Estoc

The estoc is a long, straight-bladed sword with a stiff, usually triangular or diamond cross-section blade that carries little or no cutting edge, designed almost entirely for thrusting rather than slashing, and it emerged among European knights from roughly the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries specifically as a response to the spread of plate armor. Its rigid, narrow blade concentrated force into a small point capable of punching through mail or forcing its way into the gaps and joints of an armored opponent's harness, a role a broader cutting blade could not perform effectively against the same armor, and knights often carried it as a secondary weapon, worn alongside a saddle or a primary sword, to be drawn once an armored opponent had been unhorsed or closed within grappling range. Because of its length, the estoc was sometimes wielded two-handed like a short spear, gripping the blade itself with an armored hand in a technique historians call half-swording, the same close-quarters approach also used with weapons such as the longsword against armored opponents.