Mortuary swords -- myArmoury.com

Lee O'Hagan · Posted: Fri 19 Nov, 2004 11:14 am Post subject:

picked up an excellent book today ,showing 10-14 close up pics of morts and proto morts also a close up of the original cromwell sword pictured higher up,

arms and armour
of the english civil wars,

david blackmore
royal armouries,

isbn, 0-948092-08-4

William Goodwin · Posted: Fri 19 Nov, 2004 11:40 am Post subject:

Lee,

This is a brilliant book to have. I found a copy a bit back and for someone interested in Mortuary's and the ECW, it's a must have. The Royal Armouries has a new publication titled "The London Armourers of the 17th Century "by Thom Richardson.
ISBN # 0-948092-55-6. Haven't gotten it yet, hoping old St. Nick will toss one down the soot shute in a month or so.

I'm sure others will find it interesting.

cheers,
Bill

Patrick Kelly · Posted: Fri 19 Nov, 2004 3:01 pm Post subject:

Lee O'Hagan · Posted: Sat 20 Nov, 2004 4:46 am Post subject:

Hi Patrick
As Bill says excellent book,
i actually missed bill listing this higher up as i've been following the new posts, Big Grin

Patrick,
i pm'd you the book index and the back cover to peruse,
fine book printed on the nice glossy type paper,an excellent assortment of pictures,
I owe you and Nathan a thumbs up too, i picked up that rapiers by valentine last week from someone this side of the water, 2004 printing date,as you guys said, some great stuff,
Bill,
If you have any trouble tracking down the new book your after i bumped into this bookseller at a fair yesterday,
fantastic assortment of reference books from all periods,he also said he'd only brought about 5% of his stock and the chap had about three stalls of space, couple of excellent arms and armour encyclopedia's,(old)
loads of the royal armoury publications too, new ,secondhand,out of print,
predominantly military and history books,
definately worth a look,good reputation too after asking a couple of people's opinion's.

www.paulmeekins.co.uk

William Goodwin · Posted: Sat 20 Nov, 2004 5:56 pm Post subject:

Lee,

Chuffed to see the web link to the bookseller, thanks much! Quite a bit of stuff there.

Bill

Adam Lloyd · Posted: Wed 24 Nov, 2004 6:31 pm Post subject:

do you guys know of any references for mortuary hilts that are NOT British?

William Goodwin · Posted: Thu 25 Nov, 2004 5:37 am Post subject:

Adam,

To my knowledge...no. The Mortuary seems to be strictly of English design. Eljay or someone else
with a few more years of research may have a different answer. Some surviving blades bear the "Hounslow" makers mark, which brought many German smiths into Britian to make swords.

Bill

E.B. Erickson · Industry Professional

Hi Adam,
Bill got it right; the Mort is a strictly English type. When you think about it, there's quite a few hilt types that are endemic to the British Isles, and perhaps the mere fact of Britain being an island accounts for this. They were free to develop their own hilt types independent of major influence from the Continent.

--Eljay

Nathan Robinson · myArmoury Admin

Hey Adam, if you haven't done so already, check out the following article. It not only discusses Mortuary swords, but other English swords of the period and discusses how everything relates.

English Swords 1600-1650
A featured article by John F. Hayward

William Goodwin · Posted: Mon 18 Jul, 2005 6:19 pm Post subject:

Sorry for digging this thread up for the grave (hope Nathan or Patrick don't rap my fingers for doing so).

After receiving the Cyril Mazansky book "British Basket-Hilted Swords", this publication has been a big breathe of fresh air for me in my research/study of Mortuary's. For anyone interested, this is a "must have" book for any basket-hilted fan. With the whole chapter 11 on Mortuary's and the typology of them, it's kept me very pre-occupied.

And now, back to your regular program...............................

Bill

Nathan Robinson · myArmoury Admin

To be honest, I like having old topics brought back rather than new ones posted on the same subject.

Other than that, I just wanted to say I agree with you. That book is full of great info and many examples of swords not published before. So sweet.

Allen Johnson · Posted: Mon 18 Jul, 2005 9:33 pm Post subject:

I have the practical Paul Chen version and it's a blast to play with. (though I suppose the blade is a little more spadroon-ish than the historical reality). Though i enjoy playing with it every now and then I really dont know what the correct historical useage is for it? I dont know if Ive ever really seen it mentioned in any period manuals. I kind of been going with a Roworth/ McBane hybrid just cause that seemed to make some sence to me. Anyone got any better suggestions on period manuals to study for the mort?

William Goodwin · Posted: Tue 19 Jul, 2005 2:55 am Post subject:

Hey Allen,

Since the Mortuary was mainly a cavalry issue sword for the ECW, it would be hard to nail down a specific manual for it's usage/style, though it might work well in a Bolognese School (side/back sword) sort of way. Have seen Schiavona's used in such, so i'd think a Mortuary might do fine. Some of the other members who are more practitioners may be able to lend a suggestion.

Bill

Steve Grisetti

While working on a post in another thread on Medieval Fortifications, I came upon these old photos that I took at York Castle Museum. This is, IMHO, a small, but very high quality museum.

Stephen Hand · Posted: Tue 26 Jul, 2005 9:43 pm Post subject:

There are three basic styles that you might realistically use with a mortuary sword, the sword style of George Silver (1599 and c.1605), that of Joseph Swetnam (1617) and that of the anonymous Pallas Armata (1639). Silver's style is very medieval in character. Swetnam's is an early version of the English backsword style used until the mid 19th century and Pallas Armata is reminiscent of Italian spada.

The Hanwei practical mortuary sword has a ridiculously light blade and doesn't handle at all like actual mortuary swords that I've handled. I bought one and found it utterly unusable, so I onsold it to a friend who uses it to teach his 13 year old daughter.

Cheers

William Goodwin · Posted: Thu 28 Jul, 2005 5:30 am Post subject:

Roger Hooper · Posted: Thu 28 Jul, 2005 8:18 am Post subject:

For what it's worth, the Hanwei Practical Mortuary is pretty tough. I provided a couple for a production of Romeo and Juliet and they led a very hard life. There are 4 duels in the show and we had only the two swords, the actors handing them off to the next guy for the next fight. Make that 8 fights a night since they were run through before every performance - plus a lot of rehearsal time before we opened. The two swords stood up to the abuse very well, though the ferrules were quickly knocked loose. Towards the end the basket on one got somewhat loose and we had some problems with the screws, but it lasted the run of the show. The blades, ugly things that they were, held up amazingly well, hardly nicking at all.

Stephen Hand · Posted: Thu 28 Jul, 2005 4:55 pm Post subject:

Whereas the practical basket hilts that I got for my school all broke within four training sessions. I had high hopes for Hanwei, as their swords looked good, handled reasonably and were cheap, but after nine of 11 swords broke, (the last two weren't used), I've changed my mind about them. The pommels are screwed on, not peened and the screw is a bolt welded onto the end of the tang. Obviously this is a point of weakness. In addition to pommels snapping off we had four or five (I forget) blades snap, which is simply not on. Like I said, I wanted there to be a source of reasonable quality introcutory level swords, but was very badly dissappointed by Hanwei.