Rivkin,
You are a marvelous source of information. Thanks for this interesting contribution.
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Originally Posted by Rivkin
Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. Wootz and practicality: it is interesting that Mubarak-Shah in "Kitab adab al-harb va'shudzhaat" right after saying that indian wootz swords are the best, speaks about "abnach" - indian sword made from copper and silver and according to Mubarak being one of the prized indian swords and very beautiful.
So the beauty was important..
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I think that we should remember that until the appearance of national armies, late in the renaissance, only the nobility could afford expensive and comprehensive arms and armour - And for them beauty=status. The peasant foot soldiers were often armed with nothing else than slings and sticks (siege of Belgrade) . I imagine that for some of the orientals, this state of affairs lasted longer.
In fact, it has been observed that the remarkable success of the Turks and Mongols in Eastern Europe was in no small amount due to the inability of feudal societies to field large and consistently well equiped armies.
Do you know if and when and the Ottoman Turks introduced regulation pattern weapons?
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3. Fencing with shamshirs - actually they did so, despite the lack of protection for the hand. Napoleon selected mamluks for his guard based on how horrible they hands looked, so I assume experienced fencers had many,many scars...
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Well, their wounds couldn't have been too serious as in those days they couldn't repair severed tendons and wire together broken hand bones. Incidentally, I once saw a Middle Eastern mail gauntlet that weighed, at my estimation, around 1.75Kgm, so they must have understood the need for better hand protection.
Cheers
Chris