Were Rapiers used in Combat?

[kisak]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Kisak, were any examples of the cuphilt (the deep cup type of 'Spanish' style) known in Sweden? There is so little material available on Swedish weapons, and just wondered.

As far as I can tell, cup-hilts never seem to have been common in Sweden (the usual problem fo proving the absence of something popping up here). There's none on display in the permanent collections at the Royal Armoury or the Army Museum (though I think it would be a safe bet that they have a few in a magazine somewhere).

There are none shown in Berg's Svenska Blankvapen, and I can't recall them being shown in Seitz' Svärdet och Värjan either, though both these publications are about military weapons. And on the utterly unscientific side of things, cup hilts doesn't seem to be very common at sword auctions and such here either.

In short, my guess would be that the cup hilt never saw any popularity of note up here. Perhaps somewhat comparable to the military cuphilt in general idea (mating a "civilian" hilt to a "military" blade) though is the "commander's sword" used by officers from the late 17th to early 19th century. While these have hilts of a shape I'd normally associate with smallsword, they come in all sizes from smallswords to large cavalry cut-n-thrust swords.