"Give me my long sword, ho!"

[Petter Brodin]

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (written in the early 1590s, set in Verona) opens with two characters entering the stage with "swords and bucklers". Later in the same scene a fight breaks out, and the patriarch of the Capulet family calls for his "long sword".

Does anyone know why Shakespeare would choose those types of weapons? What kind of swords would he have meant? I assume he wouldn't meant the same by "long sword" as we do by "longsword" today. Do we know how much he knew about swordsmanship etc.?

Any insight would be appreciated.

[Megalophias]

Long sword could mean a one-handed sword with a long blade, or it could mean a two-handed sword. I suspect the latter would be the more common meaning.

Two-handed swords were at the time still used as home defence weapons and to take on crowds of people, so that would make sense in context.

[Sean M]

Also, the head of the Capulets is portrayed as old ("and 'tis not hard, I think, for men so old as we to keep the peace"), so it would make sense for him to prefer an out-of-fashion weapon.

[Hugh]

could it also have been a way of using dialogue to make him seem a little old fashioned? (Like someone from an older generation calling a radio "the wireless")

[admin]

Most Elizabethan English sources that I have read which use the term 'long sword' are referring to a rapier or other long single-handed sword. Hence Silver's 'short sword'. Two-handed swords are usually called exactly that in English sources of that period. However, there are always exceptions, so it's hard to say absolutely.
It is evident from the works of Shakespeare that both he and his audience had some basic background knowledge about contemporary fencing terminology and perhaps some of the famous treatises and teachers of the subject (much as modern people who watch films have a basic knowledge about firearms).

[Jonathan Waller]

I would say that Shakespeare and his audience knew a sbout weapons and weapon skills. Many of the venues used as theartres were also the places were prize plays took place. There is also evidence to suggest that a couple of members of Shakespeares actors are also recorded as being memb.ers of LMoD.
There are allusions through out his works to swordmanship and different styles. Mercutios refereances to Passado etc.
Weapons can also reflect social status etc and age. In the mentioned scene the servants are armed with swords and bucklers. Benvolio and Tybalt. The young fashionable "nobles" are armed with rapiers and daggers. The "old" heads of the families, though bearing in mind the period they are probably no more than 40 or 50. Are amed with longswords and older style weapon. I would suggest that the meaning is for a sword that is a hand and half or two hander, as he makes clear mention of rapiers, sword in the same play.
It should also be noted that George Silver, held by some to be a model in some part for R&Js Mercutio, recounts a tale of an Italian master in london called out, coming to defend himself with a two hand sword. Also Meyer was first printed in 1570 and again in1600 so while the "longsword" in its various forms was "out of date" it was still in use and was one of the weapons of the LMoD.

I would hold that rapiers and daggers carried by the yound protagonists in the play reflects their fashionable nature. The longswords of the fathers their more conservative view and the swords and bucklers of the servants ther "working class" status.

Best

[admin]

Very interesting

[Hugh]

aaah... Swashbucklers....
The "Hoodies" of their era....

[Petter Brodin]

Thanks for all the interesting replies. Would the swords that are paired with bucklers be regular arming swords as seen in earlier periods, or something more modern than that?

[Sean M]

Servants in London in the 1590s would carry cheap, straight 16th century swords, instead of cheap, straight, 14th century swords. To get a clear picture of what that might mean you would really need a book ... there are all kinds of possibilities.

[admin]

As Sean said, there was a lot of variety by 1590.

Something like these would not be uncommon:







But equally so would something like this:

[Thearos]

These swords are, in a way, descended from the "cheap straight" mediaeval sword ?