Tsardoms Total War - FACTION PREVIEW: Tsardom of Serbia (Complete overhaul)

[PavleSubich]

isnt that a bastard sword

[Rad]

That's another name, I guess. One of the "problems" of our modern age is that we attempt to classify items based on shared characteristics and qualities. That's actually quite hard to do with arms and armor, when you consider how much variety exists. For example, we have armor that is made out of a number of metal plates riveted to the inside of a textile/leather foundation. When is that armor a "coat of plates", when is it a "brigandine", when is it a "corazzina" etc? Sure, we can find examples that fit perfectly into the commonly accepted ideas of "coat of plates", "brigandine" and "corazzina" but at the same time, examples of everything in between exist as well. How do we deal with them? Do we chuck them into one of the three existing categories? That tends to lead to quite a lot of debate. Do we create new terms for them? That creates even more mess

[Rad]

I have one interesting observation about two handed swords from Serbia - few of them have narrow, needle like points. To me, that suggests that they were mostly used like big swords ought to be used - for cutting down swaths of lightly armored or unarmored opponents.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I have one interesting observation about two handed swords from Serbia - few of them have narrow, needle like points. To me, that suggests that they were mostly used like big swords ought to be used - for cutting down swaths of lightly armored or unarmored opponents.

Weren't the longswords (one-and-half handed) developed because the development of armour required a leverage to puncture it (and yes, they needed a sharp point to concentrate energy)?
I mean: for cutting lightly armoured opponents you don't need such a big sword, what follows: the use in Serbia was not as "ought to be" ;-)

[Rad]

For the most part, swords aren't made to be used against opponents that are wearing metal armor. Some swords of the era do have features (narrow points, for example) that help them make their way through mail, but still, it's not what they were primarily intended for - with the exception of the estoc type sword. If you know that you'll be fighting someone in metal armor, you bring a mace, a warhammer, a pollaxe etc.

I would disagree that you don't need a big sword for cutting lightly armored opponents, if by lightly armored you mean textile armor. From what I've seen, textile armor is surprisingly resistant to cuts. The extra force brought by using both hands helps increase the chances that the cut will go through.

[jurcek1987]

A 2 handed sword unit sounds very interesting. But I'll need info on the unit itself to create it

[Rad]

If there is will to make the unit, I will help.

[Hrobatos]

While this sword indeed can be used as 2 handed, all of our schiavonesca armed units use shields and are mostly mounted. We use polearms for 2H units.

That means that 2 questions need to be answered. First thus sword was also popular in Croatia, Ragusa, Bosnia, Hungary, Venice etc so they too could use such unit, and secondly if there are any sources abour dedicated troops of footmen armed with 2 handed swords.

But I think it could be possible to include rare schiavonesca armed 2h unit and have it shared among several West Balkan factions

It depends if such unit is needed, and if any slots are available

[jurcek1987]

Yes we do have slots available. There's no point in adding units just for the sake of it but a unit such as this would be a useful and unique addition imo

[Rad]

Mgr Marko Aleksić's "Medieval Swords from Southeastern Europe. Material from 12th to 15th Century" is your go-to book. It has detailed info about typology, chronology, ornamentation etc. It also has a nice catalogue of over 400 swords from the region.

These are the photos I took from 4 museums. They barely scratch the surface.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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This is the local variety, the so called "Schiavonesca". The oldest found examples are dated to the late 14th century. It's characterized by an S-shaped crossguard. Over time, the design spread across the region, most likely helped by Serbian migrations to the north and west.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This lovely example is held in the National museum of Pančevo.

The swords I posted are two handed swords - unless the users had really, really big hands, heh.

However, there are indeed one handed swords with the characteristic S-shaped guard. However, however - from what I've seen, they're rarer in comparison to the two handed version.

Is the mod devoid of two-handed sword units? If so, why? Two handed swords were in full swing (forgive the pun) in the second half of the 14th century and throught the 15th century.

Concerning written records, I think that some swords were sent as diplomatic gifts to the Mameluks by one of the Serbian kings... gotta check that one, though. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me remember texts about their use in combat. There's a simple explanation for that - contemporary authors loved cavalry. It's almost all they wrote about concerning war. It's Serbian lancers did this, Serbian lancers did that... What we do have is archeology, and it has yielded a lot. I think I have almost as many images of two handed sword as I have of spears. They also appear in art, which surprised me.

Concerning the use of two handed swords in the Balkans outside of Serbia, I can't say much because I haven't done much research yet.

[jurcek1987]

We do have 2 handed sword units but they're rare: German bidenhander, Italian Doppisoldi longswordsmen, Dismounted Knights of the Grand Cross and Landsknecht doppelsoldner and that's it

[Hrobatos]

Here is a link to an academif article in Ehttps://www.scribd.com/document/200852030/Arma-Aleksicnglish about Schiavonesca swords

[Rad]

HAH! That's the author of the book I mentioned!
He also wrote a great article about military reforms of Tsar Dušan.

As you can read from the article, the author distinguishes two groups of Schiavonesca:
1. Schiavonesca types 1 and 1a - two handed swords, earliest examples are from the late 14th century. Mostly found in northern Serbia and Hungary.
2. Schiavonesca type 2 - one handed swords, earliest examples are from the second half of the 15th century. Mostly found in Venice. Precursors of the later schiavona.

[Hrobatos]

There are more articles but this is what google search showed me in English. I had more articles back in 2014 and 2013 when we were making Bosnian and Ragusan soldiers

[Rad]

Mgr Aleksić is the leading man in that subject, and in other subjects as well. You really should read his articles. He is continuing the work of other great scholars.

[Hrobatos]

Like it is said the text, earliest written mention is late 14th century Dubrovnik. Name most likely originates from Venice. Spada Schiavonesca is Slavonic sword, and Venetians called entire West Balkans Sclavonia. Depending on the source Sclavonia can be either Croatia or Slavonia, Bosnia, Serbia or all of them together.
All of these populations spoke same language so its no wonder that to foreigners it was hard to tell who is who.

From archeological viewpoint it does appear that earliest swords come from Serbia and then became also popular in Hungary, Bosnia, Croatia and Venice. Venetian Schiavoni Guards which came from Dalmatia used these swords so that is likely origin of the name.
S shaped guard is said to be useful particulary against for blocking sabres but also form of bastard sword csn be used to penetrate weak spots in plate armor.

We alrery have this type of sword in game and manny Ragusan, Bosnian and Croatian units use it as one handed weapon.

[Rad]

Here is a quote from the article you linked

The swords which were recorded in the Italian sources as spadeschi-avonesche and schiavone got their names after the Slavs from the eastern coast of the Adriatic that used such weapons in the Venetian military ser-vice (Franzoi 1990, p. 29). But in the medieval Dubrovnik term Sclavonia possessed an even more specific meaning. Through all Middle Ages it re-ferred to the medieval Serbian state and Serbian rulers and people. In the Dubrovnik archive there is a clear distinction, for example, between the historical and also modern region of Slavonia in the south Hungary, pre-sent-day northern Croatia that was called Slovigna, Slovinia and the term Sclavonia meaning the territory of Serbia (Динић 1966, pp. 27–28). Among many other, an illustrative contract between Dubrovnik and Italian town Ancona from 1292 can be given as an example. A part of east Adriatic coast which correspond to Serbian part of coast was named there as Sclavonia (ibidem). This name was used in Dubrovnik for Serbian medieval state un-til its very end (in 1459).Therefore it can be concluded that the oldest known record of the term spada schiavonesca is from Dubrovnik archive and that its initial meaning was indicating the medieval Serbia (Petrović 1976, p. 25). This interpre-tation of historical data corresponds to the distribution pattern of sword finds which typologically and chronologically could only correspond to the mentioned type of swords. As we already pointed out, distribution pattern of Schiavonesca 1a group clearly indicates the territory of medieval Ser-bia and it is also geographically the closest group of such finds to the loca-tion of Dubrovnik. The connections between Dubrovnik and Venice were very strong during the entire medieval period, so the term spada schiavo-nesca could have easily been transferred from one town to another. How-ever, we can’t be sure whether the meaning of this term in Venice in the second half of the 15th c. was used to denominate all Dalmatian Slavs or in a more precise manner, like in the 14th c. Dubrovnik. Actually there is much evidence that at the time of production of Venetian fashioned spade schi-vonesche (Schiavonesca 2 swords) in the second half of the 15th c. the term Sclavonia was used in Venice to refer to all Slavs from Dalmatia and its hin-terland. This terminological imprecision or confusing the Croats, Serbs or other Slav people in Venice in late the 15th c. and later does not have an im-portant significance for the schiavonesche swords. We can assume that in practice these types of swords were used by all Slavs from Dalmatia, re-gardless of nationality or religious affiliation.

Ragusans used the terms "Sclavonia", "Sclavus" and their epithets to specifically denote Serbia, Serbian rulers, Serbs, Serbian products etc. The term does not originally comes from Venice, it comes from Ragusa/Dubrovnik. The Venetians adopted it and mostly likely used it to denote all Slavs from the Adriatic in general, not just Serbs.

Because the 1391 document-will is from Ragusa/Dubrovnik, the item "de le doe spade Schiavonesche" that appears in it translates to "two Serbian swords".

We alrery have this type of sword in game and manny Ragusan, Bosnian and Croatian units use it as one handed weapon.

Sorry, I don't know what you're trying to say here. You say that the later, one handed version is represented in the game? That's good and I am happy for it, but what relation does that have with the earlier two handed version and all the other types of two handed sword that were used in Serbia in the 14th and 15th centuries? At the moment, they're not represented at all.

[Wallachian]

There was an old discussion about two-handed swords about 12 years ago. Phoenix had discussed the possibility of two-handed swords existing in parts of medieval Serbia and Bosnia.

There was a discussion of whether to give Serbia a two-handed sword unit but it was felt at the time that it would have been a bit unrealistic to have such a unit because there would not have been whole squads of Serbians wielding two-handed swords.

"Active weapons were swords, spears, swords, beating, sticks, bats, partisans, mace, battle-axe, bow and arrow dart.
There are two basic types of swords that have suffered time and practice certain adjustments. The first kind are long heavy swords that were used with both hands. The other species are thin and small swords that are used with one hand and suitable for close combat.

From the initial brief and broad, contest and dozens have corrected it in all the long and thin, sharpened on both sides and adapted more for picking than slashing.In time of Nemanjic a long heavy swords were used , great swords, which were kept with both hands at the end of the apple sword handle sword served not to drop and not to slip out of hand."

"Two-handed swords were widespread in almost all of Europe and therefore to us. In fact, most of the archaeological finds of medieval swords from our area have just been a knight swords, which were held with two hands. In Serbia, the time came and foreign mercenaries, such as detachment of 500 cavalry under the leadership of German knights Palman. This German nobleman came to Serbia 1331, where he and his warriors faithfully served the Emperor Dusan until his death 1355. Just a year after Knight Palman entered the service of King Dusan in Prizren its capital came from Dubrovnik Macar (sword-craftsmen) Martolo with his son. The fact that in Serbia Macar came by to talk as he knew that forging a different, better swords than domestic Macari, dvoručnjake be exactly as they brought the German mercenaries. It is known that mercenaries from Spain, Italy and other countries came to fight for the Serbian rulers and even the time of Dusan's grandfather, King Milutin, but two-handed swords then were not yet widespread in southern Europe. Among the archaeological findings from our area there are plenty of swords on which there is a sign of a wolf, the German sword-craftsmen from the city Pasaule. It tells us that, in addition to domestic production, bringing swords to Serbia from these, the best of sword-craftsmen's workshops."

Two handed sword from Bijeljina


sign of wolf on the sword


"we have people, the light crown, and ten times more soldiers, but weapons and military equipment is not enough, and it is expensive. It should be assault weapons: spears, swords, maces, bows and arrows. Should be great for beating swords, with two hands..."

sry for some grammatical mistakes. i used google translate, i was too lazy to translate myself

If we ever do a two-handed sword unit it would have to be shared by Serbia, Bosnia, Ragusa and Croatia because we have very few slots left and it would not be worth using a unit slot for a single faction.

[Rad]

I've seen more extant two handed swords than one handed swords in the museums I visited, have pictures from or virtual access to.
Out of 70 swords from Serbia and Montenegro that Aleksic lists in his catalogue, 47 have the dimensions of two handed swords. They are far more well researched and documented than one handed swords are - which is a pity, because there is also a nice local variety of late medieval arming sword, with characteristics different from Schiavonesca type swords. We have more available data on two handed swords than about native Serbian horse archers and the mod has two native Serbian horse archer units in addition to the horse archer mercenaries that were present in Serbian armies

[PavleSubich]

i cant imagine it to be an unit weapon more like an individual thing:
Except later in the pike and shot era it vas used in units for anticav charge!