A funny thing happened when I started researching the weapon for last week’s blog post, that is, the arming sword. I, like many other novices in the medieval arena, thought the usual sword carried by knights was called a broadsword.

Well, after hanging out with some knights and writing my first book, I thought that I had learned a thing or two about weapons. How did I miss something as important as that?

None of my research materials name the sword as arming or broad. My guess is that perhaps “broadsword” became part of the medieval nomenclature due to the blossoming world of video games, but in reality, it’s a misnomer when used as a general term for any sword with a wide blade.

The term ‘broadsword’ actually refers to a distinct sword of the 1600-1700s, with a basket-hilt, such as the weapon pictured in this blog post.

This is a much later time period than my book, so imagine my horror that I armed my knights with the wrong swords.

No harm, no foul. Not yet anyway.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some editing to do.