There is a reason that, when most people hear the phrase HEMA, a longsword is the first weapon they picture. Historical European Martial Arts covers many traditions, many weapons, and many centuries, but the longsword is the emblem of the whole movement. It is the weapon of the most famous medieval masters. It is the weapon that dominates HEMA tournaments. It is the weapon every practitioner ends up holding, even if they came in looking for something else.
This post is for anyone asking the question what is a HEMA longsword, and why does it matter so much? The short answer: because it is the single weapon that most completely carries the intellectual and physical heart of the whole discipline. The longer answer follows.
What a HEMA Longsword Actually Is
The word longsword gets misused a lot. In popular fantasy, it means any sword longer than your arm. In HEMA, it means something specific.
A HEMA longsword is a two-handed straight sword, with a blade of roughly 80 to 110 centimetres and a grip long enough for both hands. Total length usually sits between 110 and 140 centimetres. Weight is typically 1.3 to 1.8 kilograms (see our post on real longsword weight for more on this). The crossguard is straight, the pommel is counterweighted, and the blade has two edges and a sharp (or, in training, flared) point.
This is the weapon the late-medieval manuscripts are teaching. The Italian masters call it spada a due mani (sword in two hands) or spada longa (long sword). The German masters call it Langes Schwert. The weapon is the same. Only the language changes.
What a HEMA longsword is not: a katana (different culture, different mechanics), a rapier (a later, thrusting-focused Italian sword), an arming sword (single-handed), a claymore or zweihänder (larger two-handers with different roles), or a wall-hanger decorative sword. When HEMA people talk about "longsword," they mean the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century weapon in the manuscripts, or the modern training versions (nylon synthetics, steel feders) that simulate it safely.
Why It Sits at the Heart of HEMA
The longsword is not the only weapon in HEMA. Fiore dei Liberi's armizare covers grappling, dagger, one-handed sword, pollaxe, spear, and horseback combat. The German Liechtenauer tradition covers messer, dussack, sword and buckler, grappling, and armoured fighting. The Bolognese tradition covers rapier, sidesword, sword and buckler, and two-handed sword.
But in both major traditions, the longsword is the teaching weapon. Here is why.
The longsword trains everything. Footwork, measure, timing, structure, leverage, the relationship between cut and thrust, the binding of blades, the closing into grappling: all of it lives inside the longsword section of any major medieval manuscript. Every other weapon either extends these principles (the pollaxe applies longsword logic with more mass) or restricts them (the dagger applies longsword logic at closer range with less reach). Learn the longsword, and you have the core grammar. Learn the other weapons, and you are applying that grammar to new instruments.
The sources are the richest. Fiore's Fior di Battaglia gives more space to the two-handed sword than to any other weapon. The Liechtenauer Zettel is almost entirely about the longsword. The surviving plates, commentaries, and glosses across six centuries of European fencing scholarship have concentrated on longsword work because the longsword was the prestige weapon of the medieval duelling class. When you train HEMA longsword today, you have more documented material to work with than for any other weapon.
The community is the largest. HEMA tournaments worldwide run longsword brackets that dwarf every other category. International events at Swordfish, Longpoint, and HEMA competitions across Europe and North America fill halls with longsword competitors. If you want training partners, written resources, video breakdowns, and fellow travellers, longsword gives you by far the widest community.
The weapon itself is beautiful. Hold a well-made longsword and you feel something particular. The balance is forward, but not heavy. The grip invites both hands with room to slide. The blade threatens in both directions and resolves into both directions. Every other medieval European weapon feels like a specialisation. The longsword feels like the default, the weapon a knight would reach for if he could carry only one.
What Training HEMA Longsword Actually Feels Like
Walk into a HEMA class anywhere in the world, and a typical beginner evening with the longsword looks something like this.
You warm up, usually with footwork drills. The Fiore practitioner practises the passing step (one foot passes the other, like a walk); the Liechtenauer practitioner works the same step under different names. You learn to move forward, backward, and off the line while maintaining balance.
You learn a guard. At HEMA Penzance, this is usually Posta di Donna, the Lady's Guard, because she is the most powerful offensive position in Fiore's system and the one beginners most easily find in their bodies. A Liechtenauer club would teach you vom Tag, the "from-the-day" guard, which is essentially the same body position under a German name. You hold the sword over your shoulder. You feel the chambered weight. You start to understand what ready feels like.
You learn a cut. The fendente, the descending diagonal, is usually first. You drive the sword down from your shoulder through a controlled arc, stopping at the point where the blade would end an imagined opponent. You repeat it. You repeat it again. Each time, you notice something new: the feet driving the hips, the hips driving the shoulders, the shoulders driving the arms, the arms driving the blade. The power does not come from the arms. It comes from the ground.
You pair up. You and your partner take turns attacking and defending. The instructor walks around correcting small things. You are surprised how precise the adjustments are: a rotation of the back foot, a small change in grip, the angle of your head. Each tiny correction makes the technique work a little better. You leave with one clean play that you did not have when you walked in.
Multiply that experience by a year, and you have a longsword fencer.
The Learning Curve
Most HEMA beginners find that the longsword reveals itself in waves.
Month one is the vocabulary. Guards, cuts, basic footwork. You learn the names, the shapes, and the one or two techniques your club is working on that week. Your shoulders ache. You drop the sword twice. You love it.
Month three is the recognition. You start to see the guards other people are standing in. You begin to feel when a cut is arriving. You stop being surprised by your own sword. The vocabulary is starting to feel like language.
Month six is the flow. Techniques start linking together. A cover rolls into a counter-cut without you thinking about it. You begin to understand measure: the distance between two fighters and what it allows. You look back at your first month and cannot believe you knew so little.
Year one is the sparring foundation. You have the kit, you have the drilled vocabulary, and you start testing everything against real opponents in controlled freeplay. This is the phase that most changes your relationship to the art. Every theory meets the practical test of an intelligent opponent.
Year three and beyond is the long, satisfying depth. There is no ceiling to longsword study. Fiore himself said after forty years he was still not a perfected master. Every layer you learn reveals another layer beneath it. Beginners worry that HEMA will eventually get boring. No experienced practitioner has ever reported finding a bottom.
HEMA Longsword in the UK
If you are a UK reader, HEMA longsword training is closer than you think. Most major cities have one or more clubs. In Cornwall specifically, HEMA Penzance teaches the Fiore dei Liberi tradition, and Cornish Sword Kledha Kernewek in Camborne teaches a broader HEMA curriculum. The HEMA Alliance club finder maps the wider scene.
UK tournaments run throughout the year. The Wessex Open, Fightcamp, Albion, and various regional opens all feature strong longsword brackets. If you want to see elite HEMA longsword up close, any of these events will welcome spectators and are full of friendly fencers happy to explain what you are watching.
Why Fiore's Longsword Specifically
At HEMA Penzance, we study Fiore dei Liberi's longsword system specifically. There are good reasons to choose this tradition from among the HEMA options:
The integration. Fiore's longsword is part of his complete armizare system, rooted in grappling and extending through dagger, pollaxe, and mounted combat. When you train Fiore's longsword, you are training a weapon that knows it is one voice in a larger art.
The voice. Fiore's own words survive in his manuscript, unlike the Liechtenauer tradition which survives only through later interpreters. Reading Fiore is reading a medieval master speaking directly to you. We have collected some of his most striking passages.
The beauty of the guards. The twelve guards each have their own voice and character. Posta di Donna, the Lady's Guard. The Iron Door. The Long Guard. The Boar's Tooth. Each one teaches a different lesson. Together they form a vocabulary deep enough to fill a lifetime of training.
The seven blows. Two descending diagonals, two rising diagonals, two horizontals, and the thrust. Seven lines of attack cover every blow you will ever make. Simple, complete, elegant.
Come and Hold One
If you want to understand HEMA longsword, you really do have to hold one. Videos and articles are a decent introduction, but the sensation of a well-balanced training longsword in your hands is the thing that converts curiosity into commitment.
We train 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.