"Holding the sword in this manner practically transforms it into a very heavy dagger, or a very short spear."
So notes the commentary on Fiore dei Liberi's sword-in-armour section, describing what happens when a fencer moves one hand from the grip onto the blade itself. The longsword changes nature. What was a long cutting and thrusting weapon becomes, suddenly, a shorter but more precise armour-piercing tool.
This is half-swording. One of the more distinctive techniques in Fiore's system, and one that tells you something important about how the master thought about weapons. The tool is not fixed. The tool is whatever your grip makes of it.
What Half-Swording Actually Is
In a standard two-handed grip, both of your hands are on the sword's grip, separated by a small gap. The weapon extends forward from your hands with its full length available for cutting or thrusting at a distance.
In half-swording, one hand (usually the forward hand, though it depends on the play) moves from the grip onto the blade itself, usually somewhere around the middle of the sword. Your forward hand is now gripping the flat of the blade with either a closed fist or an open palm, and your rear hand is still on the grip. The sword is now held like a short spear, with the crossguard acting as one lateral handle and the blade itself as the other.
This transforms three things:
The effective length. Your point is now much closer to your lead hand. The weapon is shorter in reach but more controllable up close.
The precision. Your grip on the blade gives you exceptional pointing control. You can guide the tip with small finger adjustments in a way two-handed hilt work does not allow.
The force vector. The sword is now a thrust-focused weapon. Cuts are poor in this grip (you would be cutting toward your own hand), but thrusts are devastating, because your whole body can drive behind a point you are literally aiming with your hands.
Why the Blade Is Safe to Hold
The obvious question for anyone new to half-swording is: is grabbing the blade of a sword not, you know, a terrible idea?
The answer has several parts.
Medieval longswords were sharp at the forward portion of the blade, often progressively duller toward the hilt. The foible (the forward third of the blade, where cuts happen) was honed to an edge. The strong (the rear third, closer to the hilt) was often left duller, specifically because fencers sometimes held the blade there. A well-made medieval longsword was designed with half-swording in mind.
In armoured combat, you wear gloves. A knight in armour has gauntlets or mail-reinforced gloves. Gripping a sword blade through reinforced gloves is a completely different act from gripping it with bare hands.
The grip is specific. You hold the blade firmly, with fingers wrapped around the flat. You do not slide your hand on the edge. Done correctly, half-swording does not cut the hand even on a sharp blade, though modern HEMA practitioners almost always train it with dulled training weapons and gloves regardless.
In training with feders (flexible training swords), the forward half of the blade is deliberately unsharp and often has a flat cross-section specifically to allow safe half-swording practice.
Where Half-Swording Appears in Fiore's Manuscript
Fiore teaches half-swording primarily in two sections.
Sword in armour. When two armoured knights face each other with longswords, the sword transforms. Cuts are useless against plate. Thrusts need to find gaps in the armour. Half-swording gives you the precise pointing control required to drive the tip into the vision slit of a helmet, the armpit gap, the gap at the inner elbow, or the hollow at the back of the knee. The half-swording thrust from a guard like Posta Breve la Serpentina or Posta di Vera Croce is one of the most important techniques in the armoured section.
Mordschlag ("murder-stroke"). Closely related to half-swording is the inverted grip where you hold the blade in both hands and swing the crossguard and pommel like the head of a hammer. Technically different from half-swording (which keeps one hand on the grip), but the underlying principle is the same: the sword is not fixed in function, and can become what the situation requires. We have a full post on half-sword and mordschlag together for more on the inverted grip specifically.
Certain narrow-play scenarios. Half-swording also appears occasionally in zogho stretto, the close-range play, where a fencer deliberately shortens their reach to thrust with more precision into a bound opponent.
The Principles Underneath
Why does Fiore teach half-swording at all? Three underlying principles make sense of it.
Thrusts beat armour better than cuts. In armoured combat, the entire logic flips from unarmoured duelling. Broad cutting edges glance off plate; narrow piercing points find gaps. Fiore's armoured sword plays are almost all thrust-focused, and half-swording is the grip that makes thrusts most accurate.
A sword is whatever you make of it. The two-handed grip at the hilt is one configuration of the weapon. Half-swording is another. Inverted mordschlag is a third. Fiore teaches you that the tool is defined by your grip and the context, not by a fixed "correct" way to hold it. This is a deep lesson that generalises across all of his art.
Short range demands short weapons. When an armoured fight closes to grappling distance, a full-length longsword is clumsy. Half-swording effectively shortens the weapon to about half its length, making it usable at close range where the long two-handed grip would be awkward.
Half-Swording for the Modern Practitioner
If you train Fiore today, half-swording is usually introduced after you have secure two-handed longsword fundamentals. There is no point trying to learn the half-sword grip until you understand the standard grip, because half-swording is essentially a modification of the thrust and the thrust needs to be solid first.
At HEMA Penzance we return to half-swording when working Fiore's armoured material. As we have written about in the pollaxe post, the armoured sword and the pollaxe are very closely related, and half-swording is one of the grips that makes that relationship physical. A longsword in a half-sword grip behaves, mechanically, a lot like a short pollaxe.
Training half-swording also teaches you something about your hands. Most modern people have surprisingly little tactile confidence with blades held anywhere other than a grip. Learning to hold the forward blade securely, without flinching, reading the weapon's weight through your palm, is a genuine addition to your fencing capability. It changes how you think about the sword.
A Note on Safety
If you are new to HEMA and reading this post because you want to try half-swording, please wait until you are drilling with an instructor. Sharp swords and inexperienced half-swording can genuinely injure hands. Feders and gloved drilling in a club environment are safe; ad-hoc attempts at home are not.
When your time comes, the technique is straightforward and rewarding. Until then, the guards and the cuts will give you plenty of work.
Come and Learn
We practise Fiore's complete system, half-swording included when we work the armoured material, every Tuesday evening at Penzance Leisure Centre, 7pm to 9pm. Your first lesson is free, all equipment is provided, and no experience is necessary. Come along and see for yourself.
Fiore's words in this article are from the Getty manuscript translations at Fight Like Fiore.