Royal Rapier: Difference between revisions
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* Rapiers did see use around the early renaissance era, usually by richer men who studied fencing, or for general self defense use against unarmored opponents. It was at the time a favorite weapon for use in duels. From a more militarized point of view, the rapier did see some limited use on the battlefield, but proved ineffectual due to its difficulty penetrating even the lightest of armor, the hard time involved in using it to slash effectively, and the tenancy of its long narrow blade to break. There is however no denying that it is more [[Rule of Cool|classy]] then the more practical military blades, which were typically more pragmatically designed to kill things without such niceties as looking good or elegant doing it.
**Aside from the fact that you really need mass to slash, rapiers had to shape what mass they had differently. That is they had to be thicker vertically to stand a thrust at such length which of course is contradictory to having a sharp blade for slashing. Some rapiers in fact were unedged and those that had edges were primarily for grasping. It is possible to make a tip cut(especially as it was not unknown to expand the tip specifically for the purpose in a circular shape) and as the neck blood vessels are there that may be the only fatal cut that can be done with a rapier. It is also possible to make a draw cut while recovering from a failed thrust or to cut as a prod or reconnaissance sort of as a fencing equiv to boxing's left jab. Neither of those is what a rapier is designed for however.
** Amusingly, the earliest origin of the rapier was anything but Royal, and began life as a street fighting weapon amongst common thugs. Only later was it adopted by the higher classes and gained a 'refined' reputation.
*** In the early Renaissance, calling someone a "good fencer" was kind of like saying, "You're a heck of a coke mule." It implied you were the kind of scummy bastard who would learn how to fence, and clearly only people up to no good would want to know that. England even tried banning fencing schools. It didn't work.
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