some depictions of pirates show them completely stuffed with pistols. i wonder if they would also carry multiple blades as well? its fascinating to think you could use an eyepatch to keep one eye suited for below deck darkness, and you could have a real sight advantage in the dark
@@beepboop204 The eyepatch for dark vision is probably just a myth. But there were pirates who were missing eyes and wore patches. The most famous one is Ramah Ibn Jabir al-Jalhami, a pirate of the Persian Gulf. An eyewitness account confirms that Ramah was absolutely covered with scars from past injuries, and he really did wear an eyepatch. There are also claims that the French Golden Age pirate Levasseur wore an eyepatch after one eye went blind, but I don't think there is a primary source that confirms this.
Great video - really dig the historically centered content (I know it all is to a degree, and I do generally enjoy just about all of what you release) Another big reason for using literally smaller swords is that if you're fighting on and in ships a lot you don't want to have a huge sword that will constantly be getting stuck on things that you're fighting in and around. And so when it comes to fighting in tight quarters period, the advantage will often go to the individual who can better maneuver/fight with their weapons wherever they find themselves - on/in a ship, in the tight quarters of back alleys on land or even inside buildings.
Two pirate captains, who served with each other when younger, meet in port one day. 1st pirate says, "last I saw you, you had both hands," pointing to the other's hook. 2nd pirate answers, " aye. I was in a fight with a Dutch merchantman and when dueling with the captain he cut me hand off. What about you? Last time I saw you, you had both legs," pointing at the other's peg leg. "Oh, aye," says the 1st pirate, "we was running down a Spanish galleon in the Caribbean and they let loose a broadside and one of the cannon balls took off me leg. What about you? Last time I saw you, you had both eyes," pointing out the other's patch. "Aye," says the 2nd pirate, "we was just leaving port and I looked up and a gull shat in me eye, it was only a few days after I got me hook..."
So “Sid Meier’s: Pirates!” wasn’t too far off in offering our character the choice of a shorter cutlass, a medium-length broadsword, or a longer rapier. Seems like Sid’s research was on target. Shiver me timbers! I’ve got the urge to go a-plunderin’. (In-game only, of course.) :)
Hi Matt & readers, A couple of points that are overlooked about Caribbean piracy: 1. Ship's surgeon was a highly paid and prestigious profession aboard the pirate ships that could find them. 2. Pirate ships were run, in the greater part, as strict and functional democracies, with rigorous rules. 3. A band of Spanish or Portuguese pirates, in one instance, after being caught were sent to a deserted island as a stop-gap measure. The island being inhabited only by feral pigs. Survival entailed the skinning and eating of these pigs. Many of these pirates escaped the island. Thus a common name for a subset group of pirates was the Spanish/Portuguese(?) word for "Pig-Skinner's" ie. Buccaneers (emphasis on the 'a', both 'e's pronounced).
Here in the USA, the most prevalent image of the "pirate cutlass" in the popular imagination is certainly the 1833-pattern French naval cutlass. I suspect this is partly due to the US Navy's adoption of a similar design from 1860 through the early 20th century. Even more important, though, were Andrew Wyeth's wonderful illustrations for Treasure Island, published in 1911. Wyeth's pirates are romantic, fascinating and wholly anachronistic in their swords; they also were a huge influence on the popular visual vocabulary of the Golden Age of Piracy. The influence of these illustrations is visible in films like Disney's Treasure Island, and the design of the original Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland.
Yes, although the Walloon swords that lead to the name (i.e. the type shown at 11:05) are actually commonly associated with the Amsterdam city guard in particular (lots of these swords have the Amsterdam tripple-x insignia stamped into them) and the Netherlands as a whole. They were captured in large quantities by the French in Wallonia in the late 1600s. They apparently quite liked them and turned them into their first standard model (also because they were one of the first swords to be standardized in construction and thus easy and cheap to produce in large numbers). I managed to get one of those last year and it is one of the swords I most commonly pick up off the wall to wave around. It love both the feel and look of it. Although, being Dutch, I guess I'm biased.
It's important to distinguish between the earlier buccaneers and the later 'pirates' or privateers. Buccaneers like Henry Morgan fought more on land, raiding Spanish settlements, while the later privateers attacked Spanish shipping. The later stage of piracy was predominately outright sea-borne criminal gangs. I suspect these men used different weapons at different times for various purposes. Of course, if you only had a cutlass, that's what you used. But one imagines these chaps used the best weapon for the purpose at hand.
@@davidp6913 Club won't kill in an instant unless you get a direct blow to the head/temple. Unarmored Combat always favors the sharp and pointy weaponry because its so much easier to cause serious injury with them, and to defend yourself with them as they are balanced towards the hilt more than clubs are.
I am gland you made this point. Also buccaneers as the agents of states could at least participate in the economy of their supporting nation rather than needing to rely on plunder, places outside the law and corruption. The Barbary Corsairs were also Buccaneers rather than pirates and were back by the cities and states of the southern Mediterranean rather than freelance mutineers who "wage war against the world."
@@mysticonthehill Just a little minor clarification about pirate terms: 1. The word buccaneer initially referred to European hunters in the Caribbean who made a living by trading meat with passing ships. After they started attacking ships the term evolved to refer to a pirate of the Caribbean. It' definitely a more neutral term than "pirate," though. Henry Morgan actually sued an author who referred to him as a pirate, saying he preferred the term buccaneer. 2. Privateers are people who are sanctioned by a government to attack and rob enemy ships. It's like having a pirate's license. While privateers were seen by heroes by their sponsor, to their victims their was no difference between them and a pirate, and the majority of privateers overstepped their letters of marque at some point (either by attacking a ship of a nation not listed as an enemy, carrying out land attacks not included in their letter of marque, slaving, or indulging in torture) while many pirates spent at least some time privateering, so the terms are not mutually exclusive. 3. The word corsair originally applied to French privateers operating in the Mediterranean, but it quickly came to refer to any pirate of the Mediterranean, especially the infamous Barbary Corsairs. 4. A mutineer is someone who commits mutiny (revolting against authority on a ship or a military organization). Mutiny and piracy are not the same thing, but there was a good deal of overlap, as many mutineers would turn to a life of piracy after overthrowing their captain and seizing control of their ship. Henry Every was a particularly successful pirate who obtained his ship by staging a mutiny.
The shipwreck of the Whydah is the actual pirate ship of Samuel Bellamy sunk in 1717. Unfortunately, the swords have all rusted away, but the hilts are still there. I don't know if maybe we could guess what the swords were from the hilts.
I've posted this quote under a Schola Gladiatoria video before, but I'll do it again both because I think it both illustrates some broader historical context to the question of pirate swords, and because it's just plain awesome. Here's what the great pirate captain Henry Morgan said when asked directly what the best pirate weapon was: "The president of Panama was astounded that 400 men could have conquered such strong fortresses, whose defenders had not lacked courage, with nothing but small-arms. He sent a messenger to Morgan, asking that he might be allowed to see the weapon which had given him such power. Morgan received the president's envoy with great civility and gave him a French musket with a barrel four and half feet long, firing a one ounce bullet; he also sent a cartouche which he'd had expressly made in France, containing thirty cartridges full of powder. He charged the messenger to tell his master that Morgan presented him with this musket, and that within a year or two he would come to Panama to fetch it back again." (From 'The Buccaneers of America' by Alexander Exquemelin) Exquemelin sailed with Morgan and was present at most of the events he described, so he knew what he was talking about. Apart from the sheer bad-assery of Morgan's promise to come back and get his musket in a year's time, the thing I like about the quote is that it shows the context Morgan was operating in. The 'Golden Age' of piracy was all well within the age of gunpowder warfare, and although everybody loves to think of swashbuckling pirates crossing blades, guns were the primary weapons of the era and swords were very much a back-up for when ammunition ran low, or the fighting became too close to allow time to reload. Morgan prized long-barreled muskets (for accuracy and power) and bandoliers of paper cartridges (for fast reloads and rapid fire), and liked to recruit from local hunters who were skilled shots. he knew that firepower was key, and he definitely got results- he was possibly the most successful pirate captain of the age. Many pirates wouldn't have had a sword at all. Long muskets could have been fitted with bayonets, and even today in the Caribbean the word 'cutlass' is used to refer to machetes/ cane knives- these tools were widely available and would have made decent weapons, especially for the pirate rank-and-file who may not have known how to fence and would probably only have fought hand-to-hand as a last resort.
The sword was used more as a tool than a weapon, especially at the end of the era. I have a 1700s boarding sword and with it came a note to say they were stored on board and not carried on a hip. I found that interesting like they were kept in certain places for emergency use.
Excellent comment! The buccaneer groups originated from hunters after all. One thing I might add that we should look deeper in the tactics (and the culture) of the various groups. My guess is that we might find some surprises there- and that there may be very well an influence in later forms of warfare.
This video could not have come at a better time for me. Since I've been recently looking for information not specifically on this topic, but on this era. I was trying to find information on how cavalry would have been equipped in the war of Spanish succession. And this video has given me a really good jumping off point for the era
Matt, another really great video. Thank you. I had two thoughts: 1) Since so much of the Golden Age piracy took place in and around the Caribbean; and since the primary crop of the Caribbean was sugar cane; and since sugar cane was harvested with machetes, so those were no doubt cheap and plentiful; and since a short cutting sword worked well against unarmored opponents aboard ship; and since pirate crews likely did not have a lot of fencing training; and since most anyone can slash away with a machete - I wonder if they were not a common pirate crew weapon as well? 2) Please don’t ever go to north west Belgium and proclaim that the Flemish speak French! Walloons speak French! In Flanders they speak a dialect of Dutch. 😁 Sincerely, Eric van Vlaanderen (The original spelling before great granddad went through Ellis Island.)
Offensively a machete is great. Defensively a machete is pretty bad. So as soon as your opponent is armed with anything longer and or sturdier than your machete you are screwed...
1) I own three machetes one of which has a 26” blade. They come in many sizes. For cutting sugar cane they are long so you don’t have to bend as far. 2) a long machete is equal in length to many hanger swords, which is a type common on ships as Matt told us. 3) The reasoning of the longer weapon has an advantage is unassailable. But you can’t have an arms race of ever increasing length. At some point there is the “right length” for your situation. I suspect in the tangled close quarters of shipboard fighting a long machete would have worked well. 4) Would a machete have been ideal? Perhaps not. But they were likely cheap and plentiful in the Caribbean. To paraphrase that idiot Rumsfeld (on the 30th anniversary no less) “sometimes you go pirating with the sword you have, not the sword you may want.”
@@ericvanvlandren8987 My point is, what makes a machete or a cane knife good at harvesting cane makes it bad for parrying, namely it's very thin (+/- 1mm) and usually comparatively short (26'' is already rather long, the common short swords of the era start at that length and go up to 36'' while still being considered "short") blade paired with the absolute lack of anything resembling a guard whatsoever. Would you use it if you have absolutely nothing else? Yes. Would you ditch it as soon as you get your hands on something that's not a farming implement? Yes.
As an interesting followup you should do some of the more interesting combinations that One could run into and and reasons why some unexpected swords might have performed better than one might expect.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have been trying to make the argument that you make in this video for a couple years now to some of my fellow amatuer historians. Personally, I feel that the Mortuary Hilt sword would have seen a lot of use than it's formerly been given credit for, due to the popularity of it starting in the English Civil War, they'd have still been all over the place because so many were made. But I also feel that it's not just swords that we need to look at... Anything that would have been being shipped to the colonies would have been subject to being commandeered by pirates. So I think Hollywood might have unintentionally misshapen our ideas of not just swords, but possibly whole entire "kit", to include clothing, boots/shoes, and anything else imaginable that would have been wanted by land owners in the Colonies. Cheers for the video! Keep up the great work, pal. 🏴☠️
Around 11:00 : I don't know about the 17th century, but nowadays the term 'Walloon' would apply specifically to the *French* -speaking population of Belgium, and not the Flemish (Dutch) speakers. It is essentially a Dutch term for non-Dutch people, just as 'Welsh' was originally an Anglo-Saxon term for foreigners, who happened to be mainly Celtic Britons. There are cognate terms in other Germanic languages.
Great video, I love the in-depth explanations of it all. If there's one thing I understand about weapons it's how difficult they are to classify, but you did a great job with that. I see lots of people commenting about knives and guns, but this is a video about swords and a great one at that. Thank you for the information friend.
Let's also not forget axes and knives. Because even for a pirate, the daily business was far more connected to sailing, not fighting. Swordsmanship requires practice, which you usually don't get too much of on a ship. But the tools you use every day are something, you know to use very well. Another reason, why rather broad blades were more popular (despite the absense of mentionable armor) was, that they could be used to cut ropes. Entering a ship that is still maneuverable, can still massively increase the risk of failure, so that was part of the very useful versatility. The more limited the space, the more important are a rather short reach - and multifunctionality.
literally not what the video is about, from the title. im sick of this virtue signalling about how "swords were a back-up weapon", "lots of axes" all this not-even-wrong stuff.
Although Matt has mentioned in some of his other videos using axes was not all that common for sailors as weapons other than breeching tools i suppose. The boarding axe for example was mainly used as tool. Its kinda moot point they wouldnt be good fencers because for even unskilled person something like cutlass is simply better weapon than axe outside something like armored combat. Thats also why short choppy blades are quite popular through history for common people even outside ships because its very intuitive to hack, and slash with something thats essentually machete with hand protection. Axe just is not really easier to use in fight as short sword, but it has lot of drawbacks if you have access to swords
Captain Hook in Hook actually has interesting taste , he carries a mortuary sword as his regular sidearm but switches to a smallsword for the duel with pan. In the 2003 remake Pan he has a Spanish rapier... Historically as well after the Jacobite 1715 rising some Scots fled to the colonies and long basket hilts may have been briefly more common at the end of the "golden age".
According to legend, Blackbeard was mortally wounded by a blow from a Scottish broadsword. The show Black Sails turns this around by having Teach use a basket hilt sword himself!
Seriously Matt? Here I am at lunch scrolling through TH-cam and up pops this vid. And I gotta get back to work in 5 mins. Now I gotta wait until after work to watch this. You’re killing me here!!! Lol
We know that some pirates and privateers went back and forth between the Atlantic and Indian oceans/ South China seas/Indonesia, so there's a lot of cultural influence that could pass between the many peoples. We also know that ships often had multicultural crewmen, who would bring their own twist. Even Robin of Sherwood had a Saracen pal with a couple of swords on his back, and that was hundreds of years earlier... I'll get me coat.
I think in Black Sails in the Teach vs Flint fight, Teach uses a basket hilted broad or back sword. Really great fight scene and pretty accurate i thought. If anyone else thinks so or doesn't agree?
Totally agree! I think there are many interesting duel scenes in that series, like Flint vs his first mate at the beginning, the duel with Blackbeard that you mentioned, and to some degree also the duel that Jack Rackham had with the Captain of the Goliath, which started off rather unceremoniously.
if I'm not mistaken, Matt actually did a fight review of the fight at the end of episode one a number of years back and quite liked how naturalistic it was.
Fascinating. Thank for for going over what sorts of swords could have been used by pirates in the Atlantic and Caribbean during the golden age of piracy. Kind of reminds me of how many different weapons, and the practitioners of them were walking the earth in the middle to late 1800's.
The China sea piracy is quite a topic on its own, between the Dutch, the Japanese, Mozambicans crews trained to use guns by the Portuguese and so on, quite a thing. One thing though, I'm not sure The Walloons would appreciate the idea of being mistaken for Flemish people!
When I saw some the antler hilted cutlasses shown here, I had to think, in Germany, they would probably be regarded as a "Jagdschwert", meaning "hunting sword".
9:15 I remember reading that pirate crews of the early 18th Century tended to be pretty egalitarian, so there wouldn’t have been that much distinction between “officers” and “men” in most pirate crews
They very much maintained those hierarchies and had both captains and officers with specific duties and rank over men. There was a very big difference however, and that is that said officers and captains were elected by the crew as a whole through popular vote and could also be removed the same way (although removing someone from "office" was more often than not a bloody affair). Another big difference is that the officer held authority only in battle, they also had overseer authority in orgazinational matters but they did not had decision making authority. All bigger decisions outside of combat, like where to head next and punishment for those that break the rules had to be done by popular vote.
I am not even slightly acting like an authority on this subject, but this gives me major modern-people-projecting-their-ideals-onto-history vibes tbh. Tbf I do know that this subject has been borderline psychotically romanticised and infused with huge amounts of bs, so it's not like I don't have reason to be suspicious lol
@@tommeakin1732 Well, guys n vessels, especially out in the middle of the ocean have more options. Their out in the middle of unknown, the officers have less to back up their legitmacy and the crew have more ways to deal with officers they don't like without repercussions. Officer pisses you off enough, shove up over board, the ocean takes care of them, remove your flag, make up a story at the nearest port.
Matt, I'm so glad you included the Bilbao. That is a sword about which I'm very curious and I was actually getting ready to post a question about whether they were common and how you would classify them.
I saw a late 16th century European painting depicting Keris, Tulwar, Kilij, and a few others and it had me baffled. I never expected them this early and with that much details, when they still couldn't even draw a lion (though, they did get parrots correctly).
@@colbunkmust Yet, even ancient Romans imported them and later some nobility kept them as well. One Austrian kept various big cats at his castle and they survived many winters in the moat, but one particularly harsh winter ended his mini-zoo...
I was recently getting annoyed with the lack of some of the styles of cutlasses and wanted something different for my newer impression I'm presently building and settled for a half basket back sword. It's different than what many of my fellow pirate reenactors carry and was common enough in the area that they should be in use. I'd argue a 7th group- modified or locally made blades which hop categories. For instance, a cut down saber which a few surviving cutlasses seem to be. Also allegedly, I have heard it referenced in one documentary that a Katana was found in Port Royal. If you have any confirmation on this it would be awesome. I heard it as an off hand comment with no further information and it has annoyed me ever since.
It would be astounding if a katana showed up in Port Royal during the golden age of piracy. During that time period Japan had almost completely isolated itself from the rest of the world.
It seems as though Hollywood has specific ideas about what a pirate should have on his hip, much like the way they think a pirate should act. As you so beautifully pointed out in this video and others, Hollywood's arming of actors is wrong much more often than it is right. Great video Matt!
Before the video starts... They used whatever they could get their hands on. Which would mostly be cutlasses taken from other ships. Now, on with the show!
Simple answer...any they could get their grubby or non-grubby hands on? but a sabre or sword that was a chopper and thruster as well. Something that might be good for cutting trees and such as well for landing parties. Personally, I would have a good multi-role cutter and a small, but sturdy combat blade.
Thank you for posting. Now I know what to equip my crews. I am working hard saving money to buy me a ship and become a Pirates captain. At this rate of saving I would achieve my dream at around 90 years old
In the dust and cobweb covered parts of my brain the dutch word "kortelas" popped up, a early name very much associated with long 2 sided daggers and 2 sided short swords mainly used in the east india sailing trades from around the golden age of piracy and the dutch golden century. Great for fighting but also as a tool, a great rope cutting tool when entering a spanish silver and gold ships in the carribean for instance to disable their sailpower and cause chaos on deck. Kortelas , cutlass and cuttleaxe sound so much alike that the source is obvious, later the renowned klewang was used by the merchant and naval marine and expeditiary forces after ww2 as standard tool, for fighting, in the jungle to cut a path.
Some years ago I told you of a seaman who claimed to have used "Rapiers" when attacking Blackbeard's ship Adventure under Lt Maynard. He claimed the rapiers helped greatly in the between decks fighting. Obviously he was only using the term for a point centric thrusting sword and not a pure rapier. At the time you strongly disagreed. Have you had a change of mind since then?
Talks about swords used by pirates. Spends 15 min showing choppy/Stabby things that all look identical to my neophyte vision. Explains differences and context. 😎👍
If I wanted to purchase a reproduction of a hanger which sword company should I choose for a lower end cost wise yet serviceable sword. I don't want to spend a great deal on a sword that I might not like. I've always used a beast of a talwar whose blade is nearly a meter in length. This is measuring straight from hilt to point not accounting for the curve. I'm disabled now and can no longer use my beast, so I am looking for a smaller replacement. I've always loved the look of the hanger and figure it is similar enough to the talwar that this old dog won't have to learn many new tricks.
The Indian ocean was a hotbed of piracy too. Many Atlantic based pirates often took refuge there while the heat was on and their must have been contact between the various groups.
Hey I was wondering if anybody has put out any videos about Fiore dei Liberi’s pollaxe filled with powder? I just noticed it on wiktenauer and it seemed pretty insane
Since you are talking about pirates, any weapon that existed by then and anything that existed within 100 years prior could have been used. If you are going to narrow it down to pirates in the Caribbean and Atlantic, then Western European swords would definitely have been the most common. But with all the trade going on in the world at that time, anything is possible. As long as it wasn't intended afterward if you are writing a book or movie with pirates you can justify a vast amount of things that were not common but could be existed.
I imagine that having an exotic sword might boost your status with other pirates a bit, just showing that you got a hold of it somehow. Maybe they want to go where you acquired it and do pirating over there
The overall dates are usually given as being c.1650-1730, but the Golden Age of Piracy had several phases to it, and it focuses mainly on western pirates. 1650s-1680s: The "Buccaneering Period." The first buccaneers were European hunters who hunted wild pigs and cattle in the caribbean and sold the meat to passing ships. They soon learned that they could make more money by preying on Spanish ships, and they became pirates. Piracy in the Caribbean exploded in the 1650s due to Spain having huge amounts of treasure and constantly being at war. Enemies of Spain could give licenses known as "letters of Marque" authorizing men to attack and rob enemy ships. Men who did this were known as privateers, though from their victims' point of view there's no difference between them and a pirate. Port Royal Jamaica was an infamous headquarters for piracy. Pirates would come to Port Royal to spend their ill-gotten gains. Corrupt governors would hand out letters or marque to sanction their actions, and the town was full of brothels and bars. Port Royal was known as the wickedest city on Earth, but by the 1680s Port Royal was trying to clean up its act and years of preying on the Spanish meant there was less treasure to go around. Port Royal was finally destroyed by an earthquake in 1692. Pirates from this period included Henry Morgan, Francois L'Ollonois, Roc Brasiliano, Bartholomew Portuges, and many others. 1690s-early 1700s. "The Pirate Round." With the treasure of the Caribbean being exhausted, pirates looked elsewhere for opportunities. Thomas Tew developed a new plan known as the pirate round in which he sailed from the American Colonies (Tew was from Rhode Island) around the south of Africa past Madagascar and up to the Red Sea where he could attack the treasure ships of the Mughal empire. Tew's first voyage was a huge success and other pirates followed suit. The Mughal Empire was not at war with the British, so despite having a letter of marque it was piracy to attack them, but for the most part, people in the colonies didn't care. New York and Boston were the new home ports where the pirates would return to spend their money. But when Henry Every robbed the Ganj I Sawai, a ship that belonged to the Mughal Emperor himself, the Emperor was so angry he nearly had all Englishmen expelled from India. The East India company was on the brink of losing their ability to trade unless something was done about the pirates, so the law tried to crack down. It took a long time before this had any real impact though. The hanging of William Kidd was the point when pirates of the Pirate Round could no longer expect to get away with their crimes. 1701-1715: The War of Spanish Succession: With Spain once again at war, there were numerous privateering opportunities again. When the war finally ended, thousands of privateers were suddenly out of work. If they carried on with business, they would be pirates again. 1715-24 "True pirates." In 1715, the Spanish silver fleet was shipwrecked on the coast of Florida, causing the pirate equivalent of a gold rush. Adventurers rushed to the area to grab what treasure they could, and soon they were attacking all sorts of ships in the Caribbean and Atlantic. Unlike before, there was no privateering being done, so these pirates were enemies of all nations, and would not refrain from attacking ships of their own origin. The new pirate headquarters was Nassau, in the Bahamas. The pirates ruled the island of New Providence as their own republic. In 1717, The British Empire offered a mass pardon to all pirates who would surrender and give up piracy. This dramatically turned the tide in the battle against piracy. Nassau was lost to the remaining pirates when Woodes Rogers became the new governor. From 1718 on, pirates were gradually being worn down. Famous pirates like Blackbeard were killed, and Stede Bonnet, Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, and many others were hanged. Some pirates tried leaving the Caribbean and Atlantic and sailing the Pirate Round again or the Indian Ocean, but by now the navies were much more diligent at stamping out piracy. By 1724, Captain Charles Johnson wrote his famous book on pirates, and by then there were very few remaining. The next few years gradually had the remaining western pirates either retire or die. While piracy would never go away entirely, the golden age was over.
There's a great song about Irish indentured servants being taken off by Algerian pirates, called "Heart in Hand", by John Doyle. The version by Usher's Island (John Doyle and other Irish icons) is great.
I wonder if any early mediaeval arming type swords were ever used? The gentleman adventurer fallen on hard times, brandishing the family broadsword?? 😀 I'm team Cutlass all the way, nasty buggers. Great vid Matt, a fascinating period that I've not studied at all.....although I did win a 3 legged race at my primary school 1977 jubilee day which gained me the Ladybird book of pirates as 1st prize, which counts a bit. Keep up the good work, really good content sir.
....... hard to tell, blades were rehilted allot. Peen blocks make this allot easier so changing hilts out to fit and change in fighting makes sense. There could be a sword with a late medieval blade fitted to much later hilt.
You get three choices of sword: 1. Rapier has the fastest attack, but the slowest defense. A good choice for an adventurer. 2. Longsword is medium all around. The automatic choice of an apprentice pirate. 3. Cutlass has the slowest attack but the fastest defense. The best choice for the most experienced swashbuckler. Can anybody guess what I'm referencing? 🙂
The topic brings an interesting question to mind, how many sword type may have been carried over from a different era? For example, maybe there were some swords passed from generation to generation, so a 16th century Rapier may have been used in the late 17th century, or if there was a poorer sailor looking for a sword and bought one second hand? Swords the are like cars now, there are may prices ranges depending on your economic status, and some cars may be passed down or resold. Food for thought.
What about the Schiavona? Given the Republic of Venice's naval strength, I would have assumed a basket hilted weapon like the Schiavona to be very common in pirate crews, but maybe not in the Caribbean but rather in the Mediterranean?
Would it have been easier to repurpose (shorten/re-hilt) damaged 'land army' blades to be fit for purpose on a ship, instead of making hangers straight off the bat? Were hangers ever intended for indoor use, we already know they were employed by hunters/gameskeepers in conjunction with boar spears etc in tight wooded areas. It goes without saying that grunts would be sent below to clear out the rabble before 'officers' went below.
Really we shouldn't be surprised about this should we? 'What swords did pirates carry?'--the swords that were popular at that time! A lot of what you were showing would look quite at home with a civil war re-enactor as well, which is an interesting thought. Peeps--who always avoided every fight he could run away from!--talks about his swords in passing, especially the 'silver hilted' one of which he is especially proud. I imagine it would have been among the simpler swept-hilt types you showed. When it comes to Holland, the VOC were obviously heavily focussed on Indonesian trade at that time, so doubtless some of the rather obscure--and indeed almost 'fantasy sword' type--weapons from the furthest of far-east countries would have found their way into pirate hands. It is quite interesting that the divide between shorter weapons carried on board ship and longer weapons carried on land continued into the time of gunpowder firearms. It can be seen most clearly in the distinction between 'army' and 'navy' calibres in the second half of 19th century America. The Colt SAA in .45 and Colt 1851 in .38 are two clear examples.
You can't carry cutlasses, cos cutlasses can cut, The skipper keeps 'em locked up down below, With a dirk or a dagger you can saunter with a swagger, But a three foot sword is not the way to go, It'll get between your ankles as you walk along the street, If you bow to some fine lady it'll trip you off your feet, You'll be glared at very darkly by the troopers that you meet, And the gaols are very hard in Callao, So bucko, take my tip, leave your cutlass on the ship, There's nothing that needs choppin' when you're in Jamaica shoppin" John Warner, Australia
So what's that weird and wonderful thing dangling on your shoulder the whole time? I knew from the get-go that the final category would be "...and everything else from everywhere", but that thing you have seems to have a yelmen, a SE Asian or Indian blade shape (maybe more SE Asian with the length and slenderness), double fullers right up near the spine giving an almost pipeback profile, something like a cho, a very napoleonic handguard and a swollen (surely hollow) pommel that I only glimpsed in the video, but looked familiar. Is it spiked too, like the tang wasn't peened but extended and decorated? I couldn't quite catch it.
Your mention of the yatagan reminds me of a question I have had. A couple years ago you and your wife did a big unboxing video and she rather drooled over a yatagan. Did she end up keeping it? Did she work with it as a weapon? How does she feel about it now? Perhaps it needs not be said but I was drooling over it also
It makes sense, you don't wear armour and you don't carry any form of shield so you want something with lots of handprotection, but you fight in enclosed spaces so you go for shorter blades, also you spend your time among people with a loose attitude to property so you want to make your sword as wearable as possible. Add to that a penchant for flashy fashion, the fact that you don't need to buy your sword and that you make port in many a distant land where you can marry what you have to neat "foreign" bits and we end up with what must have been beautiful and intruiging weapons.
@scholagladiatoria Medieval swords changed a lot in form over time, and as armour changed, they evolved into the sabre and rapier/smallsword forms. Looking east, chinese swords don't seem to have gone through the same evolution. The form of the Jian has hardly altered in hundreds of years. Why?
Did naval officers ever adopt any of the “scimitar” family of swords such as the Shamshir or Talwar? I know they become popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as infantry officers swords, and are used in various other military capacities such as the famous US Marine’s Mameluke saber. You are stating that they also could have become popular much earlier, possibly even within the maritime community. So, did the swords ever become “fashionable” or are there any period examples ever of them being adopted by Western naval officers? Thanks Matt, keep up the great content!!!
Oh great, now he's done it! Someone's going to make a pirate-film now with the entire crew armed with katanas because Matt said that they could be historically correct! Thanx alot Matt 😂
Again, I am told that rapiers would probably not be good for naval combat because the long blades could get stuck in the rigging. I don’t see a lot of the swords you’re talking about available online, much less any mention of them being used in the pirate records.
When I was in the Navy, way back in the early eighties 🤣 I was carrying a Buck 110 and a very nice steel marlin spike. I was a Bos-un mate of course. Most of the ships company did not Cary knives, that I know of.🗡️🗡️👍👍⚓⚓🇺🇲🇺🇲
Got a repro French naval sabre. Well made but it is not my fav, seems rather short heavy and unweildy. Pokey on the tip but the right edge for spreading butter on your toast. Which actually would be an impressive gesture.
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some depictions of pirates show them completely stuffed with pistols. i wonder if they would also carry multiple blades as well? its fascinating to think you could use an eyepatch to keep one eye suited for below deck darkness, and you could have a real sight advantage in the dark
@@beepboop204 I have heard the Pirates of the golden age preferd shooting in general !
I have heard that in the netherlands bauerwehren was long time used !
But bauerwehren were more of a knife then a sword !
@@beepboop204 The eyepatch for dark vision is probably just a myth. But there were pirates who were missing eyes and wore patches. The most famous one is Ramah Ibn Jabir al-Jalhami, a pirate of the Persian Gulf. An eyewitness account confirms that Ramah was absolutely covered with scars from past injuries, and he really did wear an eyepatch.
There are also claims that the French Golden Age pirate Levasseur wore an eyepatch after one eye went blind, but I don't think there is a primary source that confirms this.
Great video - really dig the historically centered content (I know it all is to a degree, and I do generally enjoy just about all of what you release) Another big reason for using literally smaller swords is that if you're fighting on and in ships a lot you don't want to have a huge sword that will constantly be getting stuck on things that you're fighting in and around. And so when it comes to fighting in tight quarters period, the advantage will often go to the individual who can better maneuver/fight with their weapons wherever they find themselves - on/in a ship, in the tight quarters of back alleys on land or even inside buildings.
Two pirate captains, who served with each other when younger, meet in port one day.
1st pirate says, "last I saw you, you had both hands," pointing to the other's hook.
2nd pirate answers, " aye. I was in a fight with a Dutch merchantman and when dueling with the captain he cut me hand off. What about you? Last time I saw you, you had both legs," pointing at the other's peg leg.
"Oh, aye," says the 1st pirate, "we was running down a Spanish galleon in the Caribbean and they let loose a broadside and one of the cannon balls took off me leg. What about you? Last time I saw you, you had both eyes," pointing out the other's patch.
"Aye," says the 2nd pirate, "we was just leaving port and I looked up and a gull shat in me eye, it was only a few days after I got me hook..."
"Last time I saw you, you had an eye."
"Aye."
"Aye, eye."
I heard that for one-legged pirates, wooden legs were poplar.
@@wolfinndnclothing yes, many pirates were pining for one.
Really spruces up the look
There was one fir everyone.
So “Sid Meier’s: Pirates!” wasn’t too far off in offering our character the choice of a shorter cutlass, a medium-length broadsword, or a longer rapier. Seems like Sid’s research was on target.
Shiver me timbers! I’ve got the urge to go a-plunderin’. (In-game only, of course.) :)
A good game dev always does their research... and I might have just shared this vid with my team ;)
"Arrgh!" 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
"Arrr, Matey!" 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
"15 men,🚹 and a dead,☠️ man's👨 chest!"🌰 "Yo ho ho, and a bottle,🍾 of rum!"🥃 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
"You are a pirate!" 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
Hi Matt & readers,
A couple of points that are overlooked about Caribbean piracy:
1. Ship's surgeon was a highly paid and prestigious profession aboard the pirate ships that could find them.
2. Pirate ships were run, in the greater part, as strict and functional democracies, with rigorous rules.
3. A band of Spanish or Portuguese pirates, in one instance, after being caught were sent to a deserted island as a stop-gap measure. The island being inhabited only by feral pigs. Survival entailed the skinning and eating of these pigs. Many of these pirates escaped the island. Thus a common name for a subset group of pirates was the Spanish/Portuguese(?) word for "Pig-Skinner's" ie. Buccaneers (emphasis on the 'a', both 'e's pronounced).
Here in the USA, the most prevalent image of the "pirate cutlass" in the popular imagination is certainly the 1833-pattern French naval cutlass. I suspect this is partly due to the US Navy's adoption of a similar design from 1860 through the early 20th century.
Even more important, though, were Andrew Wyeth's wonderful illustrations for Treasure Island, published in 1911. Wyeth's pirates are romantic, fascinating and wholly anachronistic in their swords; they also were a huge influence on the popular visual vocabulary of the Golden Age of Piracy. The influence of these illustrations is visible in films like Disney's Treasure Island, and the design of the original Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland.
I think you mean N. C. Wyeth. He did make the terrific paintings you mention. He was Andrew Wyeth's father.
@@brucetehan7480 you're correct, thanks for clarifying that!
A slight correction. Wallonie (whose inhabitants are known as Walloons) is actually the southern, French speaking, part of Belgium
Yes, although the Walloon swords that lead to the name (i.e. the type shown at 11:05) are actually commonly associated with the Amsterdam city guard in particular (lots of these swords have the Amsterdam tripple-x insignia stamped into them) and the Netherlands as a whole. They were captured in large quantities by the French in Wallonia in the late 1600s. They apparently quite liked them and turned them into their first standard model (also because they were one of the first swords to be standardized in construction and thus easy and cheap to produce in large numbers).
I managed to get one of those last year and it is one of the swords I most commonly pick up off the wall to wave around. It love both the feel and look of it. Although, being Dutch, I guess I'm biased.
It's important to distinguish between the earlier buccaneers and the later 'pirates' or privateers. Buccaneers like Henry Morgan fought more on land, raiding Spanish settlements, while the later privateers attacked Spanish shipping. The later stage of piracy was predominately outright sea-borne criminal gangs. I suspect these men used different weapons at different times for various purposes. Of course, if you only had a cutlass, that's what you used. But one imagines these chaps used the best weapon for the purpose at hand.
Id rather use a nice tipped club vs a dinky cutlass in ship battle lmao
@@davidp6913 the cutlass is more nimble and thrust-able on a crowded deck.
@@davidp6913 Club won't kill in an instant unless you get a direct blow to the head/temple. Unarmored Combat always favors the sharp and pointy weaponry because its so much easier to cause serious injury with them, and to defend yourself with them as they are balanced towards the hilt more than clubs are.
I am gland you made this point. Also buccaneers as the agents of states could at least participate in the economy of their supporting nation rather than needing to rely on plunder, places outside the law and corruption. The Barbary Corsairs were also Buccaneers rather than pirates and were back by the cities and states of the southern Mediterranean rather than freelance mutineers who "wage war against the world."
@@mysticonthehill Just a little minor clarification about pirate terms:
1. The word buccaneer initially referred to European hunters in the Caribbean who made a living by trading meat with passing ships. After they started attacking ships the term evolved to refer to a pirate of the Caribbean. It' definitely a more neutral term than "pirate," though. Henry Morgan actually sued an author who referred to him as a pirate, saying he preferred the term buccaneer.
2. Privateers are people who are sanctioned by a government to attack and rob enemy ships. It's like having a pirate's license. While privateers were seen by heroes by their sponsor, to their victims their was no difference between them and a pirate, and the majority of privateers overstepped their letters of marque at some point (either by attacking a ship of a nation not listed as an enemy, carrying out land attacks not included in their letter of marque, slaving, or indulging in torture) while many pirates spent at least some time privateering, so the terms are not mutually exclusive.
3. The word corsair originally applied to French privateers operating in the Mediterranean, but it quickly came to refer to any pirate of the Mediterranean, especially the infamous Barbary Corsairs.
4. A mutineer is someone who commits mutiny (revolting against authority on a ship or a military organization). Mutiny and piracy are not the same thing, but there was a good deal of overlap, as many mutineers would turn to a life of piracy after overthrowing their captain and seizing control of their ship. Henry Every was a particularly successful pirate who obtained his ship by staging a mutiny.
The shipwreck of the Whydah is the actual pirate ship of Samuel Bellamy sunk in 1717. Unfortunately, the swords have all rusted away, but the hilts are still there. I don't know if maybe we could guess what the swords were from the hilts.
In fort Matanzas in St Augustine, they found an interesting amount of 17th century jian and dao along with the Spanish finds.
I've posted this quote under a Schola Gladiatoria video before, but I'll do it again both because I think it both illustrates some broader historical context to the question of pirate swords, and because it's just plain awesome. Here's what the great pirate captain Henry Morgan said when asked directly what the best pirate weapon was: "The president of Panama was astounded that 400 men could have conquered such strong fortresses, whose defenders had not lacked courage, with nothing but small-arms. He sent a messenger to Morgan, asking that he might be allowed to see the weapon which had given him such power. Morgan received the president's envoy with great civility and gave him a French musket with a barrel four and half feet long, firing a one ounce bullet; he also sent a cartouche which he'd had expressly made in France, containing thirty cartridges full of powder. He charged the messenger to tell his master that Morgan presented him with this musket, and that within a year or two he would come to Panama to fetch it back again." (From 'The Buccaneers of America' by Alexander Exquemelin)
Exquemelin sailed with Morgan and was present at most of the events he described, so he knew what he was talking about. Apart from the sheer bad-assery of Morgan's promise to come back and get his musket in a year's time, the thing I like about the quote is that it shows the context Morgan was operating in. The 'Golden Age' of piracy was all well within the age of gunpowder warfare, and although everybody loves to think of swashbuckling pirates crossing blades, guns were the primary weapons of the era and swords were very much a back-up for when ammunition ran low, or the fighting became too close to allow time to reload. Morgan prized long-barreled muskets (for accuracy and power) and bandoliers of paper cartridges (for fast reloads and rapid fire), and liked to recruit from local hunters who were skilled shots. he knew that firepower was key, and he definitely got results- he was possibly the most successful pirate captain of the age.
Many pirates wouldn't have had a sword at all. Long muskets could have been fitted with bayonets, and even today in the Caribbean the word 'cutlass' is used to refer to machetes/ cane knives- these tools were widely available and would have made decent weapons, especially for the pirate rank-and-file who may not have known how to fence and would probably only have fought hand-to-hand as a last resort.
good comment
The sword was used more as a tool than a weapon, especially at the end of the era. I have a 1700s boarding sword and with it came a note to say they were stored on board and not carried on a hip. I found that interesting like they were kept in certain places for emergency use.
Excellent comment! The buccaneer groups originated from hunters after all. One thing I might add that we should look deeper in the tactics (and the culture) of the various groups. My guess is that we might find some surprises there- and that there may be very well an influence in later forms of warfare.
This video could not have come at a better time for me. Since I've been recently looking for information not specifically on this topic, but on this era. I was trying to find information on how cavalry would have been equipped in the war of Spanish succession. And this video has given me a really good jumping off point for the era
Matt, another really great video. Thank you. I had two thoughts:
1) Since so much of the Golden Age piracy took place in and around the Caribbean; and since the primary crop of the Caribbean was sugar cane; and since sugar cane was harvested with machetes, so those were no doubt cheap and plentiful; and since a short cutting sword worked well against unarmored opponents aboard ship; and since pirate crews likely did not have a lot of fencing training; and since most anyone can slash away with a machete - I wonder if they were not a common pirate crew weapon as well?
2) Please don’t ever go to north west Belgium and proclaim that the Flemish speak French! Walloons speak French! In Flanders they speak a dialect of Dutch. 😁
Sincerely,
Eric van Vlaanderen
(The original spelling before great granddad went through Ellis Island.)
Offensively a machete is great. Defensively a machete is pretty bad. So as soon as your opponent is armed with anything longer and or sturdier than your machete you are screwed...
In parts of the Caribbean today they call machetes " cutlasses"
1) I own three machetes one of which has a 26” blade. They come in many sizes. For cutting sugar cane they are long so you don’t have to bend as far.
2) a long machete is equal in length to many hanger swords, which is a type common on ships as Matt told us.
3) The reasoning of the longer weapon has an advantage is unassailable. But you can’t have an arms race of ever increasing length. At some point there is the “right length” for your situation. I suspect in the tangled close quarters of shipboard fighting a long machete would have worked well.
4) Would a machete have been ideal? Perhaps not. But they were likely cheap and plentiful in the Caribbean. To paraphrase that idiot Rumsfeld (on the 30th anniversary no less) “sometimes you go pirating with the sword you have, not the sword you may want.”
Interesting. I did not know that. Thanks.
@@ericvanvlandren8987 My point is, what makes a machete or a cane knife good at harvesting cane makes it bad for parrying, namely it's very thin (+/- 1mm) and usually comparatively short (26'' is already rather long, the common short swords of the era start at that length and go up to 36'' while still being considered "short") blade paired with the absolute lack of anything resembling a guard whatsoever.
Would you use it if you have absolutely nothing else? Yes.
Would you ditch it as soon as you get your hands on something that's not a farming implement? Yes.
I haven't been this excited for a video in a very long time
As an interesting followup you should do some of the more interesting combinations that One could run into and and reasons why some unexpected swords might have performed better than one might expect.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I have been trying to make the argument that you make in this video for a couple years now to some of my fellow amatuer historians.
Personally, I feel that the Mortuary Hilt sword would have seen a lot of use than it's formerly been given credit for, due to the popularity of it starting in the English Civil War, they'd have still been all over the place because so many were made.
But I also feel that it's not just swords that we need to look at... Anything that would have been being shipped to the colonies would have been subject to being commandeered by pirates. So I think Hollywood might have unintentionally misshapen our ideas of not just swords, but possibly whole entire "kit", to include clothing, boots/shoes, and anything else imaginable that would have been wanted by land owners in the Colonies.
Cheers for the video!
Keep up the great work, pal.
🏴☠️
I look for but couldn't find a video where you speak about the kopesh? Every thing you say is interesting. Grazie
This would be a good primer for another video about shipboard combat of the period.
Around 11:00 : I don't know about the 17th century, but nowadays the term 'Walloon' would apply specifically to the *French* -speaking population of Belgium, and not the Flemish (Dutch) speakers. It is essentially a Dutch term for non-Dutch people, just as 'Welsh' was originally an Anglo-Saxon term for foreigners, who happened to be mainly Celtic Britons. There are cognate terms in other Germanic languages.
Marvelous video. And exceptional historical conclusions.
Great video, I love the in-depth explanations of it all. If there's one thing I understand about weapons it's how difficult they are to classify, but you did a great job with that. I see lots of people commenting about knives and guns, but this is a video about swords and a great one at that. Thank you for the information friend.
Let's also not forget axes and knives. Because even for a pirate, the daily business was far more connected to sailing, not fighting. Swordsmanship requires practice, which you usually don't get too much of on a ship. But the tools you use every day are something, you know to use very well. Another reason, why rather broad blades were more popular (despite the absense of mentionable armor) was, that they could be used to cut ropes. Entering a ship that is still maneuverable, can still massively increase the risk of failure, so that was part of the very useful versatility. The more limited the space, the more important are a rather short reach - and multifunctionality.
literally not what the video is about, from the title. im sick of this virtue signalling about how "swords were a back-up weapon", "lots of axes" all this not-even-wrong stuff.
These were working poor so used what they could afford
@@nullifye7816 virtue signaling? What the hell virtue is there in saying they used axes
Although Matt has mentioned in some of his other videos using axes was not all that common for sailors as weapons other than breeching tools i suppose. The boarding axe for example was mainly used as tool. Its kinda moot point they wouldnt be good fencers because for even unskilled person something like cutlass is simply better weapon than axe outside something like armored combat. Thats also why short choppy blades are quite popular through history for common people even outside ships because its very intuitive to hack, and slash with something thats essentually machete with hand protection. Axe just is not really easier to use in fight as short sword, but it has lot of drawbacks if you have access to swords
Approaching 400K subs, Matt! It's been an awesome ride from sub-100k all the way to now!
Thanks! - I am starting to get excited :-)
Captain Hook in Hook actually has interesting taste , he carries a mortuary sword as his regular sidearm but switches to a smallsword for the duel with pan. In the 2003 remake Pan he has a Spanish rapier...
Historically as well after the Jacobite 1715 rising some Scots fled to the colonies and long basket hilts may have been briefly more common at the end of the "golden age".
In the Disney film and the 2003 film I think Hook uses a rapier. I don't remember if the book ever describes what sword he's using.
According to legend, Blackbeard was mortally wounded by a blow from a Scottish broadsword. The show Black Sails turns this around by having Teach use a basket hilt sword himself!
Seriously Matt? Here I am at lunch scrolling through TH-cam and up pops this vid. And I gotta get back to work in 5 mins. Now I gotta wait until after work to watch this. You’re killing me here!!! Lol
I need to watch Captain Blood again, for historical research!
We know that some pirates and privateers went back and forth between the Atlantic and Indian oceans/ South China seas/Indonesia, so there's a lot of cultural influence that could pass between the many peoples.
We also know that ships often had multicultural crewmen, who would bring their own twist.
Even Robin of Sherwood had a Saracen pal with a couple of swords on his back, and that was hundreds of years earlier...
I'll get me coat.
During the Spanish galleon trade there were many Filipino sailors on galleons, with estimates at a peak of 20-30% of crew manpower.
Rum, swordomy and the lash 👍
I see what you did there.
I think in Black Sails in the Teach vs Flint fight, Teach uses a basket hilted broad or back sword. Really great fight scene and pretty accurate i thought. If anyone else thinks so or doesn't agree?
Totally agree! I think there are many interesting duel scenes in that series, like Flint vs his first mate at the beginning, the duel with Blackbeard that you mentioned, and to some degree also the duel that Jack Rackham had with the Captain of the Goliath, which started off rather unceremoniously.
if I'm not mistaken, Matt actually did a fight review of the fight at the end of episode one a number of years back and quite liked how naturalistic it was.
@@rasmusn.e.m1064 He did so, indeed!
Fascinating. Thank for for going over what sorts of swords could have been used by pirates in the Atlantic and Caribbean during the golden age of piracy.
Kind of reminds me of how many different weapons, and the practitioners of them were walking the earth in the middle to late 1800's.
I hope you do more on this subject, the swords are beautiful and would like to see more.
The China sea piracy is quite a topic on its own, between the Dutch, the Japanese, Mozambicans crews trained to use guns by the Portuguese and so on, quite a thing.
One thing though, I'm not sure The Walloons would appreciate the idea of being mistaken for Flemish people!
@4:37 Nerd cred: "Plate 86! Hey, I recognize that pic!" Arms & Armor in Colonial America by Harold Peterson, fantastic book
When I saw some the antler hilted cutlasses shown here, I had to think, in Germany, they would probably be regarded as a "Jagdschwert", meaning "hunting sword".
9:15 I remember reading that pirate crews of the early 18th Century tended to be pretty egalitarian, so there wouldn’t have been that much distinction between “officers” and “men” in most pirate crews
They very much maintained those hierarchies and had both captains and officers with specific duties and rank over men. There was a very big difference however, and that is that said officers and captains were elected by the crew as a whole through popular vote and could also be removed the same way (although removing someone from "office" was more often than not a bloody affair). Another big difference is that the officer held authority only in battle, they also had overseer authority in orgazinational matters but they did not had decision making authority. All bigger decisions outside of combat, like where to head next and punishment for those that break the rules had to be done by popular vote.
I am not even slightly acting like an authority on this subject, but this gives me major modern-people-projecting-their-ideals-onto-history vibes tbh. Tbf I do know that this subject has been borderline psychotically romanticised and infused with huge amounts of bs, so it's not like I don't have reason to be suspicious lol
@@tommeakin1732 Well, guys n vessels, especially out in the middle of the ocean have more options. Their out in the middle of unknown, the officers have less to back up their legitmacy and the crew have more ways to deal with officers they don't like without repercussions. Officer pisses you off enough, shove up over board, the ocean takes care of them, remove your flag, make up a story at the nearest port.
Matt, I'm so glad you included the Bilbao. That is a sword about which I'm very curious and I was actually getting ready to post a question about whether they were common and how you would classify them.
I saw a late 16th century European painting depicting Keris, Tulwar, Kilij, and a few others and it had me baffled. I never expected them this early and with that much details, when they still couldn't even draw a lion (though, they did get parrots correctly).
Probably not too many lions living in Western Europe to get a reference for. Metal weapons are easy to transport. Giant man-eating cats aren't.
@@colbunkmust Yet, even ancient Romans imported them and later some nobility kept them as well. One Austrian kept various big cats at his castle and they survived many winters in the moat, but one particularly harsh winter ended his mini-zoo...
@@edi9892 yeah, but those instances are rare and have a limited shelf life. Most Rennaisance courts didn't have a lion available to pose for artists.
Side swords, back swords, rapiers, sabres, hangers and/or cutlasses. I imagine those are the most common.
Don't know if you noticed, your parrot couldn't land cos you had a sword on your shoulder.
This made me fall back to a basket hilt backsword video you did like 9 yrs ago .
Whoops - the Walloons inhabit Wallonia, the French-speaking part of the Low Countries. Dutch speakers live in Flanders and the Netherlands.
I was recently getting annoyed with the lack of some of the styles of cutlasses and wanted something different for my newer impression I'm presently building and settled for a half basket back sword. It's different than what many of my fellow pirate reenactors carry and was common enough in the area that they should be in use.
I'd argue a 7th group- modified or locally made blades which hop categories. For instance, a cut down saber which a few surviving cutlasses seem to be.
Also allegedly, I have heard it referenced in one documentary that a Katana was found in Port Royal. If you have any confirmation on this it would be awesome. I heard it as an off hand comment with no further information and it has annoyed me ever since.
It would be astounding if a katana showed up in Port Royal during the golden age of piracy. During that time period Japan had almost completely isolated itself from the rest of the world.
@@Blokewood3 ooooooooh, prepare to start down a rabbit hole. I will give you one name, get back to me a few hours. "Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga"
It seems as though Hollywood has specific ideas about what a pirate should have on his hip, much like the way they think a pirate should act. As you so beautifully pointed out in this video and others, Hollywood's arming of actors is wrong much more often than it is right. Great video Matt!
I needed Yataghan pirates in my life. Thank you.
Before the video starts... They used whatever they could get their hands on. Which would mostly be cutlasses taken from other ships. Now, on with the show!
I was right. But also sorta wrong. While I had the period correct hangars in mind I also pictured the later cutlasses.
"Arrgh!" 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
"Mid 17th century English,🏴 built,🏢 hanger sword?"🗡⚔
Very wrong
Good on ya Bri.
Dam it! Now I can’t get the image of pirates with Katana’s out of my head 😳
The beautiful thing about pirates is they use what ever they damn well want when ever they damn well want. ⚔️ ☠️
Simple answer...any they could get their grubby or non-grubby hands on? but a sabre or sword that was a chopper and thruster as well. Something that might be good for cutting trees and such as well for landing parties.
Personally, I would have a good multi-role cutter and a small, but sturdy combat blade.
For my pirate needs I use the Battlecry Cutlass by Windlass. I've got a good experience backed reason for this choice, it's the only one I own!
Thank you for posting. Now I know what to equip my crews. I am working hard saving money to buy me a ship and become a Pirates captain. At this rate of saving I would achieve my dream at around 90 years old
I'd love to hear more on Walloon hilts, and also on that parang nabur you've so casually slung over your shoulder here!
Fueled for more pirate stuff...thanks so much Matt!!!
if i was a pirate id be that odd dude that carried an english arming sword just because
In the dust and cobweb covered parts of my brain the dutch word "kortelas" popped up, a early name very much associated with long 2 sided daggers and 2 sided short swords mainly used in the east india sailing trades from around the golden age of piracy and the dutch golden century. Great for fighting but also as a tool, a great rope cutting tool when entering a spanish silver and gold ships in the carribean for instance to disable their sailpower and cause chaos on deck.
Kortelas , cutlass and cuttleaxe sound so much alike that the source is obvious, later the renowned klewang was used by the merchant and naval marine and expeditiary forces after ww2 as standard tool, for fighting, in the jungle to cut a path.
Yar Ahr! Great video! Still waiting for one on Zaghnals, Ikakalakas, Dagger Axes, Ge etc..
Some years ago I told you of a seaman who claimed to have used "Rapiers" when attacking Blackbeard's ship Adventure under Lt Maynard. He claimed the rapiers helped greatly in the between decks fighting. Obviously he was only using the term for a point centric thrusting sword and not a pure rapier. At the time you strongly disagreed. Have you had a change of mind since then?
Talks about swords used by pirates. Spends 15 min showing choppy/Stabby things that all look identical to my neophyte vision.
Explains differences and context. 😎👍
As a subsidiary question - Why are pirates called pirates?
Because they just arrrh.
(I'll get me coat.)
So i'd probably say forms of cutlass/saber would be more than common, several types of backsword
Loved this. Can you get windlass to make more rapiers like you did with their royal armouries line? I need more pretty windlass rapiers!
If I wanted to purchase a reproduction of a hanger which sword company should I choose for a lower end cost wise yet serviceable sword.
I don't want to spend a great deal on a sword that I might not like. I've always used a beast of a talwar whose blade is nearly a meter in length. This is measuring straight from hilt to point not accounting for the curve.
I'm disabled now and can no longer use my beast, so I am looking for a smaller replacement. I've always loved the look of the hanger and figure it is similar enough to the talwar that this old dog won't have to learn many new tricks.
I kind of suspect our ideas of the golden age of X, tends to be heavily influenced by the golden age of theatre.
The Indian ocean was a hotbed of piracy too. Many Atlantic based pirates often took refuge there while the heat was on and their must have been contact between the various groups.
Hey I was wondering if anybody has put out any videos about Fiore dei Liberi’s pollaxe filled with powder? I just noticed it on wiktenauer and it seemed pretty insane
The Dutch east Indian company adopted the klewang as their Naval sword
Giving how common they were: How do you used a cutlass/hanger against the weapons of the day?
Since you are talking about pirates, any weapon that existed by then and anything that existed within 100 years prior could have been used. If you are going to narrow it down to pirates in the Caribbean and Atlantic, then Western European swords would definitely have been the most common. But with all the trade going on in the world at that time, anything is possible. As long as it wasn't intended afterward if you are writing a book or movie with pirates you can justify a vast amount of things that were not common but could be existed.
Reminds me of the katana, wakizashi, tanto set found at Port Royal.
Thought I was listening to a Mr. H video all of a sudden (the background music during the add)
2 Brit youtubers I love, Matt & Mr. H!
In a pirate crew of the late 1600's, it's perfectly possible for smallswords to be used alongside Dusacks, shamshir, tulwars and the odd uchigatana.
Thanks for the informative video. Do not forget Filipino swords and knives brought to the Caribbean by Spanish crews.
"15 men,🚹 and a dead,☠️ man's,👨 chest!"🌰 "Yo ho ho, and a bottle,🍾 of rum!"🥃 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
Isn't the distinguishing feature of Walloons that they are *not* Flemish-speaking, since they speak their own dialect of French?
I imagine that having an exotic sword might boost your status with other pirates a bit, just showing that you got a hold of it somehow. Maybe they want to go where you acquired it and do pirating over there
Remeind me again, when was the golden age of piracy?
Great video as always, matt!
The overall dates are usually given as being c.1650-1730, but the Golden Age of Piracy had several phases to it, and it focuses mainly on western pirates.
1650s-1680s: The "Buccaneering Period." The first buccaneers were European hunters who hunted wild pigs and cattle in the caribbean and sold the meat to passing ships. They soon learned that they could make more money by preying on Spanish ships, and they became pirates.
Piracy in the Caribbean exploded in the 1650s due to Spain having huge amounts of treasure and constantly being at war. Enemies of Spain could give licenses known as "letters of Marque" authorizing men to attack and rob enemy ships. Men who did this were known as privateers, though from their victims' point of view there's no difference between them and a pirate. Port Royal Jamaica was an infamous headquarters for piracy. Pirates would come to Port Royal to spend their ill-gotten gains. Corrupt governors would hand out letters or marque to sanction their actions, and the town was full of brothels and bars. Port Royal was known as the wickedest city on Earth, but by the 1680s Port Royal was trying to clean up its act and years of preying on the Spanish meant there was less treasure to go around. Port Royal was finally destroyed by an earthquake in 1692. Pirates from this period included Henry Morgan, Francois L'Ollonois, Roc Brasiliano, Bartholomew Portuges, and many others.
1690s-early 1700s. "The Pirate Round." With the treasure of the Caribbean being exhausted, pirates looked elsewhere for opportunities. Thomas Tew developed a new plan known as the pirate round in which he sailed from the American Colonies (Tew was from Rhode Island) around the south of Africa past Madagascar and up to the Red Sea where he could attack the treasure ships of the Mughal empire. Tew's first voyage was a huge success and other pirates followed suit. The Mughal Empire was not at war with the British, so despite having a letter of marque it was piracy to attack them, but for the most part, people in the colonies didn't care. New York and Boston were the new home ports where the pirates would return to spend their money. But when Henry Every robbed the Ganj I Sawai, a ship that belonged to the Mughal Emperor himself, the Emperor was so angry he nearly had all Englishmen expelled from India. The East India company was on the brink of losing their ability to trade unless something was done about the pirates, so the law tried to crack down. It took a long time before this had any real impact though. The hanging of William Kidd was the point when pirates of the Pirate Round could no longer expect to get away with their crimes.
1701-1715: The War of Spanish Succession: With Spain once again at war, there were numerous privateering opportunities again. When the war finally ended, thousands of privateers were suddenly out of work. If they carried on with business, they would be pirates again.
1715-24 "True pirates." In 1715, the Spanish silver fleet was shipwrecked on the coast of Florida, causing the pirate equivalent of a gold rush. Adventurers rushed to the area to grab what treasure they could, and soon they were attacking all sorts of ships in the Caribbean and Atlantic.
Unlike before, there was no privateering being done, so these pirates were enemies of all nations, and would not refrain from attacking ships of their own origin. The new pirate headquarters was Nassau, in the Bahamas. The pirates ruled the island of New Providence as their own republic. In 1717, The British Empire offered a mass pardon to all pirates who would surrender and give up piracy. This dramatically turned the tide in the battle against piracy. Nassau was lost to the remaining pirates when Woodes Rogers became the new governor. From 1718 on, pirates were gradually being worn down. Famous pirates like Blackbeard were killed, and Stede Bonnet, Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, and many others were hanged. Some pirates tried leaving the Caribbean and Atlantic and sailing the Pirate Round again or the Indian Ocean, but by now the navies were much more diligent at stamping out piracy.
By 1724, Captain Charles Johnson wrote his famous book on pirates, and by then there were very few remaining. The next few years gradually had the remaining western pirates either retire or die. While piracy would never go away entirely, the golden age was over.
@@Blokewood3 It was a joke...
This video should be rated R !!
Great how that scimitar has a bottle opener. Very handy.
There's a great song about Irish indentured servants being taken off by Algerian pirates, called "Heart in Hand", by John Doyle. The version by Usher's Island (John Doyle and other Irish icons) is great.
I wonder if any early mediaeval arming type swords were ever used? The gentleman adventurer fallen on hard times, brandishing the family broadsword?? 😀
I'm team Cutlass all the way, nasty buggers.
Great vid Matt, a fascinating period that I've not studied at all.....although I did win a 3 legged race at my primary school 1977 jubilee day which gained me the Ladybird book of pirates as 1st prize, which counts a bit.
Keep up the good work, really good content sir.
....... hard to tell, blades were rehilted allot. Peen blocks make this allot easier so changing hilts out to fit and change in fighting makes sense. There could be a sword with a late medieval blade fitted to much later hilt.
You get three choices of sword:
1. Rapier has the fastest attack, but the slowest defense. A good choice for an adventurer.
2. Longsword is medium all around. The automatic choice of an apprentice pirate.
3. Cutlass has the slowest attack but the fastest defense. The best choice for the most experienced swashbuckler.
Can anybody guess what I'm referencing? 🙂
The topic brings an interesting question to mind, how many sword type may have been carried over from a different era? For example, maybe there were some swords passed from generation to generation, so a 16th century Rapier may have been used in the late 17th century, or if there was a poorer sailor looking for a sword and bought one second hand? Swords the are like cars now, there are may prices ranges depending on your economic status, and some cars may be passed down or resold. Food for thought.
Did anyone use small bucklers? It would seem like a good thing to have in the left hand in close quarters.
Nice talk
Thanks
Frank
What about the Schiavona? Given the Republic of Venice's naval strength, I would have assumed a basket hilted weapon like the Schiavona to be very common in pirate crews, but maybe not in the Caribbean but rather in the Mediterranean?
What are your thoughts on Gilkerson's _Boarders Away_ as an introduction to naval and pirate arms of the period?
Would it have been easier to repurpose (shorten/re-hilt) damaged 'land army' blades to be fit for purpose on a ship, instead of making hangers straight off the bat?
Were hangers ever intended for indoor use, we already know they were employed by hunters/gameskeepers in conjunction with boar spears etc in tight wooded areas.
It goes without saying that grunts would be sent below to clear out the rabble before 'officers' went below.
Really we shouldn't be surprised about this should we? 'What swords did pirates carry?'--the swords that were popular at that time! A lot of what you were showing would look quite at home with a civil war re-enactor as well, which is an interesting thought. Peeps--who always avoided every fight he could run away from!--talks about his swords in passing, especially the 'silver hilted' one of which he is especially proud. I imagine it would have been among the simpler swept-hilt types you showed.
When it comes to Holland, the VOC were obviously heavily focussed on Indonesian trade at that time, so doubtless some of the rather obscure--and indeed almost 'fantasy sword' type--weapons from the furthest of far-east countries would have found their way into pirate hands.
It is quite interesting that the divide between shorter weapons carried on board ship and longer weapons carried on land continued into the time of gunpowder firearms. It can be seen most clearly in the distinction between 'army' and 'navy' calibres in the second half of 19th century America. The Colt SAA in .45 and Colt 1851 in .38 are two clear examples.
"Arrgh!" 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
You can't carry cutlasses, cos cutlasses can cut,
The skipper keeps 'em locked up down below,
With a dirk or a dagger you can saunter with a swagger,
But a three foot sword is not the way to go,
It'll get between your ankles as you walk along the street,
If you bow to some fine lady it'll trip you off your feet,
You'll be glared at very darkly by the troopers that you meet,
And the gaols are very hard in Callao,
So bucko, take my tip, leave your cutlass on the ship,
There's nothing that needs choppin' when you're in Jamaica shoppin"
John Warner, Australia
Not sure if it would be popular, but I’d love to get a follow up video on the naval dirks of the era.
So what's that weird and wonderful thing dangling on your shoulder the whole time? I knew from the get-go that the final category would be "...and everything else from everywhere", but that thing you have seems to have a yelmen, a SE Asian or Indian blade shape (maybe more SE Asian with the length and slenderness), double fullers right up near the spine giving an almost pipeback profile, something like a cho, a very napoleonic handguard and a swollen (surely hollow) pommel that I only glimpsed in the video, but looked familiar. Is it spiked too, like the tang wasn't peened but extended and decorated? I couldn't quite catch it.
Your mention of the yatagan reminds me of a question I have had. A couple years ago you and your wife did a big unboxing video and she rather drooled over a yatagan. Did she end up keeping it? Did she work with it as a weapon? How does she feel about it now? Perhaps it needs not be said but I was drooling over it also
It makes sense, you don't wear armour and you don't carry any form of shield so you want something with lots of handprotection, but you fight in enclosed spaces so you go for shorter blades, also you spend your time among people with a loose attitude to property so you want to make your sword as wearable as possible. Add to that a penchant for flashy fashion, the fact that you don't need to buy your sword and that you make port in many a distant land where you can marry what you have to neat "foreign" bits and we end up with what must have been beautiful and intruiging weapons.
My ancestor was my namesake, Capt Christopher Newport. He was was with Drake at Cadiz. What was he probable sword type? Airborne! Chris N.
Aye, I'll trust to my Kirtleaxe!
@scholagladiatoria Medieval swords changed a lot in form over time, and as armour changed, they evolved into the sabre and rapier/smallsword forms.
Looking east, chinese swords don't seem to have gone through the same evolution. The form of the Jian has hardly altered in hundreds of years. Why?
Did naval officers ever adopt any of the “scimitar” family of swords such as the Shamshir or Talwar? I know they become popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as infantry officers swords, and are used in various other military capacities such as the famous US Marine’s Mameluke saber. You are stating that they also could have become popular much earlier, possibly even within the maritime community. So, did the swords ever become “fashionable” or are there any period examples ever of them being adopted by Western naval officers? Thanks Matt, keep up the great content!!!
You have the most amazing collection of cutlery. I absolutely love the knowledge and history you share in your videos. Thank you 🗡️🗡️👍👍⚓⚓🇺🇲🇺🇲
Oh great, now he's done it! Someone's going to make a pirate-film now with the entire crew armed with katanas because Matt said that they could be historically correct! Thanx alot Matt 😂
Again, I am told that rapiers would probably not be good for naval combat because the long blades could get stuck in the rigging. I don’t see a lot of the swords you’re talking about available online, much less any mention of them being used in the pirate records.
Matt, could you do a video where you talk about the thumb-ring that was quite common on Swedish, Polish and Walloon sword in the 17th century.
When I was in the Navy, way back in the early eighties 🤣 I was carrying a Buck 110 and a very nice steel marlin spike. I was a Bos-un mate of course. Most of the ships company did not Cary knives, that I know of.🗡️🗡️👍👍⚓⚓🇺🇲🇺🇲
Got a repro French naval sabre. Well made but it is not my fav, seems rather short heavy and unweildy. Pokey on the tip but the right edge for spreading butter on your toast. Which actually would be an impressive gesture.