How sharp were swords in history?

by badassite

Pirates, middle ages etc. I'm interested in hearing if they were actually sharp.

wotan_weevil

Were they actually sharp? Yes. We know this from multiple sources:

  1. Literature and art describe them as sharp. For example, in Kormac's Saga, Kormac loses a duel because he receive the first wound - to his thumb from the broken-off tip of his opponent's sword. We also have descriptions of swords being sharpened before battle.

  2. Swords with intact original edges are typically sharp. This can be the case even for swords over 1,000 years old; some Viking swords have been found that are still paper-cutting sharp. An example of a still-sharp sword can be found in Ian Peirce, Swords of the Viking Age, Boydell, 2002.

  3. Skeletal evidence shows that they were sharp. In particular, cuts on bones show that the weapons inflicting the cuts were sharp. For example, the skull from Skeleton 180, possibly from the Battle of Hastings in 1066, shows multiple cuts by sharp weapons: back of skull, close-up of a cut. Even when guns became dominant, we still find cuts by sharp weapons: N. Nicklisch et al., "The face of war: Trauma analysis of a mass grave from the Battle of Lützen (1632)", PLoS ONE 12(5): e0178252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178252

  4. Some sword blades show signs of repeated sharpening during their working life.

Swords were often much sharper than required to cut flesh when moving at speed. This allows them to (a) cut flesh more easily, and better cut through (b) bones and (c) cloth. Having enough sharpness to cut through cloth often matters on the battlefield because the enemy is dressed.

There are exceptions.

1 . There are some purely thrusting swords with unsharpened edges (only the point is sharp).

  1. The whole edge is often not sharpened evenly. Often, the last third of the blade (i.e., the tip 1/3) is very sharp, and the base of the blade might be left unsharpened.

  2. Modern cavalry sabres (e.g., 19th and 20th century) were often left unsharpened until their use in battle. This allowed for safer training. At times, it also allowed for the use of swords as less-than-lethal weapons for crowd control, when cavalry were used to disperse crowds.

  3. Dress swords and training swords were often left unsharpened.