This video reminds me of something the man who taught me how to fight with a knife when I was young told me. He said, " The first thing you must accept if you were going to fight with a knife is you are going to get cut. Only in this case it is if you're going to fight with a sword it is going to get damaged.
Can we apply the same logic to those who are super precious about never sticking the tip of your sword in the ground for fear of blunting it? Thats a modern weapons safety thing, if I'm on guard duty and I need to take a pee break, I'm going to put the tip in the dirt because thats whats handy.
I believe we went too far in the other direction nowadays. Yes, edge parries are historically accurate. Trying to avoid unnecessary blade damage is historically accurate too! It seems we forgot where we came from. Back then the predominant picture of sword combat ARMA had to deal with were movies and theater, where they do indeed prefer to take full-force, 90 degrees, edge-on-edge parries. That's the safest method for the actors, it absolutely destroys blades, to the point *it's not safe anymore* , because those blades can break during simulated combat. To minimize that chance, extremely heavy sword-shaped bludgeons were often used. We have all those sources and HEMAs nowadays, so nobody considers this type of stage-fighting as a historically accurate representation, but it wasn't always so. It changed to a large degree because of ARMA, who *correctly* emphasized, that the source material seems to avoid unnecessary blade damage. And they never claimed that all edge-on-edge contact should be avoided. Winding from a bind is an obvious example of it. The bind must happen in order to do so, obviously. Finally, if we look at early German longsword, it does seem it's a system which preserves the edge quite well. It emphasizes timing, distance work, single-tempo edge-on-flat actions and so forth, so it's not like what they used to say had no basis in reality. Even "flatamastrong" techniques do agree reasonably well with historical material. We may choose to call them edge parries nowadays, but the biomechanically sound angles are bound to be very oblique, to the point that "flatamastronging" almost makes sense too. So yes, swords will hit metal, but while a hit to maile will blunt the edge, a hit to a helmet crest might nick the foible, a full force 90deg edge-on-edge parry will *gauge* the forte, that creates a stress riser and makes it quite likely that the rest of the blade will break off. Yes, that's preferable to taking a hit, yet not something you'd train yourself to do, which was the case before ARMA.
I just don't see anything in the sources advising the students to do X or Y to *avoid* blade damage. It's true that proper use generally doesn't involve theatrical 90-degree smacks, but sometimes it does just that. The counter to a strong attack in the Glasgow messer treatise is throwing your edge between you and the incoming death-blow, supported by the left hand. That will seriously hurt the edge, but not as much as what you'll do to his face in the next part of the sequence. By the late medieval and Ren, swords, like bows, arrows, daggers and harness were consumable tools for fighting. They were expected to fall apart and be replaced. The few that weren't remained safely back at home as a symbol of rank. In harness combat the attacks have to be absolutely brutal to hope to get through voiders or gaps with a sword. You are *going* to damage the blade. Heck, there are techniques that involve grabbing the blade and wrenching the other armored foe around with it like a lever. So to that extent, the old theatrical methods weren't that far off. It wasn't mindless bashing, but particularly in harness there would be very strong, precise strikes where steel had to get through iron and heavy linen.
@@greghenrikson952 " *I just don't see anything in the sources advising the students to do X or Y to avoid blade damage* " In Liechtenauer? He spoke in riddles. " *messer treatise* " That's a very different weapon to a longsword. I don't dispute the general premise, that edge parries are historically correct. I plainly wrote so. " *In harness combat* " Again, a very different weapon, which when optimized for it, is practically edgeless. What does it change? That Liechtenauer expected you to train for static full force-on-force parries in his rhymed riddles? " *grabbing the blade* " Easy to grab something sorta sharpish... Why the blades were not scary sharp? Because they'd be damaged and you'd risk the whole weapon would break apart. So that's where we are, aren't we? Some weapons were expected to withstand a lot of abuse because they were expected to hit metal on the regular basis. That permitted certain actions. On the other hand, some other weapons were *not* expected to hit metal often, and that required a different fighting style.
Understood and agreed this is settled law, but pointing out the sword is the hardest thing on the battlefield actually runs counter to the argument; i.e. my edge will likely be fine(ish) against the armor it encounters, but against another sword it may get pretty torn up. Not arguing in favor of flat guarding (I'd never argue in favor of anything except whatever I have to do to not die), just being a pedant in regards to that specific point.
I would be more concerned about the possibility of damaging the point against a breastplate or helmet than any damage the edge. After all, the point is more important against plate or mail, which even the sharpest blade is unlikely to cut through.
I've waited 12 minutes for the actual answer to the question. Weapons and armour (even horses) were disposable at the time, tools of war, that you would use and replace when they got broken. The parrying (and hitting) with the flat of the blade is a modern practice because : _ we do not want to risk actually wounding an opponent (why do they use blunt weapons in HEMA or buhurt ?) _ we do not want to damage or hurt a weapon or a horse (talk of remounts in History) that we have bought for our pleasure. When you spend several hundreds/thousands euros for a nice sword, you do not want it to be broken in the modern days. On a historic battlefield you would hear "boohoo, so what, I'll get a new one if I survive", on a reenactment battlefield you will "do you have any idea how much this cost me ?"
Fine video! I got mildly sidetracked by the metallurgical discussion and the hardness of swords vs that of armor... So with modern metallurgy how much do you think we could improve upon plate, or riveted mail, or indeed swords without even having to change the historic designs? What would be the "best" modern steels to use? Would the best even BE steel, or are there new-fangled alloys that would make a better armor/weapon? Fun food for thought! Thanks Matt
I guess this myth appeared partly as a reaction to cheesy Hollywood sword fights that usually start with a huge clash of swords being hit with their edges perpendicularly with no particular purpose but making it look epic. Then they usually proceed doing the same damn thing for a minute or two until someone uses their devastating spinning special or something. The criticism was well-deserved to some extent if you ask me. The next thing you know, this point is exaggerated to absurdity. Same thing happened to katanas, pre-XIXth century gunpowder weapons (that turned out to be so ineffective that they were used solely for SFX, apparently), etc. Some time passes and the pendulum swings back - partly due to the videos like this, so kudos for that! - and a more balanced general view is achieved.
Not sure if the presence of armour really makes a big difference to the question, the flat of a blade is also metal so the edge/flat question isn't about avoiding coming into contact with metal at all, but rather if striking another sharp edge is likely to do more damage to an edge than striking a blunt flat surface. I would say that striking an edge _is_ likely to do more damage than hitting a flat surface, though that doesn't mean that avoiding that damage is going to be any kind of high priority when someone is trying to kill you.
"He really loved that sword!" "Yeah, he died heroically, protecting it's immaculate edge"
it's a shame certain people haven't
“if I survive I get money and I can buy another sword” I tell myself that every day at the office
word.
Such truth cuts straight to my core.
The Magnanimity!
Matt clarifying that he didn't go to the actual battle is pretty great. I had assumed he was a time traveler.
He never said he isn't
If you listened carefully he said the reenactment was also in 1471, so ….
@@dorianshepard2841 True, he may have simply not gone in that instance
I was so disappointed. He said he was at the battle! And he wasn't! I want my money back! Even though this is all for free!
Glad to see I'm not the only one who assumed that. I mean, dude puts a medieval helmet on and starts talking to a camera; either he's a time traveller or he's a lunatic, and we know he's not a lunatic because lunatics parry with their fucking flat 😂
Man Matt and Lindybeige bodyguarding the duke sounds like the ultimate crossover episode
Sounds like a hell of a good time, some footage from the event would be cool.
It was indeed great fun :)
and Drach
It's also worth remembering that parrying with the flat won't magically protect your sword from damage, especially considering that the flat is usually softer than the edge. I have a sword which had a notch in the blade from parrying with the flat.
Indeed, many of my swords have scratches and grooves all over their flats from use, and swords with defined fullers or mid-ribs will take deep damage there from an opponent's edge.... which in turn will be damaged from hitting the flats and guards of the opponent's blade. Basically everything gets damaged.
What?? I'm shocked 😳. Sarcasm, by the way. My Windlass Type XIV has a awesome scratch on the side when I, like a dumbass, tried to zwerk with it and lost my grip cutting water bottles. Edges fine but that polish is gone.
@@bentrieschmann if the polish is gone, maybe give them a call?
A classic one, and yet another situation that we still need more people to realize that, in warfare, weapons have always been ultimately consumable (not disposable, consumable) supplies.
My thoughts exactly. If you were a professional soldier, mercenary or knight, and your sword/axe/spear breaks.... you go and purchase another one.
And on the matter of "what part of the item should I parry with" it seems to me the obvious answer is: What part of the weapon will keep you alive?
Who cares if a specific section of iron/steel is a bit blunted or chipped if our theoretical soldier was decapitated? I suspect every swordsman would prefer to have a chipped sword as opposed to lacking a head/arm/leg/etc.
There is the case of heirloom weapons. Like a family sword in noble families. You didn't bring them to the field though. That's the point of an heirloom. It stays hung up on the wall....
@@ponfed Exactly, and it is because other contexts exist that I specified "in warfare". Technically the original discussion covered other combat contexts too but the conclusion and broad strokes are the same, and I was lazy.
@@ponfed What are the chances that the heirlooms that saw use in combat are in a ship of Theseus situation, where whole parts have been replaced to the point that none of the original exists?
@@ericamborsky3230 Probably in the high 90%, you're absolutely right.
So Matt, I actually got mislead by the flat parrying argument back in the early 10s, mainly because the only source of information I had at the time was the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA), which was a big proponent of the argument. I remember what finally convinced me otherwise was when you made that short video in which you said "just look at the crossguard." After that, I realized the idea of flat parries had to be a mistake.
I'm guessing I'm not thinking of something... How does looking at the cross guard help make someone see... Something..??
I'm not getting it
@@strydyrhellzrydyr1345 which direction is it going
Imagine blocking a cut, and the opponents sword sliding down yours towards your hand.
If you block with the edge, your crossguard will protect your hands. If you block with the flat, your fingers will get hit.
@@lyooyiylklykyokyklky Yes. It is odd why this isn't more obvious to people. I don't do hema but I bought a couple of toy plastic arming swords for the kids (and me!) to play fence with. The number of times I parried with the flat thinking I was being clever and got a bruised knuckle for my troubles!
Does it not depend on the exact parrying technique?
A parry is a parry, who cares if the tool gets some damage, what is the alternative, take a cut you could have parried because the angle was wrong and you didn't want to damage your sword?
It's the same logic as saying "Don't wear hardhats on building sites, falling bricks have the potential to damage your helmet"
I can see why people have these instincts, to modern people swords are beautiful shiny ornaments that we don't use in fights.
I recognize that, for me, being cautious not to damage my edge is not only a modern concept but also one developed by experience. I don't have much money to spend on swords and knives so when I was younger (and stupider) I bought junk that just wasn't built to take a beating ... I'm talking to you BudK ... now I buy much better quality products, but that means I can afford even fewer of them and even though they are hard tested and reviewed by content creators to prove their worth I still can't bring myself to risk it. I have some really nice blades that I won't carry in the field because of that and I have some that I do carry because they fall in that sweet spot of tough and affordablely replaceable.
@@kenbrown9287 Swords were not as common as tv shows you! They were expensive back then just like they are now .From economic aspect its cheaper to arm large army with spears,maces and axes and shields than it is with swords.
Swords compared to axe takes long time to forge and it takes way much more skill to make sword properly than to forge a small battle axe or mace or spear. it takes more material which was sacred ,the steel quality must be better.
Daggers were more common than swords.
It was always expensive item because it takes a lot of time and skill to make.
@@zumbazumba1 Thanks. I do understand that swords were expensive then as they are now and I do get what you're saying about the forging processes, economics, and quality. I guess what I don't have a great grasp on was the actual prevalence of swords. Based on the historical art I've seen combined with the development of HEMA I've come to think of swords as quite common.
An just to clarify, when I say the development of HEMA I'm comparing what I know of European martial arts to Asian martial arts. European martial arts focus on sword, dagger, polearm, etc (steel based weapons). along with grappling because those were what was readily available and how they were best used. By comparison, Asian martial arts are centered around (but not exclusive to) unarmed combat and while there is a strong presence of swords and polearms there are more examples of farm implements being modified into combat weapons.
I know all cultures have examples of modifying farm tools into weapons, there just seems more of an emphasis on this in Asian martial arts. From my experience anyway. Maybe its all just in how they are portrayed.
@@kenbrown9287 There is one more aspect of the sword and why it was not a common weapon as people think it was -it takes time to master movements.
Give a peasant a axe or a mace and he is good to go .He will do same chopping as he does in his daily routine.
Some larger kingdoms had their professional armys' like romans did but for most of the time it was peasant conscripts that were if they were lucky quickly trained .
To give a sword to a such low skilled person is a waist of money and time.
Give them a pointy stick or axe and a wooden shield and 10 of them will kill 1 knight that practiced his whole life with a sword.
In reality 1 guy with super skills does not beat 150 people like in movies and changes the battle !
@@zumbazumba1 well.. it depends. If we are talking about high middle ages yes, sword were pretty rare and prestigious. If we are talking about 1200 and after, well no: Italian communal soldiers, to say one, were expected to have a minimum equipment, and an arming sword or a falchion (the term often used is "coltella") was always a part of it. Idem for man-at-arms. Knight, obviously... Sword were expensive, but pretty standard secondary weapons in a lot of battlefields. Also, basics of swordfighting were not so hard to learn: the I33 fechtbook shows a monk teaching some commoners; a lot of students organizations in italy, germany and france had a bad reputation because they were going around armed and quarrelsome. It wasn't so hard to find a sword teacher in european cities. In Cividale (not so a big city) we have record of a cobbler (so not a so rich person) that spontaneously proposed to defend himself in a trial by combat... sign that he was pretty confident in his abilities!
Stands in a t-shirt with a comic book page on it, while wearing a helmet, holding a sword, and talking about how he and his friends ran around playing at being knights in shining armor; then says, "God I'm old!"
Never, sir. Never gonna happen.
😁
I think this also speaks to a larger context of modern versus historical mindset. The people asking these questions today, have a different relationship to the material items. WE LOVE SWORDS. We are fascinated and engaged in the understanding of items of the era, we have a personal fixation on these historical items. To us, even those engaged in HEMA, and the sale and crafting of swords/armour/whatever, we have a more unique relationship to these and other historical items than the people who would be engaging with them in their proper context.
They are relatively niche and rare in our lives, tend to be quite costly, and are tied to a hobby or lifestyle. Virtually none of that is true in their original context. These were tools, more akin to a hammer, or a plane, or a nice saw or drill. If you've ever seen a builder or handyman use their tools, that's how weapons were. Sure, there are nice ones you take special care of, because of the expense or the design, but ultimately they have to do the job, and the job is messy and destructive, and they're not going to spare their tools if it means not getting the job done. Now, wearing a hammer on your belt never became a fashion, but if it had the analogy would work even better.
In that case the context the tool was also serving the purpose of showing off wealth. A coral handled hunting hanger was like getting a gold plated hard hat. That's not really a work item anymore, it's an art piece using the imagery of a more conventional tool. In the era, the tool had to do the job, and it was used and maintained until it broke, then it was repaired (or much more often replaced). A sword, or a helmet, was not a terribly unique or precious object. It was made to be broken, in effect. Just as tools, hardware, and protective gear are today.
I don't entirely agree with you. People take pride in their weapons today in war, and often consider damage to them normal or even ennobling of the weapon and its service. Yes, their relationship was different, but it was one in which the sword pertains, by the will of God, to the warrior and all which he performs on the battlefield. If it's full use involved damage and eventual breakage, this was a part of its telling its story the "warrior and his weapon" duo. I do think they did have a perennial view of the sword as societally important.
@@nullifye7816 People take pride in their tools too.
We have findings of weapons and armour with prayers written on them. And pieces where they've obviously had them for years, and put decoration on them. But the sword wasn't even the main weapon of many of the soldiers we're talking about. Many of them would have a spear or pike, with maybe a knife, and never used a sword their whole life. Others probably saw their sword as a symbol of their existence in the warrior cult of knighthood. But at the end of the day, these weapons have to be useable, and you can't have something you are so protective of you wouldn't use it properly (as many people treat their swords today), as your tool on the battle field.
Of course a person may become attached to any tool they use, and of course several weapons throughout the ages have become symbolic. But ultimately these items were tools used by a whole society in a usage that was destructive. All weapons are treated with a certain amount of respect, these are tools for taking life, but somethings societal import isn't going to outweigh it's utility in warfare(hence why we don't use swords on the battlefield today, but they still feature heavily in our media and culture, and why they would modify historical swords they had in their collection to match the current fashion, or just replace the blades).
This was my point earlier, you might have a fancy drill or a hammer of sentimental value, but if you're using it it's got to work, and if we're talking about weapons, you're not going to be sacrificing your life to be precious about it. Swords may be symbolic, and a sword may be sacred or special, but the item in general in the time it was predominant was a tool with a use.
William Patten claimed some individual pursuing cavalrymen broke multiple swords each at the Battle of Pinkie 1547. The fleeing Scottish soldiers had dropped tons of good blades, so they had plenty to use. It's not clear from the text how they broke these swords, but it does mention striking at helmeted heads.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Interesting stuff. I was not aware of a Battle of Pinkie lol. Considering the quality of the steel at the time, and the hard use they were being put to, it stands to reason this would happen a lot. Multiple times in one battle seems particularly bad though.
"You'll instantly think of 'flatuhmuhstrong'" Shit, ya got me.
If you know, you know.
@@scholagladiatoria over a beer, a certain Jörg B. once mused that only people who don’t fight for their lives have time to muse over flat parries.
Personally, I would add that whatever you do would, AT THE MOST, double the life of your edge, unless your opponents got the memo, too.
I've always thought that when you have a blade speeding toward your face, you block it however you can, regardless of whether it's the edge, flat, or whatever.
No, you lower your head so that the blade hits the helmet. Matt explained it quite well :-)
@@mihainita5325 Well, there's that option, too.
Concern about edge damage *in battle* always seemed silly to me. You won't cause enough damage to a blade to render it ineffective in a single engagement short of the blade bending or snapping. Yeah it might be notched and dinged to hell and less effective, but it's still going to cut. It's not exactly going to go as blunt as a federschwert in one fight. You can fuss over the state of your blade when people aren't trying to kill you.
Cheng Zong You's 17th-century manual for the Japanese-style two-handed sword specifically mentions using the back of the sword to deflect out of concern for the cutting edge. It is in the context of an opponent using "heavy metal weapons." This provides a historical basis for warriors/soldiers caring about preserving a sword's cutting ability in combat.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 17th century japan, after 1615 there peace across the land.
@@SuperFunkmachine The manual is from late-Ming China, not Japan. There was not peace across the land in China at that time; to the contrary, it was during the long Ming-Qing transition that involved considerable bloodshed.
The "parry with the flat to preserve your edge" argument still persists among a lot of people who don't actually do anything with swords but saw that argument made a lot ten or twenty years ago. They still seem to take it as fact, presumably because they haven't actually come into places where that assumption would be challenged. My biggest counter, other than the "treatises tell us to use the edge", is the fact that every system I've been taught to use tells us to use the forte in defence and the foible in attack; defending with your edge only ruins the cutting edge of the other person's sword, and they're not going to use their flat just to preserve your edge, are they?
Admittedly, I've never been in a real sword fight however anyone that has ever had to actually defend themselves knows that a fight is messy and unpredictable (I can only imagine how much messier a swordfight is). That very simple concept should logically lead people to understand that there will be instances when blocking with the flat just isn't possible or feasible to effectively stop a full force strike by someone who is also fighting for their life.
jup. in addition: due to the shape of the object, a blade is MUCH stronger edgewise, if someone hits your flat with their edge with any reasonable or earnest force, YOUR blade WILL snap. There are examples of this in the Graz Zeughaus. Trying to catch a serious blow with your flat is downright suicidal.
While I agree that all HEMA sources use both interchangeably and that the argument of "flat vs edge" has long since been dismissed as silly:
"defending with your edge only ruins the cutting edge of the other person's sword"
What do you think happens when THEY parry your attack? ;P
@@HipposHateWater Then they chip your edge, but you can't exactly control how the other person defends. Or maybe you attack with your flat, as another commenter suggested? :p
@@Grauenwolf Sure, sword types vary considerably in construction and hence mechanical properties. A diamond shaped cross section might withstand blows a flat section would not. But why use the flat offensively if you have an edge right next to it? Except for throwing a quick diversion, I see no reason to do that, not if you could use the edge instead.
I’ve seen a similar myth trying to be spread around of samurai being very delicate with their swords when fighting because they were as brittle as glass apparently.
The truth is (whether it be battle or duel) they used swords however they needed to get the job done just like any other tool. They were insanely rich and didn’t care if a swords had to be retired because they could just afford more post battle (as Matt mentioned)
Moreover there is even a technique where a samurai would stick his sword into the ground and use it as a brace to hold his matchlock arquebus. Samurai during the sengoku period undoubtedly respected the sword as a reliable back up implement, but understood that it was simply another weapon to be used.
Edit: the extent of the brittleness of the katanas edge also seems to have been heavily over-exaggerated recently
I have a book about the Katori Shinto Ryu, the oldest surviving school of Japanese swordsmanship. It explicitly says to to block with the edge, not the flat. Blocking a hard blow with the edge will dull or chip a blade but blocking with the flat is likely to break or bend it.
I remember some folk claiming that Japanese blades weren't tempered, which is only partially true? From what I remember, if the edge was of medium carbon content, then tempering wasn't needed. Though if a higher carbon steel was used on the edge, then it was tempered via heating and plunging it back into water once again.
Cheng Zong You's 17th-century manual for the Japanese-style two-handed sword specifically mentions using the back of the sword to deflect out of concern for the cutting edge. It is in the context of an opponent using "heavy metal weapons."
Samurai varied massively in wealth and many were not rich at all. They couldn’t do many jobs without losing their status.
Indeed it became an increasing problem that people nominally lower in the social order were wealthier than them.
@@101Mant you’re right actually, they were a huge caste with their rank and wealth being a wide range. When talking about historical nobles I tend to get caught up with the wealthiest and most successful ones.
However from the rest of your comment I can tell you refer to the samurai of the Edo period when they “couldn’t do many jobs” and when “peasants could make more money than them”. I tend to always refer to the samurai pre-Edo period as they were the ones who actually fought in war and took up most of samurai history. They didn’t just have a lot of jobs available, they had nearly EVERY job available. (Infantry, gunner, spy, cavalry, scout, those are just the ones on the field). Even the poorest samurai would get paid well enough after the battle to replenish his gear so they wouldn’t try to preserve their weapons edge.
Matt, I always felt like I should block with the part of my blade that wasn't my hide. Good video, thanks.
That's a good way of putting it
The nineties was a different time in reenactment. We struck with the flat of our blades because we didn't have much armour, you couldn't just go online and order a suit, you'd be very lucky if you could find an armourer with a backlog less than six months, so many of us just did with a helmet and gauntlets. Swords were equally hard to find so people were protective of them. So we were turning our blades to strike and parry to avoid doing too much damage to ourselves or our weapons, not because we thought that was how things were actually done. And it's possible that more blades broke because of us trying not to damage them.
I don’t know anything much about the relevant metallurgy, but I would have guessed that if you parried a great blow with the flat of the sword, there’d be a pretty good chance of it snapping.
@@callumclark3358 It's not one great blow, it's a huge amount of normal blows that weaken the sword until it snaps. Throwing great blows around is a good way of getting banned from fighting. You don't want to put your mates in hospital after all.
@@AliasAerius 🤣 No doubt, but I was thinking of the great blows dealt in actual mediaeval warfare.
@@callumclark3358 Great blows weren't as common as you'd think. They take room and can leave you wide open, both of which can be very dangerous on a battle field. Of course if you're wearing heavy armour it can become a lot less dangerous.
When I'm explaining to my friends out side of the living history/hema sphere, why I'm so often fixing things or why my swords, knives, tomahawks ect, is damaged or chipped; and why on earth anyone would use such fragile things. I liken it to a modern soldiers periodic reissuing of gear and uniform, as well as how rifle barrels deteriorate with use and need to be replaced especially in a wartime setting. I think one big hold up we have in modernity is we tend not to hold onto things very long, few things other than automobiles dows anyone keep to the point they're not worth fixing. So we don't really have such an integral concept of an objects useful lifespan in the way people of the past did
In an actual battlefield, the condition of your weapon from use is irrelevant. To put it into perspective, imagine if in the modern battlefield a commander says not to shoot your rifle more than a set number of times so the barrel doesn’t overheat and get damaged. It is nonsensical because the soldier is going to put their equipment through hell and back if it means winning the firefight and not think twice, and I think it is the same for the medieval battlefield.
I got my arm severed but saved my sword from getting a nick on the edge!
It's funny that you should mention that. I was looking at video the other day about world war 2(germans) and heavy mounted machine guns. I can't remember the exact name but he specifically said you can't fire that non-stop because the barrel will quickly overheat. He was talking about a movie where they were firing non-stop with that weapon on d-day if I recall. In reality they had to fire in bursts to avoid overheating the barrel and I've also read that they had replacement barrels that they could switch out. I think the point being if your weapon stops functioning then you're in trouble.
@@huldu well you wouldn’t destroy your weapon, but don’t be delicate with it either is the moral. Get the full use of it!
@@huldu well to my knowledge there were German gunners who went through 7-8 barrels, they always had extra barrels at their machine gun mounts. So obviously you couldn't continuously fire forever, but they were more concerned with killing enemies than preserving their barrels.
@@Adam_okaay Also if you switch out your barrel when it starts to get too hot, you won't destroy it so you can cycle it back in when it cools. Either way though, the gun will still shoot if you burn out your barrel, it will just have poorer accuracy.
This is probably the best video I’ve seen on this topic. In addition to HEMA, I train in two schools of koryu Japanese swordsmanship, wherein sometimes we parry with the edge, sometimes with the flat. Depends on the context. 👍⚔️👊
some great practical observations there. people say 'you'll damage the edge of your knife if you sue it that way' yes, that's what happens and why sharpening is a thing!
As I recall, part of the reasoning for that argument came from the fact that with Katanas, blocking was sometimes taught to be done with the flat or even the spine. Even at that time, with a little experimentation and reflection, it became evident fairly quickly that attempting to block in that manner was less than ideal, biomechanically, and would put you at a severe speed disadvantage on the counter stroke. So, if it wasn't a good idea with a katana, which has a round handguard, why would it be a good idea with the longsword, which typically has a flat handguard? Still, many people were very adamant and somewhat convincing with their "block with the flat" arguments at that time.
Thank god you clarified. I thought you were at the real battle of tewkesbury
The myth of parrying/crossing/blocking with the flat of the blade seems to originate with Ewart Oakeshott. He was certainly a proponent of it and because he was influential in the study of arms and armour, many students of history accepted his argument as fact.
!Gasp! we do not badmouth Oakeshott in this household! Lol. The feverpitch of the debate in HEMA was largely due to John Clements, who interpreted a source incorrectly & for whatever reason couldn't change his view after hearing of his error.
@@KalteGeist - Like swords, some people are not so flexible as others. All sorts of nonsense exist, and individuals have to pick and choose. Some will believe in lie and some will live on with lies.
I would be concerned with when trying to parry with the flat I would risk my blade snapping due to presenting the weakest cross section to my opponent's strongest cross section. Maybe not so much a problem with modern tempered steels but more or a concern with period steels.
Yes. Agreed.
I had the same thought. As Matt said we have examples of historical swords and the damage they took but there's survivor bias to consider. A sword snapped in two won't survive for us to examine.
@@markfergerson2145 I mean unless they melted it down those broken swords should still be out there. I don't think survivorship bias applies here. I'm sure we've discovered a number of broken equipment of all types by now.
@@cmck362 You would obviously rework steel it was a valuable resource.
It’s a problem with modern steels too. The heat treat matters much more than than the steel type, and it’s just as easy to screw up today.
In battle and in life, there are always things you can’t control. Your opponent may fling his sword up in defense and deliberately parry with his edge. It may be harder than your edge. Will that make your sword useless? Maybe that’s why double edged swords remained so common. A fascinating discussion as always.
For the East single edge blade is more favored because not only economical to forge but also more abuse resistant.
@@chengkuoklee5734 Before anyone replies with "but western metallurgy was far superior" or what not has to realize how similar their forging methods were to say, Japan.
Spring steel didn't exist yet because modern alloy, and at best there was spring-tempering. Spring-tempering was a minority in the late medieval era, and wouldn't see wide use until the 17th century.
It wasn't inherently better other than it possessing trade-offs in contrast to differential hardening.
Anyway, the majority of blades in Europe by then were carbon steel edges on iron cores. Essentially, these swords acted much like katana or what not.
Battle of Svoldr, King Olaf's men's swords were not biting because they had been "blunted and notched". Now how would that have happened, when they would not have been parrying with their swords at all for the most part but with shields, and when the armor faced was largely mail? Blunted and notched mostly by hitting shields and mail ( and helmets ). It's going to happen.
Always a pleasure seeing a new video Matt
If someone is going to hack you with a sword, you’re going to parry in the best way to protect your life. Not necessarily protect your sword.
I recall that sword sent to King of Spain by a warrior in the 16th century, where the sword itself, I think still preserved in Spain somewhere, was full of notches in the edge and and all bent and chewed up. He sent it to the King as proof of his having done his job.
Having said that, parrying with the flat is not necessarily bad, it can have certain advantages in specific situations in a fight.
I haven't played the video yet, wanna know if I can guess at least a part of the answer.
The statement "don't parry with your sword's edge" always felt bizarre to me, because I remember my young times practicing fighting cane / staff lessons, in which one of the first lessons you get is : strike with the last 4th of your weapon, while you parry with the first middle section above the "guard". Which means, if properly executed, you don't strike and parry with the same parts of the "blade"!
I said "guard" and "blade" on purpose, because in staff practice I remember there was one particular school called "bâton de Joinville". The teacher said : "The techniques in this school derives from two handed sword practice", i.e. handling your staff like it had a long handle beneath your hands, using various parry and strikes, counter strikes moves (in addition to pure staff-exclusive techniques).
In staff techniques you strike with the tip of your weapon (last 4th of your staff, some ppl said even less of that surface) to make more damage due to kinetic force, but this applies too to sword techniques in order to blow the most efficient cut. The parrying motions too does benefit from parrying with the closest section to your hand (the "base of your blade" so to speak), and generally it gives no advantages to parry with the farther section from your hands. I haven't had swords or HEMA lessons, but I saw you guys from UA-cam doing sword sparring and I can very tell that my description matches well with the Joinville staff practice.
If I combine this to the fact that a sword has a broader blade as its base, it makes it more unlikely to break when parrying the tip of the opponent's blade (which is usually narrower) and generally speaking the tip of the blade is the part you're supposed to strike with to make efficient cuts. But if you present your flat against an edge, I can just imagine that the flat positioning doesn't absorb well the kinetic motion of the opponent's blade, and this may cause your sword to bend, or maybe worse.
Yes, exactly. Why even bother to sharpen the strong of the blade. Firstly, the parrys will destroy the sharp edge; and secondly, you are unlikely to hit the opponent with the strong of the blade. It would be interesting to see, from service sharpened sabres - medieval swords are unlikely to still have their sharp edges remaining - whether those were sharpened up to the hilt, or say only two thirds down the tip with the last third close to the hilt being not sharpened.
This is why I only defend with the flat of my flanged mace, so that the edges of the flanges don't get damaged. /s
This video brings up an interesting point about legendary weapons. To ancient people, weapons like Excalibur that had been used in battle and survived for long periods probably seems totally fantastical, because they had a firsthand understanding of just how disposable many of their tools were.
I've long thought that if I were ordering a custom sword, I'd want the forte, say about 10" extending from the hilt, to be completely dull and rounded. Or even more of a square edge to damage the cutting edge of the sword I'm parrying. A thicker, round edged blade in that area would be stronger and less likely to break when parrying.
Lol. I remember the good old days when I first found your channel.
It also is going to be a reason why swords break. Those type of sharp gouges will leave a stress riser that could be a point of failure. Weapons are never meant to last forever.
I often talk about design. Even now when you go to choose a knife you should be looking at the grind and the steel and you want both of them to work for your intended purpose. If you want to look at tools saws and drill bits are made for a task and material and any other cutting implement is the same. There is no such thing as the perfect steel or sword or martial art that will let a blade do everything and last forever. Even with no damage if you keep them sharp they will get used up.
The solution that cuts this Gordian knot: use a mace.
I blame the popular Eragon book series for this. There is a point in that series in which the main character loses his unbreakable super sharp magic sword, he later notices the sword his rival left behind had become chipped fighting edge to edge and concluded that normal swords were too fragile for him. This was then reinforced by a supposedly professional smith that stated everyone else deflected everything with the flat of the blade to avoid this. The idea behind this scene was that Eragon needed a new magic sword to equal the one he lost to his rival, a fine idea given that they were both magical dragon riding supermen that put their weapons through a lot of abuse, but that parry comment definitely would have been taken as fact by a lot of people who weren't huge medieval nerds like myself.
Hi Matt, hi guys, if anyone knows where i can find the episodes of Ancient Assasins where Matt appears please let me know, i'm really interested in checking them out.
Excellent points. The entire purpose of your equipment in battle is to get damaged, so that YOU don't get damaged.
Like my flight instructor told me: "if you have to make an emergency landing, don't worry about the plane, its job is now to keep you alive, not to fly again"
Of course, then you have people like my father.... "I don't wear gloves when i am working because my skin will grow back, but the gloves won't"
You overlooked a very important part. Due to the lower quality of steel and the much higher stresses there likely was chance of your sword shattering when struck at the flat. This would be much more of a concern than a nick or a chip in the edge.
I think your channel is great. History and historical weaponry and fighting, all around the world, is interesting enough without all the mythology around it. People were always people And people always fight and they fight the way that makes sense in the context that they do fight. There's no magic...
Can't argue at all with your logic. My way of thinking (mumble years ago) was that given the edges were likely hardened more than the center (fuller) of the blade, if you did a straight on, at right angles, parry with the flat of your blade you may well end up with a sword that looks more like the letter "L" than it does the letter "I"! Edge to edge you're going to get nicks and jagged sections, but as long as the blade doesn't actually break you'll still have a usable weapon.
I don't know much about the HEMA scene, but flat or edge debates are still a thing in self defense conversations though, usually, it's a moot point because the knives most people carry aren't big enough to figure in the conversation.
Working on and off with designing an RPG game where I decided to try giving equipment stats of Quality (effectiveness at doing it's job) and Vim (lifespan against use and abuse).
In this way, if a player's character weapon strikes an enemy's helm, the weapon and helm's Quality are compared to determine which is going to come out all the better, which then determines how much Vim is removed from each.
As such over time, even a richly heroic character with supreme weapons will find that senselessly butchering dozens of enemies in shabby armor by comparison is still wearing down his weapons' Vim. His weapons (and his stamina) wears down, limiting his effectiveness. He's going to need those things to be repaired sharpened, even replaced, and the longer the fight, the greater risk of his weapons breaking.
Also separating the munitions stats from the shooting weapons.
This video let's me know, I think, I'm doing _something_ realistically interesting. I'm not sure if other games do this, but if so I'm not aware of or don't remember them.
Cant say anything about the time before, but 2000s, when I evolved interest in the matter of historic close quarter weapon combat was a breeding ground of very esoteric problems and their consequent solutions and various notions just about anything, this being one of them. It was the alternative to already established McDojo martial arts, but for guys loving european knights.😆 Not being that much questioned before, Im still astonished how far the research were in like 15-20 years, it seems like people were pulling theories literally out of their arses before and all of the sudden, in a few years, there are some many knowledgeable people actually putting it all under scrutiny and providing great practical insight into the realities of historical combat, which I consider a blessing. (for me, personally, especially mounted combat duelling capabilies, pushing it away from imagining it being just straight line jousting at full, predictable speed, useless for anything, but showing up.)
Despite watching sword channels somewhat regularly, I totally missed the edge parrying video. Great video for those of us still thinking flat parrying was a good idea.
I agree, I would only use the flat if I needed my opponents blade to slide past ,say my left shoulder or slide down to use my cross guard to control the opponents blade or I needed to slide in for a thrust. Sharp edged blades when hit together I feel have a tendency to stick not slide, so you would have to roll the blade out to disengage then slide in for the thrust, which can be done of course. If you hold ( carefully ) two kitchen knife blades edges against each other you will see how they don't like sliding. As a side note I think a lot of the written techniques work with sharp blades not so much safe blunted blades (that slide over each other) because after all that's what they were written for. These are only my thoughts on the mater.
Edging can be risky, but it's the superior method. Thank you for showing us this Matt!
The treatises _explicitly_ tell us to parry with the edges. We can discuss about the pros and cons of that, and what alternative techniques one can employ and when, but that edge parries were used (and not by mistake!) should be settled. And yet, I still see people that argue otherwise.
When training with Chinese Dao, I was told that the ricasso portion would be thicker and duller and so less likely to nick, while the last few inches would be the sharpest section because it's traveling at the highest speed in the stroke and produces more cutting force.
That's pretty similar to the way i always understood it as well.
The area nearest to the tip of the blade is ideally kept sharp, that's what you want to do damage with.
The lower half of the blade doesn't really matter as much.
The ideal part of a blade to hit stuff with, would be the point where it stays 'in the centre' if you make it vibrate. Easy to do by holding it in 1 hand, and hitting the pommel sideways with your other hand. The small area that stays in the middle gives the 'purest' force transfer into your target upon impact. (Deepest cut as a result, or smoothest water bottle decapitation)
Also, parrying with a part of the blade closer to you wrist makes for a much stronger parry than trying to do the same with an area near the tip. A shorter lever for the enemy to try and push through with a longer lever and all that mechanical stuff im not good at explaining.
In an battlefield setting/warfare and using a sword against armored opponents you may have a fair point here not caring about a sharp edge. But the treatises like Meyer and Talhoffer, explicitly differntiate between fighting in Harnisch and Bloßfechten without armor. Most techniques HEMA is referencing today are from sections describing fights between unarmoured oponents. Also the meaning of "parry" must not be equaled to "blocking" with a sword. Praticing with sharp swords in a tournament or training setting we noticed you can use, by a swift turn of your wrist using your right hand thumb on the hilt as a center point, the flat part of the sword to bind, in order to slide or adjust you position on your opponents sword, since edges of sharp swords tend to bite in another and therefore not slide. While i like most of your videos on this wonderfull chanel, because of your effort in thinking through many different options and perspectives reagrding your topics, this one is obviously one sided in its arguments. While i understand that the debate is an old one and the sides are clear.
Not the real Battle of Tueksbury, a reenactment. I'm glad you made that clear, Matt. I was unsure.
He is lying
Now this is a solid argument. Probably my favourite one so far.
Personally, can conceive of why edge parry might be seen as contra-indicated.
With some edged tools (axes of various types, brush knives such as machetes), deep notching or even blade breaks occur when a rock or another piece of metal is struck.
Broke a machete cutting roots while removing some privet hedge - have seen axes with peeked over edges after hitting wire embedded in a fenceline sapling.
My 2cents worth, Matt.
Geeky jocks, I'm so jealous of you! I'm around Mr. Easton's age, and what we have learned about swordsmanship, HEMA, and honestly, all martial arts has been absolutely amazing! Look what happened to computers between 1970 and now. That's what happened in martial arts!
The internet really changed everything, I'm happy to have seen it first hand though
Ya internet is great 👍 it had a wonderful effect streamlining and brainwashing the youth for corporate agendas. Mainstreaming miss information. Get propaganda out there pronto as we’ve seen from COVID, Russia and Ukraine . It also helped the optometrist industry and the weight loss clinics, the carpril tunnel surgeons are just rolling in the dough and internet allows criminals to communicate in real time with encryption. But destroyed small family brick and mortar businesses with Amazon and the likes. It also gave everyone an outlet to complain and attack others for no reason. It even ended close friends and replaced them with far away contacts. Its great. 🤮 a wonderful tool used to divide and concur and condense the good simple people 👍👍 and all our data is sold behind our backs to scammers and commies without us seeing a penny. It’s also cool how anyone can hack into your bank account and transfer your funds to an offshore account in a dead persons name. It’s proven useful to dead beat selfish moms who distract the kids with unknown internet content to get some more FB time for herself and scrolling through thousands of dick pics on her single mom dating app. Kiddnappers and stalkers have found many helpful hints on the internet. The Internet is the best thing since impotency. 😃
I see no mention in the comments and am typing before the end of the vid but it occurs to me that impact against the flat is FAR more likely to fold the blade around the point of impact.
I only know about real machete fighting when I was told and shown as a child how it was done. I remember advices that tend to swat with the flat and some binding.
Mind that no armor is wear, cuts are pretty fast and machetes have no hand guard at all. BTW I am relying in what my own grandpa told me and a couple of field workers demonstrated. Nowdays there are very few true "macheteros" still left.
Plus machetes were pretty disposable from the begining.
The funny thing is that when my Hungar Sifu (who was an old man) began to teach us the aplication of the chinese Dao it looked suspiciously similar to what my grandpa and the field workers showed, what make me think my Sifu only learned the forms and was adapting what he had learned of machete fighting to the use of the Dao.
Machete is commonly made of springy steel and can easily flex over 90 degrees and spring back true. So, it is workable to use flats. It is a single hand weapon most of the time. And single hand does not usually provide so much force as to keep chopping you through after crossing with your hand or blade.
@@MtRevDr Yes, also they are also pretty light besides being deformable, maybe, that also influences on the transmission of power along the cutting trayectory.
The machete wounds I treated usually didn't cut through thick bones, like the humerus, although I did saw full amputations from time to time.
@@allopez8563 - Some are light and some are thicker(up to 3mm) and heavy. I have both types. The thickest type I also use to chop, process, wood.
@@allopez8563 - May be many machete do not cut through body and bone. Many are not used to killing and severing bodies. For cutting up bodies with machete like blades some would go for parang and kukri. Being heavy and thick, they lose out in reach.
If doing HEMA has taught me anything it's that swords are a consumable
Just a thought: If you take a superb cutting or slashing weapon like a langmesser or falchion, and you manage to cut all the way to the bone and hit the bone with any amount of force....you´ll dull the edge. Ask me.
I once got presented with 2 cow legs (for the bones, as material for replicas), and I spent an afternoon going at them in the yard, trying to seperate bone from cartilage and muscle residues. I am obviously not an expert at this, and yes, I pretty much messed up a hatchet and 2 knives, so there goes....
(fun fact, it was the 25th of december, and my mother at some point had me come in, as she didn´t think it was the sort of show for the neighbors that was appropriate for the occasion. It was bloody cold. The legs would still be fine the next few days. btw, degreasing the bones turned out to be much more of a problem)
Swords got chewed up in battle.
Follow up questioning: Repairs.
Would the edge be ground back to straight, or left with notches and bumps?
Depends on the context.
Totally agree in that it depends on the amount and type of damage. If I have to pay a blacksmith $20 to fix it but it only costs $25 for a new one maybe not. If I can redefine the edge myself or it's way cheaper to repair then sure, repair away. I don't think there's much difference between the thought process then and now when deciding to repair something or just replace it.
Well, swords have basically no percussive energy so a notched up sword is essentially a crappy handsaw. I would imagine people were more lenient with spears and axes.
I am super glad you clarified that you weren't at the real battle of Tewkesbury. I was wondering about your time machine.
Scholagladiatoria, Lindybeige and Drachinifel in one place! Must have been awesome :D
11:50
This was my immediate thought, as someone who is completely clueless about any of this.
"What part of your sword should you parry with?"
"Any part that prevents the incoming attack from hitting my body I literally don't care"
I think people also forget that medieval steels weren't modern spring steels. Despite being commonly pushed, it's highly debatable how many swords in Europe would have even been spring tempered in the Renaissance (not to mention medieval) period, never mind that the yield point (when elastic deformation becomes plastic deformation) still wouldn't be equivalent to modern spring steel.
With that in mind, think about a sword for a moment. You have two flats with very little material between them, and two edges (or edge and spine) with quite a bit of material between them. A strike on which of these is likely to cause plastic deformation to the sword as a whole? The flats, there's less material there to absorb the stress and resist deformation. In an era where swords didn't have a lot of elasticity (having iron/low carbon cores wasn't uncommon), what's the likelihood that you're going to guard with the flats, and risk your sword permanently bending?
Great point, I recall both Ilya from That Works and Matt Easton have brought up the fact that medieval Europe had slaggy steel compared to modern steel and if spring tempering were to exist it would be far from common. This also make me wonder how modern steel limits us in historical recreation because we tend to go ham with our swords as we know full well they can take it without showing much damage.
This idea that Europe, as far back as the Viking age, had spring steel was everywhere to the point where it was just taken as fact. (I don’t like to point fingers but Shad may have been the biggest proponent of this) It’s good that we are questioning it because it now helps us get a better picture of their level of technology.
@@outsideiskrrtinsideihurt699 Ah, good ol' Shad. Don't worry, he can goof up sometimes. (Cough, Truth about The Katana series cough)
Anyways, the majority of European blades used a construction involving steel edges welded on an iron core. Sounds a lot like say, a katana right? This means the sword can still bend and take a set or what not. I've got a feeling that the best representation of how a medieval sword in the modern day would perform is to just use a modern, mild steel blade. (Or one with steel edges for extra points I suppose?)
@@jonajo9757 not just that series but also the “katana misconceptions” video too
I hope you find a place and some time to do some cutting tests! Its been a while since the last one, but i can easily understand why you might not want to in this heat. Stayed hydrated!
To me, it comes down to this: when you're parrying, that is to say taking an action to defend your body and your life, are you going to worry too much about doing some minor damage to your sword in the process? Absolutely not, that's completely ridiculous. You're a in a fight, you're trying not to die. However much you may like your sword, it's an object.
A very fine argument sir. They certainly both have their places though, I've taken attacks on the flat that I was able to counterattack from that I wouldn't have been able to in the case of an edge parry. An additional note, I've always used, or tried to use, the flat of the blade for parrying, a practice which I shall try to limit somewhat in the future following this video, and my swords STILL have some edge damage!
In the early days I remember ARMA was very emphatic on this point regardless of the evidence. Did they finally admit that they were wrong?
If you survive the battle, there will be plenty of steel to pick up to build a replacement.
I use to be one of those who would try to argue with blocking with the flat, and there were definitely reasons but more and more I saw that you wanted to keep your blade pointed at your opponent. In between follow up movements, attacks, and just keeping yourself safe the blade stayed that way. Entering binds would still let you maneuver the point and hilt towards the person, their blade could be locked up, and even in context of battle a cut that ended tearing a bit of flesh due to a notch in the blade would be beneficial to you.
Another great video. Very entertaining. Thank you!
"the debate between edge or flat parry is absolutely stupid"
when did that fact stop anyone in the HEMA community?
People surviving battles sometimes donated the armour that had saved them to a shrine dedicated to a saint or to the virgin. Those armours cost at least 10 times more than a good sword.
Plus, they often would hit the flat of the opponent's blade with their edge, according to sources, so damage was even rarer.
Depends if you want your opponent's blade to slide off your sword in the case of using the flat so you can step aside then attack again with the blade, or lock edges with their sword (bind) then step in and attack with your pommel/guard/elbow/knee, hook a leg and push them over...
40HRC is really soft for carbon steel. Is that accurate? 55+ is more typical for knives and such. In fact 55HRC would be considered a pretty soft blade.
Great video! And love the T-shirt! The Tiger I has always been one of my favorite Second World War tanks.
I agree for sure, edge damage is inevitable so why worry about it. But to the point you brought up about cutting into armor, I’m skeptical how big of a consideration that is. I know it obviously happened by accident, there’s no denying that. When we fight in harnischfechten we don’t use a lot of cuts, at least not to armor. Surely people in the past specifically avoided hitting the armor if there was a better opening available? Not out of preservation of the edge, but out of martial intent and an understanding that cuts aren’t going to do anything if you hit them in the helmet or whatever.
But to agree with your point in another way, the other thing is thrusts and tip damage. Which to me as a sword owner is more painful to see than a damaged edge. If you thrust and hit a stop rib or rolled edge and you blunt, break, or roll your point, that seriously impacts your ability to get through that armor. Edge damage is fine because of how negligible it is to the actual fight. Tip damage is really hard to fix and makes it way harder to get through mail or whatever.
I have no experience with combat, medieval or otherwise. This video was the first time i head that there was even a debate in what part of the sword you use to parry. I always thought that when parrying, you parry with whatever part of the blade is going to make it easier for you to not get stabbed in the face by your opponent's attack.
I remember people believing the blocking with the flat of the sword. It always felt wrong to me. Glad it got cleared up.
"I don't think anybody still argues about this". There's this thing, it's called the internet....
I remember fairly muddily that binding with sharp edges results in them biting in together which interrupts quite a many intended to follow up maneuvers. Parrying with the flat side felt just much quicker back in my old university days when I had some acess to sharp swords.
damn, Matts armour is really striking. He'd definitely be the the mini boss of the body guard unit.
Hope we are going to get to see some footage of the Duke of Gloucester's full harness-wearing guard.
I suppose a modern equivalent would be keeping your rifle out of the dirt. You're instructed and drilled to keep the weapon clean and safe at all times to preserve function but they've got dust covers and inbuilt tolerances for dirt intrusion because when you're in a war best practice isn't always practical.
Makes complete sense. I know that in kenjutsu/ Iaijutsu, you really don’t want to make heavy blade on blade impacts if you can help it. But there are several parrying whilst sliding in where the blade gets turned and is making a sliding contact. Also note worthy, samurai used light armor…when they wore armor and the tsuba or hand guard usually goes around the whole hand.
That's mainly because differential hardened blades are prone to getting bent when struck, this can be fixed but you don't want it to happen in the middle of combat.
Also the culture of sword worship in Japan for the past few centuries has been fairly extreme by most standards, actually damaging a Japanese sword regardless of how it happened or how valuable it is would make you very unpopular.
As I watched this, suddenly the lyrics from Depeche Mode, "Policy of Truth," came to mind. In the context if the video, the lyrics are literally the truth of Matt's argument.
This video reminds me of something the man who taught me how to fight with a knife when I was young told me. He said, " The first thing you must accept if you were going to fight with a knife is you are going to get cut.
Only in this case it is if you're going to fight with a sword it is going to get damaged.
I think I speak for all of us when I say how totally badass that helmet looks on Matt.
Always informative. Thanks, Matt!
Can we apply the same logic to those who are super precious about never sticking the tip of your sword in the ground for fear of blunting it? Thats a modern weapons safety thing, if I'm on guard duty and I need to take a pee break, I'm going to put the tip in the dirt because thats whats handy.
How much padding did a medieval helmet have? How likely were concussions 🤕? Would a war hammer be more likely to knock someone out than a sword?
I believe we went too far in the other direction nowadays. Yes, edge parries are historically accurate. Trying to avoid unnecessary blade damage is historically accurate too!
It seems we forgot where we came from. Back then the predominant picture of sword combat ARMA had to deal with were movies and theater, where they do indeed prefer to take full-force, 90 degrees, edge-on-edge parries. That's the safest method for the actors, it absolutely destroys blades, to the point *it's not safe anymore* , because those blades can break during simulated combat. To minimize that chance, extremely heavy sword-shaped bludgeons were often used.
We have all those sources and HEMAs nowadays, so nobody considers this type of stage-fighting as a historically accurate representation, but it wasn't always so. It changed to a large degree because of ARMA, who *correctly* emphasized, that the source material seems to avoid unnecessary blade damage.
And they never claimed that all edge-on-edge contact should be avoided. Winding from a bind is an obvious example of it. The bind must happen in order to do so, obviously.
Finally, if we look at early German longsword, it does seem it's a system which preserves the edge quite well. It emphasizes timing, distance work, single-tempo edge-on-flat actions and so forth, so it's not like what they used to say had no basis in reality. Even "flatamastrong" techniques do agree reasonably well with historical material. We may choose to call them edge parries nowadays, but the biomechanically sound angles are bound to be very oblique, to the point that "flatamastronging" almost makes sense too.
So yes, swords will hit metal, but while a hit to maile will blunt the edge, a hit to a helmet crest might nick the foible, a full force 90deg edge-on-edge parry will *gauge* the forte, that creates a stress riser and makes it quite likely that the rest of the blade will break off.
Yes, that's preferable to taking a hit, yet not something you'd train yourself to do, which was the case before ARMA.
I just don't see anything in the sources advising the students to do X or Y to *avoid* blade damage. It's true that proper use generally doesn't involve theatrical 90-degree smacks, but sometimes it does just that. The counter to a strong attack in the Glasgow messer treatise is throwing your edge between you and the incoming death-blow, supported by the left hand. That will seriously hurt the edge, but not as much as what you'll do to his face in the next part of the sequence. By the late medieval and Ren, swords, like bows, arrows, daggers and harness were consumable tools for fighting. They were expected to fall apart and be replaced. The few that weren't remained safely back at home as a symbol of rank. In harness combat the attacks have to be absolutely brutal to hope to get through voiders or gaps with a sword. You are *going* to damage the blade. Heck, there are techniques that involve grabbing the blade and wrenching the other armored foe around with it like a lever. So to that extent, the old theatrical methods weren't that far off. It wasn't mindless bashing, but particularly in harness there would be very strong, precise strikes where steel had to get through iron and heavy linen.
@@greghenrikson952 " *I just don't see anything in the sources advising the students to do X or Y to avoid blade damage* "
In Liechtenauer? He spoke in riddles.
" *messer treatise* "
That's a very different weapon to a longsword. I don't dispute the general premise, that edge parries are historically correct. I plainly wrote so.
" *In harness combat* "
Again, a very different weapon, which when optimized for it, is practically edgeless.
What does it change? That Liechtenauer expected you to train for static full force-on-force parries in his rhymed riddles?
" *grabbing the blade* "
Easy to grab something sorta sharpish...
Why the blades were not scary sharp? Because they'd be damaged and you'd risk the whole weapon would break apart.
So that's where we are, aren't we? Some weapons were expected to withstand a lot of abuse because they were expected to hit metal on the regular basis. That permitted certain actions.
On the other hand, some other weapons were *not* expected to hit metal often, and that required a different fighting style.
Understood and agreed this is settled law, but pointing out the sword is the hardest thing on the battlefield actually runs counter to the argument; i.e. my edge will likely be fine(ish) against the armor it encounters, but against another sword it may get pretty torn up. Not arguing in favor of flat guarding (I'd never argue in favor of anything except whatever I have to do to not die), just being a pedant in regards to that specific point.
2:44 you look awesome in that plate kit. The sneer really sells it. 👍
I would be more concerned about the possibility of damaging the point against a breastplate or helmet than any damage the edge. After all, the point is more important against plate or mail, which even the sharpest blade is unlikely to cut through.
I've waited 12 minutes for the actual answer to the question.
Weapons and armour (even horses) were disposable at the time, tools of war, that you would use and replace when they got broken.
The parrying (and hitting) with the flat of the blade is a modern practice because :
_ we do not want to risk actually wounding an opponent (why do they use blunt weapons in HEMA or buhurt ?)
_ we do not want to damage or hurt a weapon or a horse (talk of remounts in History) that we have bought for our pleasure. When you spend several hundreds/thousands euros for a nice sword, you do not want it to be broken in the modern days. On a historic battlefield you would hear "boohoo, so what, I'll get a new one if I survive", on a reenactment battlefield you will "do you have any idea how much this cost me ?"
Fine video! I got mildly sidetracked by the metallurgical discussion and the hardness of swords vs that of armor... So with modern metallurgy how much do you think we could improve upon plate, or riveted mail, or indeed swords without even having to change the historic designs? What would be the "best" modern steels to use? Would the best even BE steel, or are there new-fangled alloys that would make a better armor/weapon?
Fun food for thought! Thanks Matt
I guess this myth appeared partly as a reaction to cheesy Hollywood sword fights that usually start with a huge clash of swords being hit with their edges perpendicularly with no particular purpose but making it look epic. Then they usually proceed doing the same damn thing for a minute or two until someone uses their devastating spinning special or something. The criticism was well-deserved to some extent if you ask me.
The next thing you know, this point is exaggerated to absurdity. Same thing happened to katanas, pre-XIXth century gunpowder weapons (that turned out to be so ineffective that they were used solely for SFX, apparently), etc. Some time passes and the pendulum swings back - partly due to the videos like this, so kudos for that! - and a more balanced general view is achieved.
Not sure if the presence of armour really makes a big difference to the question, the flat of a blade is also metal so the edge/flat question isn't about avoiding coming into contact with metal at all, but rather if striking another sharp edge is likely to do more damage to an edge than striking a blunt flat surface. I would say that striking an edge _is_ likely to do more damage than hitting a flat surface, though that doesn't mean that avoiding that damage is going to be any kind of high priority when someone is trying to kill you.
One 'like' for choosing a comprehensive title.