That’s a wonderful anecdote. I don’t remember that one. I wonder if it’s the “pre-industrial steel” or maybe Usamah had a wootz blade, or it’s just physics. I’ve seen modern steel blades snap more than once at HEMA tournaments. I’ve broken a few just at regular sparring practice.
I had transcribed several anecdotes from that amazing book and I thought I had them on my old website but this one up above was the only one I could find on there. I need to pull the book down and go through and transcribe a bunch more.
This other cluster of anecdotes about the ‘strangeness of the Franks’ that you linked is also quite good