Practical Bastard Sword

The strong and fearless Swiss and Germans originally carried these early weapons, although bastard swords soon became popular in other regions such as the British Isles and Europe.
The term bastard undoubtedly comes from the fact that the sword, because of its design, has no legitimate claim to being classified as either a single-handed or a two-handed weapon. The one-and-a-half-handed sword was a weapon developed for the use of the foot soldier and had become quite common by the early 1500's.