Talk:Longsword (disambiguation)

There is some terminological confusion here. The first paragraph refers to single handed high medieval swords. The second paragraph refers to two handed late medieval swords. The term long sword (langes schwert, ensis longus) is very much a historical term, it was the term for the two handed sword in the 15th and 16th century. If there is another (modern) term "long-sword" that refers to a Knight's sword, the distinction should be made very clear (who calls what a long-sword) dab (&#5839;) 13:13, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

While the substance of the article is well-written and generally quite accurate, it's curious that it consistently refers to "long-sword" as a modern term. 'Longsword', in various spellings (and various languages; witness the German Langes Schwert) is a perfectly historical (>12-13c.) term for a type of sword longer than a single-handed arming sword and shorter than a great sword. [anon]


 * that's what I meant. Need to get hold of a copy of John Clemens, and sort out the historical terms. dab (&#5839;) 09:01, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

because of the terminological complications I now explain in the intro, it may be better to merge long-sword, great sword and bastard-sword into a single article. dab (&#5839;) 19:27, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

?
I seem to have broken the history by making a rollback to an edit that does not now appear on the history page. I tried to cancel the rollback and that somehow turned out weird. Sorry if I messed things up, I was trying to rollback historic back to ahistoric, but I may have killed other changes along the way, sorry. dab (&#5839;) 07:55, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Long Sword
I hope you like the photo that I submitted It may look a bit smaller do to re-sizing I wouldn't recomend you merge those articles. Dudtz 8/3/2005 2:17 PM EST

Early medieval
Given that latin was mostly used in early medieval times, is there actual reference to "long swords"? The main source referring to swords of different lengths that I recollect refers to the carolingian Spata and semispatum, so the shorter is referred to as short, not the longer as long. This no doubt due to the fact that the longer was the standard of the day, whereas the sax was in declining usage. But my knowledge of sources is quite limited when it comes to those times.
 * no, it is modern, English sources (post 18th century) that refer to early medieval swords as long swords. this is about modern terminology, not "period" terminology. 20:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)