Quote Originally Posted by Galloglaich View Post
With a really subtle weapon like a rapier, a beginner has almost no chance at all against even a half-trained opponent.
Note that George Silver argued exactly the opposite, even going as far as to claim that the untrained man had odds against a opponent schooled in the false Italian fashion. While this relates to his overall polemic against Italian fencing instructors, it shouldn't be completely discounted. Lots rapier duels in this era ended with each party thrusting home. Furthermore, the idea of bad training being worse than no training makes obvious sense.

On the other hand, Silver did expect masters to defend themselves perfectly against any and all comers. He proposed a quite robust qualification exam for fencing instructors. I think experts did achieve this level of skill in some cases, but I suspect the inexperienced combatant still poses a significant threat to most martial artists. I've done rather well in sparring against newbies myself and I'm barely mediocre with a sword, but I think sparring tends to heighten the differences in skill.

There are reasons why people with less training tended to be equipped with certain simpler to use weapons (or weapons for which a simple training regimen could be developed)
Nearly every idiot and their brother had a rapier in much of Europe during the Renaissance, so there's little reason to believe that rapiers require some special level of skill to use.