![Rapiere-Morges-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Rapiere-Morges-1.jpg)
The hilt (rarely called a haft or shaft) of a
knife
A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidence ...
,
dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use de ...
,
sword, or
bayonet is its handle, consisting of a guard, grip and pommel. The guard may contain a
crossguard
On a sword, the crossguard, or cross-guard, the individual bars on either side known as quillon, is a bar of metal at right angles to the blade, placed between the blade and the hilt. The crossguard was developed in the European sword around the ...
or quillons. A tassel or sword knot may be attached to the guard or pommel.
Pommel
![Visayan tenegre horn hilt closeup](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Visayan_tenegre_horn_hilt_closeup.JPG)
The pommel (
Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to:
*Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066
* Anglo-Norman language
**Anglo-Norman literature
* Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...
"little apple") is an enlarged fitting at the top of the handle. They were originally developed to prevent the sword from slipping from the hand. From around the 11th century in Europe they became heavy enough to be a counterweight to the blade.
This gave the sword a point of balance not too far from the hilt allowing a more fluid fighting style. Depending on sword design and swordsmanship style, the pommel may also be used to strike the opponent (e.g., using the
Mordhau technique).
Pommels have appeared in a wide variety of shapes, including oblate spheroids, crescents, disks, wheels, and animal or bird heads. They are often
engraved
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
or
inlay
Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with th ...
ed with various designs and occasionally
gilt and mounted with jewels.
Ewart Oakeshott
Ronald Ewart Oakeshott (25 May 1916 – 30 September 2002) was a British illustrator, collector, and amateur historian who wrote prodigiously on medieval arms and armour. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Founder Member of the ...
introduced a system of classification of medieval pommel forms in his ''The Sword in the Age of Chivalry'' (1964) to stand alongside
his blade typology. Oakeshott pommel types are enumerated with capital letters A–Z, with subtypes indicated by numerals.
Grip
The grip is the handle of the sword. It is usually made of
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
or
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
and often covered with
shagreen
Shagreen is a type of rawhide consisting of rough untanned skin, historically from a horse's or onager's back, or from shark or ray.
Etymology
The word derives from the French ''chagrin'' and is related to Italian ''zigrino'' and Venetian '' ...
(untanned tough leather or
shark
Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachi ...
skin). Shark skin proved to be the most durable in temperate climates but deteriorates in hot climates. Consequently,
rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...
became popular in the latter half of the 19th century. Many sword types alternatively opt for ray skin, referred to in
katana
A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the '' tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge f ...
construction as . Whatever material covers the grip, it is usually both glued on and wrapped with
wire
Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample diameter 40 mm
A wire is a flexible strand of metal.
Wire is c ...
in a
helix
A helix () is a shape like a corkscrew or spiral staircase. It is a type of smooth space curve with tangent lines at a constant angle to a fixed axis. Helices are important in biology, as the DNA molecule is formed as two intertwined helic ...
.
Guard
The guard is just above the grip. It is a common misconception that the ''cross-guard'' protects the wielder's entire hand from the opposing sword; only with the abandonment of the shield and then the armoured gauntlet did a full hand guard become necessary. The crossguard still protected the user from a blade that was deliberately slid down the length of the blade to cut off or injure the hand.
Early swords do not have true guards but simply a form of ''stop'' to prevent the hand slipping up the blade when thrusting as they were invariably used in conjunction with a shield.
From the 11th century, European sword guards took the form of a straight crossbar (later called "
quillon") perpendicular to the
blade
A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Histor ...
.
Beginning in the 16th century in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, guards became more and more elaborate, with additional loops and curved bars or branches to protect the hand. A single curved piece alongside the fingers (roughly parallel with the handle/blade and perpendicular to any crossguards) was referred to as a knuckle-bow.
Ultimately, the bars could be supplemented or replaced with metal plates that could be ornamentally pierced. The term "basket hilt" eventually came into vogue to describe such designs, and there are a variety of
basket-hilted sword
The basket-hilted sword is a sword type of the early modern era characterised by a basket-shaped guard that protects the hand. The basket hilt is a development of the quillons added to swords' crossguards since the Late Middle Ages.
In mo ...
s.
Simultaneously, emphasis upon the thrust attack with
rapier
A rapier () or is a type of sword with a slender and sharply-pointed two-edged blade that was popular in Western Europe, both for civilian use (dueling and self-defense) and as a military side arm, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
Impo ...
s and
smallsword
The small sword or smallsword (also court sword, Gaelic: or claybeg, French: or dress sword) is a light one-handed sword designed for thrusting which evolved out of the longer and heavier rapier of the late Renaissance. The height of the small ...
s revealed a vulnerability to thrusting. By the 17th century, guards were developed that incorporated a solid shield that surrounded the blade out to a diameter of up to two inches or more. Older forms of this guard retained the quillons or a single quillon, but later forms eliminated the quillons, altogether being referred to as a cup-hilt. This latter form is the basis of the guards of modern
foils and
épée
The ( or , ), sometimes spelled epee in English, is the largest and heaviest of the three weapons used in the sport of fencing. The modern derives from the 19th-century , a weapon which itself derives from the French small sword. This contain ...
s.
Ricasso
The ricasso is a blunt section of blade just below the guard. On developed hilts it is protected by an extension of the guard.
[David Haring, ed. "The Complete Encyclopedia of Weapons" Gallery Press, 1980, p. 48] On
two-handed swords, the ricasso provided a third hand position, permitting the user's hands to be further apart for better leverage.
Sword knot
![Sword knot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Sword_knot.jpg)
The sword
knot
A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a ''hitch'' fastens a rope to another object; a ' ...
or sword
strap, sometimes called a tassel, is a
lanyard
A lanyard is a cord, length of webbing, or strap that may serve any of various functions, which include a means of attachment, restraint, retrieval, and activation and deactivation. A lanyard is also a piece of rigging used to secure or lowe ...
—usually of leather but sometimes of woven gold or silver bullion, or more often metallic lace—looped around the hand to prevent the sword being lost if it is dropped. Although they have a practical function, sword knots often had a decorative design. For example, the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
generally adopted a white leather strap with a large
acorn knot made out of
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
wire for infantry officers at the end of the 19th century. Such acorn forms of tassels were called 'boxed', which was the way of securing the fringe of the tassel along its bottom line such that the strands could not separate and become entangled or lost. Many sword knots were also made of silk with a fine, ornamental alloy gold or silver metal wire woven into it in a specified pattern.
The art and history of tassels are known by its French name, , or as it was called in German. The military output of the artisans called (ornamental braid, lace, cord, or trimmings makers) is evident in catalogs of various military uniform and regalia makers of centuries past. The broader art form of , with its divisions of Decor, Clergy and Nobility, Upholstery, Coaches and Livery, and Military, is covered in a few books on that subject, none of which are in English.
Indian swords had the tassel attached through an eyelet at the end of the pommel.
Chinese swords, both ''
jian
The ''jian'' (pronunciation (劍), English approximation: ) is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. The first Chinese sources that mention the ''jian'' date to the 7th century BCE, during the Spring and ...
'' and ''
dao
Dao, Dão or DAO may refer to:
* Tao (Chinese: "The Way" 道), a philosophical concept
* Dao (Chinese sword) (刀), a type of Chinese sword
* Dao (Naga sword), a weapon and a tool of Naga people
People and language
* Yao people, a minority ethni ...
'', often have lanyards or tassels attached. As with Western sword knots, these serve both decorative and practical functions, and the manipulation of the tassel is a part of some ''jian'' performances.
Hilt ring
![BUC-FA09D7 Silver sword hilt ring (FindID 417678)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/BUC-FA09D7_Silver_sword_hilt_ring_%28FindID_417678%29.jpg)
The hilt ring is an optional item used for decoration.
References
{{Reflist
Swords
Blade weapons