[Gordon Frye]

Lloyd;

Happy to pass on the greetings! And yes, Salazar IS a great horse! I didn't ride him, but Dave did, and it was great to see that horse go through some paces. I fell in love with Sue though. Aim her in the right direction, giver her a squeeze, and it's off we go! (Lord, if only Women were like that sometimes! Jeeze, gonna get myself in trouble here! ) Of course, ALL of Clif's horses are pretty darned good examples of horse flesh, I didn't see any ringers myself. (I'm going to TRY to head down to his place in a few weeks for some horse training, we'll see what the weather does, and his schedule permits).

I appreciate you're agreement on the lance's value as a "Shock Weapon", and being otherwise useless (the heavy lance, at least: obviously the light, "spear" is a different story). And the use of the Mace certainly continued well into the 17th Century, heck, it's about the only weapon of percussion other than a war hammer that has the "oomph" to really deal with plate armour. A decent length handle on one of those, and LORD, you could really ring someone's chimes. More hits in it than with a pistol, too!

Thought: When Allan Senefelder sends you some plate armour to "play" with, PLEASE report on some mace work with it, say against a helmet? I know that a good lance at full speed will go right through cheezy plate, but not do a thing to good heavy plate; it would be nice to see what a good mace does to plate, too.

Well, as far as renaming the thread, we're sure dancing all AROUND the topic you started! What the heck, might as well keep it as is.

Great conversation though! Thanks for getting it going!

Gordon

[Bill Grandy]

I should preface this by saying I have almost no experience with mounted combat. The last time I was on a horse was when I was 8 or so, and the county fair worker was guiding it by the reins as I sat.

But the Liechtenauer tradition of fighting seems to advocate a long grip, at least of hand and a half proportions if not a longsword. There are many techniques where you and your opponent have closed to fight with swords, and you need the leverage of the hilt to perform locks and throws. Ringeck gives examples of this, such as defending against an oncoming cut, letting the sword slide off of your blade behind you and using the pommel to wrap around the neck of the opponent. You would use your off hand to grab the pommel (so that the neck is in between your hands) and pull him down from the saddle.

The illustrations in Talhoffer appear to be hand and a halfers, or at least single handers with long grips. Plate 255 is an example of using the long grip to wrap around your opponent's wrist to yank the sword away from him.

[Jeff Gentry]

Hey Lloyd

I am a practioner haven't done anything, i mean anyhting with a sword on horse back it does make sense though that a hand and a half or slightly longer hilt on a one hand would be better, i say that thinking in a historic mind set because alot of the time a horse in a melee would not be good for the rider, so a design of something that could be used mounted or dismounted would make sense there is whole lot of artwork with mounted knight's using hand and a half, they must have had a reason beside's ground fighting..

Jeff

[Lloyd Clark]

I found the Fiore pics online - it looks to me as if the swords are hand and a halfers -