Editing Sword (section)

===Medieval Times=== 
	
As a rule, during the Middle Ages in Europe most peoples settled on straight double edged swords for the most part.
	
*'''Arming Sword''': Also known as the side-sword, this was a one handed weapon about 70 to 90 centimeters pretty much carried by every decently equipped man-at-arms/archer/spearman/knight ever. This was also the sword that developed the cruciform crossguard, which would be used by nearly every European sword design due to its defense value and versatility. Often carried with a shield of some sort, it can also be used if your main weapon breaks or happens to be too long to use in corridors. The standby weapon of knights, it retained some degree of use even after the advent of longswords due to their greater degree of adaptability. When most people hear the word "sword", this sword is what most often comes to mind. Often incorrectly called a longsword in games and other fiction.
:*'''Viking Sword''': Often considered the progenitor of the arming sword, the Viking swords featured ornamental hilts, and many had unusually high-quality steel for their time, particularly the [[wikipedia:Ulfberht_swords|Ulfberht swords]]. Viking Swords are descended from "migration period" swords of the late Roman Empire.
:*'''Messer''' A straight single-edged sword, this German weapon also featured an early knuckleguard called a "Nagel", or nail, which became very useful for parrying blows. It may have later had a role in the evolution of the dussack, and other proto-sabers. The word "Messer" means knife in German and gets its name from how it was constructed; instead of having a shaft and pommel, the sword had a tang with rivets. The reason behind this was so knife-smith guilds could make them without getting into hot water with sword-smith guilds, as by legal definition messer counted as a knife.
*'''Longsword''': A 90 to 120 cm long knightly sword, befit of any self-respecting knightly individual, it's your two-handed or hand and a half go-to man killer with multiple functions such as sword(duh), crowbar, spear, and hammer. Though there are dozens of techniques to use the longsword, two of the most common and useful styles (and two whose manuals have survived somewhat intact to be studied by HEMA practitioners today) were the Italian and German styles. The Italian longsword technique allowed wielders to strike and parry quickly, greatly emphasizing on using the general physics of a longsword combined with well-planned footwork, and creating a unified combat system that also incorporated things like grappling and wrestling. The German style of gripping the sword with the right hand on the handle and the left on the percussion point of the sword (creating a characteristic “thumb grip“ that makes it easy to tell whether or not a sword was built for German fencing based on whether or not it incorporated a “thumb ring“ to guard the finger) emphasized heavy aggression and trying to take out the opponent before they had a chance to react with explosive speed and power, treating other weapons and modes of combat as their own distinct disciplines. It is also good to note that the longsword strikes faster and harder than the arming sword because two hands are used to wield it (though it could be wielded with one hand in order to use a shield in the other, albeit not quite as effectively).
*'''Falchion''': This single-edged sword almost resembles a great machete, designed to combine the advantages of a sword and an axe. The blade is much wider in order to increase its weight, giving it better chopping power at the expense of balance and thrusting ability. Interestingly enough, there is very little information on how falchions were used in combat, though it is theorized that it was used with a shield (quite unlike the common fantasy depiction of a big two-handed fuck-off machete).
*'''Cinquedea''': Literally "five fingers", this Venetian blade straddled the line between a short sword and a long dagger (about 18-20 inches). One noteworthy feature was that the blade was obscenely wide, being as wide as five fingers, hence the name. It was a civilian weapon used in narrow streets, and frequently pimped out with etched blades. While the wide blade won't do much good against armor, it can give an unarmored opponent a pretty nasty wound.
*'''Estoc''': When plate armor became more common, some men carried the Estoc, which was basically a longsword with no sharpened edges but a very sharp and narrow point. The edges were left unsharpened, partly because a slash does no good against most armor, and partly because the actual blade wasn't flat and wide, but thick and narrow, reducing flex and making it more rigid for dealing with heavy armor. The blade could be triangular, square, or even hexagonal.
*'''Greatsword''': Or Zweihander, is a mighty 120-150 centimeter blade that appeared somewhere around the 15th century which was mainly carried by fuckhuge men with fuckhuge biceps and fuckhuge balls whose jobs were to run forth as the vanguard and hack enemy pikes, pikemen, swordsmen, and occasionally cavalry to meaty chunks or to guard vulnerable flanks. Greatswords bear many of the same qualities as the longsword, though it was a bit slower and struck harder due to the weight, and also require even '''more''' training. One unique ability of the Greatsword was that it could be wielded like a short spear, featuring an extra handguard past the primary hilt. Good greatswords were some of the most expensive close combat weapons in medieval Europe, and good [[landsknecht]]s were the most expensive foot soldiers, but for the good reason, as they combined the devastating killing blow and armor piercing capability of the axe, speed of the sword, and were also able do chop through tough spear or halberd formations (and mind you Swiss pikemen, and later halberdiers, were the deathstars of this era). This, however, comes at a great risk, as while a highly skilled landsknecht can swing the zweihander pretty fast, he cannot react fast enough to reliably block enemy strikes because of the fuckhuge momentum of his sword, leaving him vulnerable to counter-attack if something survives his swing - even while they usually wore heavy armor, landsknechts were known to die young.
:*'''Claymore''': Scottish variant of the Greatsword. The claymore is distinguished by its forward-sweeping hilt ending in [[wikipedia:quatrefoil|quatrefoils]]. Not to be confused with later basket-hilted swords of the same name. These things stuck around for use as weapons into the Napoleonic era, for their intimidation and national pride as much as practicality.