At a certain point in the development of social hierarchy, someone else carried your sword from place-to-place, and handed it to you when you wanted it: the squire. If it was awkward or labor-intensive for the squire, well, that’s “character building.”
The first movie I can remember noticing back-carried swords was Conan the Barbarian, in which, iirc, the leather strap that went over your shoulder like a baldric could be (and was) slid down off the shoulder and pulled tighter to convert it from a back scabbard to a waist scabbard. That doesn’t sound historical, but it was cool-looking as hell, especially as a gesture of resolve (like the incessant cocking of handguns to punctuate speechifying in modern movies).
FWIW, I carried my rifle on my back. Lots of people did. There were just so many things wrong with carrying it on your hip. For one, it’s too long. It hits the groung. Two, it bangs into your kneecaps when it bounces around while you walk. Three, you had to drape your arm over it awkwardly. Then there’s doorways.
For battle, I wouldn’t carry my weapon on my back. For travel, though? It’s the only way to go.
You may be on to something there! I was thinking it would be one particular movie or TV show that really “kicked off” the back-carry depiction, and “Conan the Barbarian” is a very likely contender. Thanks!
I’m sure the extended ricasso was convenient for that purpose, but I doubt that that’s why it was there. Almost certainly it’s purpose was to allow for a more comfortable half-sword grip.
Not sure if it was Conan (which was first, IIRC) or the rash of “Ninja” films of the '80s that made it popular. But “gripping the sword on the back” is a classic film ninja pose.
On the US Army M-1910 backpack, the M-1905 bayonet was attached like the sword the OP describes. The blade alone was 16", and the tip of the scabard was attached to the pack by a loop, so it was almost impossible to draw, let alone sheath.
I’ve carried a gladius (not to be confused with the longer spatha) all day on my hip and while I won’t say it was trivial I will say it wasn’t a big deal. (I did have to be careful when I sat down, but that was still easier then sitting down with a full size sword.) I carried it the way it was carried back in the day; on the right hip[SUP]1[/SUP] with the baldric under the belt around my waist. Drawing it was easy because it was short.
I can imagine a two-handed Claymore[sup]2[/sup] being carried in a scabbard worn on the back, but only for purposes of freeing up the wearer’s hands. It certainly couldn’t have been drawn by the wearer. (At least not with any scabbard that I could document from a period “illustration.”) That being said, I can imagine that drawing it would have been done by either:
[ol]
[li]taking the scabbard off before the battle, drawing the Claymore and dumping the scabbard to be collected at the end of the battle. [/li]
[li]bending over and having a buddy draw it for you.[/li][/ol]
Neither of which is anything like a quick draw. (I was in a re-enactment group and we used to experiment with this kind of thing all the time. Experiential archeology so to speak.)
I can’t imagine carrying a Zweihänder on my back. The damned things were typically much bigger than the two-handed Claymore.
1 “The baldric passed over the left shoulder and underneath the soldier’s belt, enabling the soldier to quickly draw the weapon from the right side (a move once thought difficult or unlikely, but proven by Roman reenactment to be quite easily managed).”
2 I never liked the two-handed Claymore because the handle was round and therefore there was no way to feel which way the edge was facing. Exactly the same as trying to feel if the label on a wooden baseball bat was up.
Magic is one thing, since it is part of the game. But fighters routinely draw their broadswords from scabbards on their backs, and he found this was not possible with a sword of that length and with a scabbard as one normally considers a scabbard. I never played with him, but ISTM that adding a bit of realism adds something to the game.
A famous Japanese warrior named Miyamoto Musashi fought the climactic battle of his life on an island against another legendary warrior Sasaki Kojiro. One advantage in battle that Sasaki had was a very long sword. In all the movie depictions of this warrior that I have seen, he always carried this sword on his back. But he didn’t draw it from there. He generally knew when he was going to fight, at which time he took the scabbard off his back, drew the sword and tossed the scabbard aside.
Musashi defeated him by using an even longer weapon, by the way. Which goes to prove that there’s always some guy with a bigger weapon than yours.
Roddy
A rifle is much heavier than a sword. Even the M-16 and its variants, which are very light rifles, are several times heavier than a typical sword. A fully loaded M-16A4 weighs about nine pounds, and again, it’s one of the lightest primary infantry rifles ever designed; an FN or AK-47 would be several pounds heavier when loaded. A fairly heavy sword would weigh three or four; the very biggest swords, like claymores, maybe five.
I haven’t pulled it out in quite a long time, and the damp environment up here has caused a little surface rust on the crosspiece. I’ll attend to that shortly.
Landsknechts, Samurai, etc. There are several examples give in the thread.
Johnny L.A.- I don;t get it, why would your DM even *care *where the sword is carried? Unless the fanboy player was insisting that a back carry gave him a extra fast draw or something.
As I said, I’d never played with him. The reasoning, AIUI, is this: When a party is attacked, the fighters often have their swords slung on their backs. They respond to the attack by reaching back and drawing their swords. Speed counts in a fight, and before his experiment players would simply draw their swords and fight the enemy. After the experiment, the DM imposed a penalty so that the weapon could not be used as quickly as it could be if it had been carried in the hand.
Think of it this way: Suppose you’re playing a first-person shooter game. If you want to use a different weapon from the one you’re carrying, you need to change weapons. While you’re changing weapons, the enemy can attack you. It might only take a second, but a second is enough to kill you. Ruling that a sword could not be drawn from the back makes the players think a little more about their situation.