A thought on the use of the Rondel

A thought about the use of the Rondel

The Rondel Dagger was a late medieval style of weapon, which appears to have been primarily designed for stabbing. Some of them did sport cutting edges, but the characteristic features that make a rondel a rondel appear to be;

a) a long, strong blade with a wicked point
b) a substantial cross section (suggesting this strength was needed for piercing armour)
c) rounded guard, and a rounded flattened pommel (which may have been used to transmit more force into an attack)

Below, the Rondel (centre) is displayed alongside a Bollock or Ballock Dagger (left, proving our ancestors were every bit as immature as we are) and a sword hilt dagger (right)

“ReproMedievalDaggers” by Gammaflightleader – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

It appears that the Rondel was mostly used in a point down, or “ice-pick” grip. Although the point up grip appears in treatises the ice pick approach is by far the most prevalent. Some people have suggested that this is because of the nature of the rondel as an armour piercing blade means one has to wield it with power rather than dexterity, others have gone further and suggested that it was almost exclusively a military tool. I wonder how accurate this assessment can be.

When we train knife defenses in Jiu-Jitsu, we think ourselves lucky if a person elects to attack with the psycho stab, because it is easier to deal with and wrestle with that opponent than one who wields his blade like a baratero. The standard defense against such an attack is to sharply apply an ude-garami and either disarm one’s opponent or break his arm. This was idle speculation until I came across this video, by Hans Jorlind, which appears to illustrate the point well. Using HEMA to defend against a Rondel these practitioners exhibit similar discomfiture to that which I have seen in Jiu-Jitsu – namely that the downward stab is significantly easier to defend against than the straight stab (the only straight stab in the video is at 57 seconds, and in my opinion it looks by far the weakest defence).

This leads me to wonder whether the Rondel, which is definitely suited to an ice-pick grip, was actually designed to be used in the way we think it was. The Treatises show two men dagger fighting and wrestling, but how accurate is that really?

Back when real men dagger duelled in codpieces and flippers, apparently.                                                                                                     “De Fechtbuch Talhoffer 169″ by Hans Talhoffer – Scan by Bavarian State Library, processed by McLeod. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

I mean, modern martial arts manuals show us pictures of two karate people fighting each other, two Judoka throwing each other, two fencers crossing foils etc. yet most actual fighting that happens is in unequal situations. We accept that what is being shown in manuals is a set of drills and training exercises designed to build the skillset of students in a particular area, and that this may or may not be practically useful at a later date. Because these students all go to the same class to learn the same thing they are all shown as having the same equipment, but we understand that outside the dojo or training hall the odds will be stacked against the defender. The surviving manuals can only ever give us limited context for the skills they can instruct us to practise, and it is the job of the historian to expand and make sense of that context.

This leads me to the real crux of my argument; if we accept that the ice-pick grip is the one the Rondel is best suited to, but that in an actual combat scenario it is easier to fend off, is it possible that the Rondel was primarily used for surprise?

It is possible to see it being drawn as a Roman soldier would draw his Gladius, the blade is certainly short enough, and this would allow the attacker to enter in a rush – giving him a substantially better chance of overwhelming his opponent before any countermeasures could be put into effect. Certainly drawing it while on the move presents a much smaller opening than the attacks we saw in the videos linked above. What I am unsure about is how this would work in armour. A full on rush would certainly work in a civilian environment and, combined with surprise, be quite overwhelming. If I was in full 15th century plate armour, though, and found myself without a sword or a pollaxe, I don’t think I would bother with the Rondel at first; I would much rather wrestle and throw an opponent and only then draw the Rondel as a coup de grace.