14th century. These were the ancestors of those longer, lighter, narrower swords appearing in the early 16th century for street-fighting and duelling. Specialized thrusting swords with stiff heavy blades for puncturing the gaps in plate armor were also produced as early as the 14th century and versions continued to be used into the mid-17th. By the early 16th century, as armor use declined due to increasingly effective firearms while the need for individual close-combat skills decreased on the battlefield for similar reasons, there was an increased amount of civilian combat and duelling. Large crowded urban centers saw an increase in private armed fighting among all classes and a thrusting method of unarmed fencing suited to these encounters quickly developed. Under these conditions new lighter, longer, quick thrusting single-handswords, called rapiers and specifically intended for unarmored combat, gained advantage over more traditional military cut-and-thrust swords. They were soon adopted by the aristocracy as the dueling weapon of choice. During the 16th century, as this new "foyning fence" (thrusting swordplay) using long narrow blades for unarmored civilian fighting took hold, it was seen as a new innovation. In keeping with the renewed cultural interest in all things classical at the time, it was also viewed as reflecting something of the enlightened thrusting swordplay of the ancient Romans. While over the next two centuries a methodical thrust-oriented swordplay came to dominate civilian fencing and duelling in Western Europe, especially among the aristocracy, styles of cut-and-thrust swordplay continued in use and new types of swords were still being devised