>>11288692Rapiers did not "replace" swords that were around before. They developed from them and were their contemporaries. For the entirety of the 17th century, you'll see cavalry use swords that are often referred to as rapiers, due to their complex hilts, but which are essentially medieval arming swords. In civilian contexts it became popular to use rapiers that were very long and pointy, as it also became socially acceptable to wear them, but this changed in the 18th century, and suddenly people wore much shorter swords, from which later the foil developed. These small-swords - which essentially replaced rapiers - were not 'better' than rapiers however. The rapier is for all intents and purposes the better weapon. But it simply was not acceptable any more to wear these heavy, long blades. Or maybe the culture changed and made it less necessary and people grew tired of these long things hanging from their waists, knocking things over all the time. When it comes to battlefield use it should also be considered that warfare as a whole changed, so armour became less common, which would also affect the choice of weaponry. Weapons tend to optimise to their specific conditions, they are rarely "generally" superior.
