LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY modern fencing swords (Fechtschwerter) form a (sub)type of two-handed swords which have received little scholarly attention. Their specificities and use are connected to competitive fencing practices in an urban context, as documented by the fight books and related sources. This contribution proposes a review of their denomination, based on the secondary literature regarding the few known specimens in collections of arms and armour, presented alongside terminological research based on historical documents. Secondly, based on a parallel study of three representative specimens kept in Zurich, it offers an identification, a description and an analysis of their main characteristics: the schilt (ricasso), and the flared blade of a rectangular cross section leading to a flattened tip larger than the blade. Lastly, it opens up new avenues for research on both the few identified specimens and the representation of the (sub) type, mainly within the corpus of fight books from the same period.

During a fencing competition organised in Strasburg in c.1470, the fencers were instructed to leave their own (sharp) weapons outside of the fencing ground and to fight with (blunted) swords provided by the organisers, paid for by the town. Following Dupuis’ interpretation of this source, we can assume that this safety precaution was intended to prevent fatal injuries in the context of fencing competitions known as “fencing schools”. These competitive events, intended for burghers and commoners fighting without armour or protective gear (blos), can be traced in an urban context from at least the middle of the fifteenth century in the Holy Roman Empire, the old Swiss Confederation, the Low Countries and the north of the Italian Peninsula. These are connected to fencing guilds (or brotherhoods), which received authorities’recognition and privileges as early as 1456 for the Low Countries and 1487 for the Holy Roman Empire. The golden age of these competitive practices, however, spans from the second half of the sixteenth century to the early seventeenth century. During these “sportive” events, the longsword remained the queen of weapons, even if other types were also used and, at that time, the symbolic two-handed late medieval sword had fallen out of favour on the battlefield.