Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
There is some other factor at work there, because there are plenty of cities throughout history with armed populations that carry something else. But yeah, rapiers aren't replacing broadswords, they're replacing belt knives and cudgels.
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Mainly improvements in steel working, like the blast furnace, made blades with high length to width ratios possible. Note these also made full plate harness a possibility too, so gruudehn's thesis is almost entirely backwards.