What is the differences between smallswords and rapiers?

by cornunreality
wotan_weevil

The summary: rapiers are designed for length (and as a consequence are often rather heavy) and smallswords are designed for agility (and consequently are much shorter than rapiers).

From the measurements of the rapiers in the Wallace Collection, the average rapier:

  • weighs 1.22kg

  • has a total length of 125cm

  • has a blade of 109cm

  • has a point of balance about 10-15cm from the quillon block.

This is longer and heavy that the typical one-handed Medieval European knightly sword, with a similar point of balance. While rapiers are often thought of as light and agile swords, they are not - the average rapier will be slower and clumsier than the average knightly sword.

Some typical rapiers:

The first two of these are an earlier style of rapier, and the last two are a later style. We can see an evolution towards lighter weights. This is achieved by more slender blades, making these swords less effective at cutting. They are still long and heavy. The bulky hilt, and the great length, and also the weight, make them awkward to wear everywhere. Their function as displays of wealth and manliness could be achieved by smaller and lighter swords, and this was one of the drives towards the smallsword. The other was simply function - while reach is important in weapons, lightness and speed is also important, especially for duels to first blood (when a simple thrust into the opponents arm will do the job just as well as an amputating cut to the arm). Thus, we find the rapier replaced by the smallsword: shorter, and lighter, and still ornamented and often expensive.

Some typical smallswords:

As with the rapier examples, the first two of these are earlier, and the last two later. Early smallswords typically have diamond-section blades, and weigh about 600g. Later smallswords are lighter, usually about 300-350g, and achieved this reduction in weight by using hollow-ground triangular-section blades (and giving essentially all cutting ability, becoming purely thrusting weapons). The modern fencing foil is descended from practice versions of these smallswords. Smallswords have fairly compact guards, which makes them easier to wear, but provides less protection than, e.g., larger rapier cup-guards. As the smallsword disappeared as an item of everyday wear, duelling swords no longer needed to be as convenient to wear. Where duelling with swords remained common, the smallsword was replaced by the duelling epee, which typically had a larger guard. The modern fencing epee is descended from the practice version of such duelling swords.

We can find intermediates between the typical later rapier and the typical early smallswords, such as rapiers (still rapier-length and rapier-weight) with smallsword-style hilts, and swords of intermediate weight and/or length:

which are perhaps evolutionary links between the two.

References:

For more details and analysis of the Wallace Collection rapiers, see my post https://www.reddit.com/r/SWORDS/comments/5cb9a4/rapiers_wallace_collection_vs_repros/

BlueStraggler

Rapiers are a broad category (long, straight, narrow thrusting swords), which has examples running from the Bronze Age through to the 21st Century, so if you wish to be specific you usually need to qualify the name somewhat. When people refer to "rapiers" as a specific type of weapon, they usually mean Renaissance rapiers, popularized in Spanish and Italian regions in the late 16th Century, and spreading throughout Europe by the early 17th. Although they are striking weapons to look at, due to their famously elaborate hilts, they were not actually a very long-lived style of sword, so their martial significance is probably overrated.

But they looked good, and were insanely fashionable, so their cultural significance was huge for a while. (I don't use the word "insanely" lightly, btw; the Renaissance rapier was at the heart of a particularly murderous period of sword dueling.) But fashions are fickle, and by the 1660s this one had pretty much run its course. Not coincidentally, Europe had also just completed a course of large and nasty wars, including the Thirty Years War and the English Civil Wars, which were part and parcel of the general 17th C. revolution in military affairs, so there was a lot of willingness to test out and discard new fighting ideas during that time. The Renaissance rapier can be understood in the context of this military experimentation--it was invented, embraced, and then discarded in relatively rapid succession.

The rapier as a general category did not go away, however. The weapon was revolutionary from a personal combat standpoint, it's just that the Renaissance take on it was a bit unwieldy. They were long, heavy, difficult to master, and therefore extremely dangerous to fight with. As various schools of fencing caught up the demands of rapier fencing, the weapon itself evolved to complement the sorts of moves that fencing masters wished their students could use. In consequence, rapiers experienced a significant shortening and lightening over the course of the 17th Century.

By the 1660s the trend to shorter, lighter rapiers was dominating sword fashion, and not just because they were easier to fight with. They were also easier to wear around all day long, less likely to trip people up in a crowd, and more complimentary to the delicate fashions in clothing that were coming along. French influencers led the way here, seizing control of the development of the sword from the Italians who had dominated fencing theory for most of the previous century. Since these new rapiers were so much smaller than the Renaissance rapiers, they eventually become known (in the English-speaking world, at least) rather literally as small swords. (Or perhaps as "little swords", such as purchased by Samuel Pepys on March 20, 1663: "in Fleet Street bought me a little sword, with gilt handle, cost 23s.")

So in a certain sense, small swords are rapiers, but sort of "next-gen" and rather more French, if you will. And to at least some degree they got it right with the small sword. The smaller rapier format had significantly more longevity than the Renaissance rapier, and remained in use right to the practical end of sword combat in the early 20th Century. Longer, if you count the fact that small swords are still issued as officers' dress weapons to this day, and that the Olympic foil and epee are essentially modern sporting spin-offs of the small sword.

The distinction between rapiers and small swords is pronounced in English, because we saw fit to mark the transition with new terminology. Not every language did so. In Russian, for instance, the use of "rapier" (рапира, 'rapira') has persisted right through to the modern sport foil. The etymology of rapier in English is thought to come from Fr. raspiere ("rasp"), although this etymology is curiously preserved indirectly in English via synonym: rasp => file => foil, so in a round-about sense the old terminology outlasted the small sword itself.

The Smallsword in England, J. D. Aylward

The English Master of Arms, J. D. Aylward