What is a guard and everything about it

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Worshiping a weapon, raising it to the rank of a god and a wizard at the same time, knighting, passing a couple under lowered swords at marriage - all this is the medieval understanding of the sword as a symbol of honor and glory. Swords then had their own names and were used only for their intended purpose. Cults and rituals of weapons, both before and now, are characteristic of the most diverse peoples who inhabited all continents from antiquity to the invention of firearms. For many centuries, swords, sabers, swords, knives, etc. dominated the Earth.

Garda - part of blade cold weapons

The emergence of the element goes back centuries. In ancient Rome, swords already had a modern form, and those who wielded them knew what a guard was. Gunsmiths tried to forge it in various shapes. The decoration of swords began with the hilt: guards and pommel with a head.

What is a guard? Each bladed weapon consists of the actual blade and hilt. And the division between them, protecting the hand from the enemy's blade, and then from getting blood on the hand, was the guard. This is a metal convex shield on the handle of a bladed weapon such as a sword or a bow on a saber handle. Garda (in Frenchgarde literally means "protection". At first, it was performed simply in the form of a flat bar between the blade and the handle, then in the form of a small disk. From the 16th century, they began to be made already round and convex, then they begin to cover the hand in whole or in part. The guard can expand at the point of descent of the handle with the blade or branch: in two for a broadsword or in three for a saber.

Further, the look and decor of the element changed endlessly, acquiring the most bizarre forms.

Typology guard

The guard together with the pommel (the end of the hilt) makes up the hilt of a bladed weapon. The latter can be open, when the fingers of the hand are protected only by a cross (protecting the hand from slipping onto the blade) or closed. In a closed hilt, one or more arches connect the pommel to the base of the handle for the safety of the fingers. If the arms are less than the length of the handle, the hilt is called half-open. Closed or semi-open, it is called complex or developed.

The developed hilt of edged weapons includes a guard, pommel with a rounded end (called a "head" or "apple"). The head also serves as a counterweight, improves overall balance (it is usually made of a heavy metal such as lead), and also keeps the hand from slipping when the weapon is “pulled out” by centrifugal force. Gemstones were sometimes inserted into the "apples". And what is a guard, then, if not an ornament? In form, these elements are very diverse: from the crosshairs, petal and beak to the basket (at the broadsword) or evenharder for pappenheimer and schiavone.

Guards are used for both long-bladed weapons and daggers and knives. Only special knives, for example throwing ones, do not have it.

Hardguards as works of art

Many famous museums of the world can boast of magnificent collections of edged weapons. These are the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin, and the expositions of the Louvre (France), and the Metropolitan Museum (USA), as well as the Tokyo National Museum, the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai (India), the Royal Museum in Toronto (Canada) and many more. Almost all of these collections of weapons demonstrate how diverse the forms and decor of the guards, as well as the handles and scabbards of various blades, can be.

Melee weapons today

Such blades today adorn not only museums, but also private collections. Every self-respecting hunter, at the first financial opportunity, will acquire the best and most expensive weapons, and his male children and grandchildren will try to replenish the collection with not reliable exhibits, but beautiful ones. Collections can be placed on the wall, they can occupy entire rooms. You can hang a carpet on the wall, and crossed swords or sabers on it. The weapon becomes a toy for grown men. What is garda today? Fashion toy decoration for men.

A little about the name

As you call a ship, so it will float, says the saying. If Garda LLC has a name associated with weapons, then in the end they will win! Surely a security company with the name "Garda" will have positive reviews! However, the swordand other melee weapons, like everything connected with it, are a mysterious, symbolic and dangerous thing. That's why good housewives hide their knives at night.