The Broadsword
A term popularly misapplied as a generic synonym for medieval swords or any long, wide military blade. The now popular misnomer "broadsword" in reference to Medieval blades actually originated with collectors in the early 19th century -although many mistranslations and misinterpretations of Medieval literature during the 19th and 20th centuries have inserted the word broadsword in place of other terms. They described swords of earlier ages as being "broader" than their own contemporary thinner ones. Many 17th-19th century blades such as spadroons, cutlasses, and straight sabers are classed as broadswords as are other closed hilt military swords. The weapon known as the true broadsword is in fact a form of short cutlass. The term "broadsword" does not appear in English military texts from the 1570s - 1630s and noes not show up in inventories of sword types from the 1630's, and likely came into use sometime between 1619 and 1630. Descriptions of swords as "broad" before this time are only incidental and the word "broad" is used as an adjective in the same way "sharp" or "large" would be applied. Leading arms curators almost always list the broadsword specifically as a close-hilted military sword from the second half of the 17th century. Those cage and basket hilted blades used by cavalry starting in the 1640's were in form, "broadswords." During this time a gentleman's blade had become the slender small-sword, whereas the military used various cutting blades. Today, arms collectors, museum curators theatrical-fighters, and fantasy-gamers have made the word broadsword a common, albeit blatantly historically incorrect, term for the Medieval sword.
Great-Swords
Those blades long and weighty enough to demand a double grip are great-swords. They are infantry swords which cannot be used in a single-hand. Originally the term "great-sword" (gretsord,grete swerde, orgrant espée), only meant a war-sword (long-sword), but it has now more or less come to mean a sub-class of those larger long-swords/war-swords that are still not true two-handers. They were even known asGrete Swerdes of Warre or Grans Espees de Guerre. Although they are "two hand" swords, great-swords not are the specialized weapons of later two-handed swords. They are the swords that are antecedents to the even larger Renaissance versions. Great-swords are also the weapons often depicted in various German sword manuals. A Medieval great-sword might also be called a "twahandswerds" or "too honde swerd." Whereas other long-swords could be used on horseback and some even with shields, great swords however were infantry weapons only. Their blades might be flat and wide or later on, more narrow and hexagonal or diamond shaped. These larger swords capable of facing heavier weapons such as pole-arms and larger axes were devastating against lighter armors. Long, two-handed swords with narrower, flat hexagonal blades and thinner tips (such as the Italian "spadone") were a response to plate-armor. Against plate armor such rigid, narrow, and sharply pointed swords are not used in the same chop and cleave manner as with flatter, wider long-swords and great swords. Instead, they are handled with tighter movements that emphasize their thrusting points and allow for greater use of the hilt. Those of the earlier parallel-edged shape are known more as war-swords, while later the thicker, tapering, sharply pointed form were more often called bastard-swords. One type of long German sword, the "Rhenish Langenschwert," from the Rhenish city of Cologne, had a blade of some 4 feet and an enormous grip of some 14 to 16 inches long, not including the pommel.