Diney heroines

[Mistress of Darkness]

So you would never use a pole arm to bludgeon someone?

It is interesting to discover that a claymore ranged in weight between 5-7 lbs, it doesn't really affect my point. I don't see a woman carrying around a claymore as a strong female character, more like a male character with a female profile.

/me adds Mama Day to her list

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

3-4 pounds...

and pole arms are primarily stabbing weapons,... more reach and all that. You could use it to bludgeon, but you know.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

stabbing with most pole arms doesn't make sense. Show me a reference if I'm wrong, but it seems that a halbard, having an axe head, wouldn't be stabbing. a lot had points added later, but why would it have an axe head if you were just going to stab with it?

[Entsuropi]

They were often used to push people away with the side of the long haft, which is why they are often shown as fantasy cops weapons - easy to do crowd control.

And every halberd I have seen has 2 or 3 weapon edges/points, so I imagine it was used in a sort of mix of stabbing and chopping.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

3-4 pounds...

and pole arms are primarily stabbing weapons,... more reach and all that. You could use it to bludgeon, but you know.

uhm... from what I read on that page, 3-4 pounds didn't sound very typical

"weighing something of the order of 5-8 lbs/2.3-3.6 kg."

"Dr. Lee Jones possesses a very fine specimen of a 16th century German two-handed great sword, that this author had the privilege of exercising outdoors with, had length in excess of five feet and a weight of 7.9 pounds (3490g)"

" this author also had the privilege of examining, as weighing only a little over 8 pounds"

"The fighting two-handed sword, weighed (on average) between 5-7 lbs. I give the following three examples, randomly chosen from our own collections, which I hope are adequate to make the point:

Two-handed sword, German, c.1550 (IX.926). Weight: 7 lb 6oz.

Two-handed sword, German, dated 1529 (IX.991). Weight: 5 lb 1oz.

Two-handed sword, Scottish, mid 16th century, (IX.926). Weight: 5 lb 10oz"

"This (a much larger sword all round) still only weighs a mere 7 lbs. 4 oz."

And many more. The vast majority of the swords int he example are over 5 pounds. A few go as high as 10 pounds. That means more than 3-4.

[Fellfrosch]

Ten is higher than four? No wonder I failed math!

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I like to state the obvious for the second kind of math major.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

except as I read this quote kind of mitagates much of that

"Note that unlike ceremonial specimens, none of the fighting weapons exceeded 4 pounds and the heaviest ceremonial was less than 11. The catlog of the famous arsenal in Graz, Austria, contains similar weights for its two-handed great sword specimen"

[Entsuropi]

I wonder how much a longsword weights? I know that 2handers were made with thin, flexible blades so that they could be 'wobbled' around enemy swords, much like the chinese Tai Chi sword. But I don't think that shorter weapons, longswords shortswords etc, did that. That would indicate that the weight different wouldn't be that huge, but i'm no expert

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Then the article is self-contradicting, because many of the examples were fighting swords, and almost all of them were over 4.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I think the part you were referencing was actually citing an example of someone talking about Victorian copies of 2 handers which are substantially heavier

othe examples in the article are like this one

ARMA consultant Henrik Andersson of the Livrustkammaren, Swedish Royal Armoury of Stockholm, provides a table with the following measurements on two-handed and greatswords in the collection there. The author and his colleagues have handled several of these pieces:

Two-handed sword. No: LRK 13639.
Swedish, c1658
Length: 1010 mm (39.7 inches)
Blade: 862 mm (33.9 inches)
Weight: 1735 g (3.47 pounds)
Ceremonial Two-handed sword. No: LRK 5666.
Swedish, c1658.
Length: 1025 mm (40.3 inches)
Blade: 933 mm (36.7 inches)
Weight: 1590 g (3.18 pounds)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 12959.
Solingen, Early 17th century.
Length: 1350 mm (56.2 inches)
Blade: 961 mm (37.8 inches)
Weight: 3010 g (6.2 pounds)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 16660.
German, 17th century.
Length: 1428 mm ( inches)
Blade: 1048 mm ( inches)
Weight: 2730 g (5.46 pounds)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 16662.
German, Late 16th century.
Length: 1790 mm (70.4 inches)
Blade: 1250 mm (49.2 inches)
Weight: 4630 g (9.26 pounds)
One-and -a-half-handed sword. No: LRK 10972.
Southern German, c1550.
Length: 1252 mm ( inches)
Blade: 1019 mm ( inches)
Weight: 1500 g (3 pounds)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 12947.
German, 16th century.
Length: 1185 mm (46.6 inches)
Blade: 954 mm (37.5 inches)
Weight: 1240 g (2.48 pounds)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 12667.
German, 16th century.
Length: 1225 mm (48.2 inches)
Blade: 904 mm (35.5 inches)
Weight: 1310 g (2.62 pounds)
One-and -a-half-handed sword. No: LRK 12913.
Probably German, c. 1350
Length: 1170 mm (46 inches)
Blade: 829 mm (32.6 inches)
Weight: 1280 g (2.56 pounds)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 12716.
German, c1500.
Length: 1340 mm (52.7 inches)
Blade: 955 mm (37.6 inches)
Weight: 1390 gr\ (3 lbs)
One-and -a-half-handed sword. No: LRK 12711.
German, c1475-1525.
Length: 1153 mm (45.3 inches)
Blade: 932 mm (36.6 inches)
Weight: 1320 g (2.9 lbs)
Ceremonial Two-handed sword. No: LRK 6362.
German (probably Passau) c1600.
Length: 1275 mm (50.1 inches)
Blade: 1000 mm (39.37inches)
Weight: 2330 g (5.1 lbs)
Ceremonial Two-handed sword. No: LRK 16370.
German. Late 16th century.
Length: 1422 mm (55.9 inches)
Blade 1029 mm (40.5 inches)
Weight: 2700 g (5.9 lbs)
Ceremonial Two-handed sword. No: LRK 6956.
Brunswick type. German. Late 16th century.
Length: 1893 mm (74.5 inches)
Blade: 1313 mm (51.7 inches)
Weight: 4830 gr (10.6 lbs)
Ceremonial Two-handed sword. No: LRK 6941.
Brunswick type. German. Late 16th century.
Length: 1817 mm (71.5 inches)
Blade: 1240 mm (48.8 inches)
Weight: 3970 g (8.75 lbs)
Ceremonial Two-handed sword. No: LRK 16371.
Brunswick type. Munich, c1550-1575.
Length: 1643 mm (64.7 inches)
Blade: 964 mm (37.9 inches)
Weight: 3500 g (7.7 lbs)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 12706.
German. Late 15th century.
Length: 1473 mm (58 inches)
Blade: 1066 mm (41.9 inches)
Weight: 2720 g (5.9 lbs)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 12715.
German, c1475-1525.
Length: 1382 mm (54.4 inches)
Blade: 1055 mm (41.5 inches)
Weight: 1550 g (3.4 lbs)
Two-handed sword. No: LRK 5480.
Germany, 15th century.
Length: 1375 mm (54.2 inches)
Blade: 920 mm (36.2 inches)
Weight: 1600 g (3.5 lbs)

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yes, and if you read that list you'll see very many over 5 lbs and some of them around 10 lbs.

edit: I rechecked my quotes. Not a single one of them refers to replicas.
It's still not that heavy, but they are certainly on the average, more than 3-4 lbs.

[Fellfrosch]

I can't believe how amusing it is to read this pointless conversation.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

yeah I double checked too... and your right... howeverl there are plenty of 3 lb 2 handers listed also so to say that it has to be a 7 pound sword is kind of lame too.

So this Disney Heroine... Lets call her Joan of Arc
(yeah like that'll happen) weilds a 2 handed sword it could still be light.

I guess it still doesnt answer the question of why people think its out of character for a woman to hold a sword, or why that has to be a feminist POV. While history may not be repleate with women warriors the few exceptions like the Real Mulan, Bonny Reed, Joan of Arc, and the army of Queen Boudicca of which The Roman historian Plutarch described a battle in 102 B.C. between Romans and Celts: "the fight had been no less fierce with the women than with the men themselves... the women charged with swords and axes and fell upon their opponents uttering a hideous outcry."

Romans may be our best source for the capabilities of women in combat
A Roman author, Ammianus Marcellinus, describes Gaullish wives as being even stronger than their husbands and fighting with their fists and kicks at the same time "like missiles from a catapult".
Howevr they are not our only sources...some examples of women in combat from the 16th century include


In 1568, two sisters, Amaron and Kenau Hasselaar, led a battalion of 300 women who fought on the walls and outside the gates to defend the Dutch city of Haarlem against a Spanish invasion.

Marguerite Delaye lost an arm fighting in the battle which lifted the siege of Montelimar in 1569.

In 1584 a group of Dutch and English volunteers recaptured the city of Ghent from the Spanish. One of the volunteers was Captain Mary Ambree.

Tomoe Gozen captured the city of Kyoto in Japan in 1584 after winning the Battle of Kurikawa. She was described as being a strong archer and excellent swordswoman.

While I cited a lot of 16th century examples, there are plenty of examples before and after that I could have chosen.

Women for instance made up a signifigant part of the Soviet Army of WWII and fought side by side with the men on many occasions.

[Fellfrosch]

And that, children, is the story of how Dutch Haarlem became Spanish Harlem.