Polska szabla husarska - special for Radu

[Radu Transylvanicus]

This is my take on the subject:
In the 9th century or even earliear, the Magyars (ancestors of today’s Hungarians) eventually inspired by the Alans (a nomadic nations of the Sarmatian group) develop a solid model of a back curved sword with a front curved pistol hilt and cross-guard quillions. This type, with few differences, mainly in decoration is present in Caucasus (Turkoman nations) and the eastern steppes of Ukraine (Mongol-Tartaric nations) known as ,,Tcherkesso-Tartar scimitar,, and it directly influenced the later “ormianka” and “karabella” sabers, cousins of the Ottoman “kilij”. In the 13th century the Mongols were constantly raiding via steppes of Ukraine all Poland, Hungary and neighboring countries carrying ,,Tartar scimitars,, .
In very late 14th early 15th century Poland allies with Lithuania and subdues the vast Ukraine, who was also home of the Crimean ,,Golden Horde,, of Tartars and tremendous interaction in weaponry started.
Hungary, has troubles with the increasingly powerful and almighty Ottoman Empire and after the failure of the lame crusade of Nicopolis (1396) is observant via Transylvanian king John Hunyadi (Janos Hunyadi in Hungarian, Ioan de Hunedoara in Romanian) that his armament and organizing is obsolete and improper with the times and after his death in 1456 in the defending Belgrade, his son Mathias Corvinus, at first inheriting just Transylvania, then elected king of all Hungary continues and develops his father’s ideas developing a military Renaissance. The only reason for mentioning them here is not the apotheosis of my heritage but the simple fact that they are the creators of the Hussars regiments. The reformed ,,militia portalis,, of John Hunyadi evolves in the famous ,,Black Army,, of Mathias Corvinus incorporating for the first time the ,,Hussars,, light cavalry regiments, at the beginning Serbo-Croatians , then from all parts of the kingdom. They quickly started become equipped with curved sabers with blades of Turko-Tartaric fashion but mounted differently and styled differently replacing completely the medieval straight swords in a complete different manner faster than western Europe who preferred going to the way of rapiers and ,,schiavonna,, (ironically another eastern European weapon) based broad swords.
In 1576, prince of Transylvania (again no apotheosis of this land intended but this fact is confirmed by Wolviex) Stephen Bathory is elected king of Poland, a fearless combatant, he brought the ,, epee a la hongroise ,, (transl. from French: Hungarian type saber) to the rank of a symbol and it was all what the Polish ,,szlachta,, (nobility) was carrying in terms of swords; he is also cited as being the initiator (correct me if I am wrong, Wolviex !) of the legendary ,,Winged Hussars,, of Poland. It was very common to fashion sabers after the one of the king apprehendedly named after him like: ,,batorowka,, after Stephen Bathory (having classic boot like hilt), ,,zygmuntowka,, after king Sigismund (Zygmunt in Polish) or ,,janowka,, after Jan Sobieski for example (on a less serious note, I called the main saber of this thread “wolviexowka”., hehehe). A notable innovation, like Wolviex was saying was the knuckle guard, likely inspired from the more decorative ,,chain knuckle guard,, in late 16th early 17th century Poland initiates the solid metal knuckle bow (kablak glowny) and the thumb-ring (paluch) who revolutionised the art of fencing and the edged weaponry forever ! That is the beginning of the ,,epee a la Hussarde,, or Hussar style saber who was adopted quickly by all most powerful armies of Europe from Prussian, French and British and glorified by the Napoleonian wars and in the mid 18th century it ceased to be ,, Hungaro-Polish,, hence its mainstream adoption. Its key elements remained little changed until late 19th century when firearms put an absolute end to the cavalry charges and real fighting sabers were bygone declining into only parade and ceremonial pieces.
For those interested I’ll bring more to the table from types and nomenclature (Wolviex I beg your help on this one) and images to go along ...

[wolviex]

Thank you Radu for supplement to short history of sabres, now we know in synopsis how sabre appeared in Europe and in Poland. You're generally right but I would like to add some notes to fill it up.

Batory wasn't initiator of hussars in Poland in literal sense, because this formation existed in Poland since 1501 year, and it looked very similiar to the formations of Mathias Corvinus, so to Serbian light horsmen (please correct me if I'm wrong). They were even called in Poland: Racowie (in Polish - this was Hungarian name for Serbians), which praise the way of fighting with lance and shield - also very characteristic for early 16th century and later formations of hussars. What was the Batory's merit, that's significance reorganization of Polish hussars, which began to transform into a heavy cavalry. Since then, officers (rotmistrz - captain of horse) should be wearing Hungarian costume, with armour (cuirass) on the top, lance, sword, carbine at a saddle and of course feathers for splendour and fear the enemy -all of this was only arrangment. Till then every horseman with lance and shield was serving as hussar, sometimes with ridiculous armament making a fight impossible . The feathers (later wings - which use is another long story full of legends) were in use all the time after the example of Turkish deli (correct me if I'm wrong again). But it was after death of king Batory, around 1600, when real, Polish style hussars appearing, with characteristic armament developed in Poland.

And to fill up the name of the sabres: beside batorowka, zygmuntowka, janowka and wolviexowka ( o boy! I like it!) there were also Augustowka sabres (August II the elector of Saxony).

Feel free to bring tables you mentioned, if any help needed, you don't need to beg, I'm ready!

Best regards

[fernando]

bump

[Samik]

Since fernando bumped the thread and I have not posted for a very long time I'd like to chime in with something new. Although this thread is primarily on Polish weapons I do think you wont mind if I share some stuff from KOH with you. Almost a year ago I bought a splendid book by Tibor Kovács on the topic of Hungarian hussar weaponry: Huszárfegyverek a 15-17. században (Martin Opitz Kiadó, 2010).

Although written in Magyar I still highly recommend it since it covers a lot of previously unexplored areas including early sabers from 15th century. It appears that (at least within the sector of east-central Europe)the period was full of great experimentation. Besides the "classic" Turco-mongol designs one can encounter saber blades mounted on messer and schiavonesca style hilts.


Late 14th century sabre:




Messer hilts with sabre blades (mid/second half of the 15th c.) :



Schiavonesca hilts with sabre blades (mid/second half of the 15th c.) :



The only example of late XV/early XVI. Hungarian sabre I know of - so called "Gothic saber" with an acorn shaped pommel :



Duo of mid XVI c. sabres:



All of the above comes from Kovács' book. Of course there is much more in it including all the other offensive weapons as well as harness of hun. hussars. Interestingly enough I have spotted a similar depiction of a "Gothic" sabre on one of our altars back here in Bardejov, Slovakia (former KOH, IIRC early XVI. c). Note the acorn shaped pommel and a wrist loop(?):



closeup:



Cheers,
Samuel

P.S:
In case the moderators feel that I have infringed any copyrights by posting parts of the book please do modify/erase my comment if necessary.