Turkey Swords - C17th England

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Triarii

Jim,
I'd forgotten that the Sandal Castle example was curved - I bought the Caldwell book for the basket hilt article too. Good spot. I think in Mazansky its a close up photo so the blade isn't obvious, though he deliberately focuses on hilts.

The Markham quote which links to the term 'scimitar' had passed me by, so thankyou for that too.

While Mazansky is a great book for basket hilt classification, it lacks salient details on many important elements that are key to the forms. As often the case, and noted by AVB Norman in his book "The Rapier and Smallsword 1400-1820" (1980) he was focused on hilts as blades were constantly from other sources and not always inherently associated with the hilt.
Mazansky's goal was to establish a classification system for this genre of sword hilts, much in the Oakeshott manner, and in accord with Norman's important reference. Interestingly Norman was working with him as he wrote the book.

Thank you as well, for the interesting question, which really helps these kinds of words in references become more meaningful in further research.