Editing Rapier (section)

== Description ==
[[File:Degen by Wendelin Boeheim.jpg|thumb]]

The word "rapier" generally refers to a relatively long-bladed sword characterized by a protective [[hilt]] which is constructed to provide protection for the hand wielding the sword. Some historical rapier samples also feature a broad blade mounted on a typical rapier hilt. The term ''rapier'' can be confusing because this hybrid weapon can be categorized as a type of broadsword. While the rapier blade might be broad enough to cut to some degree (but nowhere near that of the wider swords in use around the Middle Ages such as the [[longsword]]), it is designed to perform quick and nimble thrusting attacks. The blade might be sharpened along its entire length or sharpened only from the center to the tip (as described by [[Ridolfo Capo Ferro|Capoferro]]).<ref>{{cite web |title=La Striscia |url=https://www.scherma.roma.it/itaNEW/spade-armi-protezioni/spada-striscia.php |website=Scuola di Scherma Antica e Storica |publisher=Accademia Romana d'Armi |access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref> Pallavicini,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Evangelista |first1=Nick |title=The Encyclopedia of the Sword |date=1995 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |page=450}}</ref> a rapier master in 1670, strongly advocated using a weapon with two cutting edges. A typical example would weigh {{convert|1|kg}} and have a relatively long and slender blade of {{convert|2.5|cm|abbr=off}} or less in width, {{Cvt|104|cm}} or more in length and ending in a sharply pointed tip. The blade length of quite a few historical examples, particularly the Italian rapiers in the early 17th century, is well over {{cvt|115|cm}} and can even reach {{cvt|130|cm}}.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Wilson|first1=William|title=Rapiers|url=http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/wew/fencing/blades.html|website=Elizabethan Fencing and the Art of Defence|publisher=Northern Arizona University|access-date=May 16, 2017}}</ref>

The term ''rapier'' generally refers to a thrusting sword with a blade longer and thinner than that of the so-called side-sword but much heavier than the [[small sword]], a lighter weapon that would follow in the 18th century and later,<ref>{{cite web |title=Sword - Rapier - early 18th century |url=https://royalarmouries.org/collection/object/object-7007 |website=Royal Armouries |access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref> but the exact form of the blade and hilt often depends on who is writing and when. It can refer to earlier {{lang|it|[[spada da lato]]}} and the similar ''espada ropera'', through the high rapier period of the 17th century through the small sword and [[duel]]ling swords;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Norman |first1=Alexander Vesey Bethune |title=The Rapier and Small Sword, 1460-1820 |date=1980 |publisher=Arms and Armour Press |isbn=9780853682738 |page=27 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6xohAQAAIAAJ&q=rapier+%22small+sword%22 |access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref> thus context is important in understanding what is meant by the word. (The term side-sword, used among some modern [[Historical European martial arts|historical martial arts reconstructionists]], is a translation from the Italian {{lang|it|spada da lato}}—a term coined long after the fact by Italian museum curators—and does not refer to the slender, long rapier, but only to the early 16th-century Italian sword with a broader and shorter blade that is considered both its ancestor and contemporary.)<ref>{{cite web |title=List of Rapier Treatises for HEMA |url=https://www.historicaleuropeanmartialarts.com/path-of-the-rapier/ |website=Historical European Martial Arts Resources |access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref>