Hungarian Hussar sabres and Esterhazy

[Victrix]

Jim,

You show another interesting example above from Konopisky and Moudry. This is the typical Hungarian ”Madonna” sabre which tended to be decorated with a string of pearls (”Perlenreihe”) along the knuckle guard. The battle flags of the hussars often had a picture of Virgin Mary and it’s not impossible that the pearl line on the sabre guard could represent the beads on a rosary. See another picture below from Ungarischer Säbel und Husaren-Pallasch (2010). I have a cruder version of this sabre without the pearl decoration. This makes me wonder if these more decorated sabres are not for parade use (”prunksäbel”). The Serbo-Croat specimen is almost comically impractical for fencing, and the sword posted by Hotspur falls in the same category. I was thinking that the knobbly guard might be useful as a knuckleduster in a melé but Hotspur’s sabre has the knobbly bits on the inside of the guard (imagine what that would do to your knuckles!).

Kind regards,

LEGIO VI VICTRIX