Sword porn, part II
More swords...
So this is the second arming sword, and the second Armour Class sword, I have to show you.
It's a similar length to the Heron arming sword, but with a broader blade and a somewhat chunkier wheel pommel, and with the straight cruciform hilt, making it suitable for use in 13th-14th century shows.
I got this just before Christmas - it was a real steal. Second hand, but it had literally been used twice. It had only one little nick in the crossguard. (It has a few more now!)
It's a bit heavier than my other swords and therefore useful for whacking people in maille. Not a subtle weapon at all. Still pretty quick, but I like my swords to be quick. Again, it can be used hand-and-a-half style, but is really a bit short for that: in a single hand grip, though, you definitely feel the weight, making it a real hack-and-slash sword. It's also in many ways the ugliest of my swords - that pommel and crossguard don't win any beauty contests, and the blade is anything but graceful - but it's effective.
This is my new toy:
Technically, it's not a sword at all. It's a knife. Literally, a big knife - a grosse messer. (There are bigger examples yet, like the two-handed Kriegsmesser.)
Why is it a knife and not a sword? The difference is down to things like the blade shape (single-eged, curving to a point, somewhat like a straight sabre) and, critically, the hilt construction.
For anyone who doesn't know this, in swords and knives the blade continues into a rod of metal called the tang that runs through the hilt. It's all one piece, so the blade won't separate from the hilt. In a sword, the tang is normally tapered considerably from the blade, though it's still sturdy: it goes through a hole in the centre of the pommel and is then hammered or 'peened' to hold everything in place. The grip (normally wood wrapped with leather and/or wire) is built around the tang, concealing it almost entirely, except for the 'peened' end on the pommel.
As you should be able to see from this pic, the hilt in the grosse messer is made like a knife - two panels of wood (horn or bone could also be used) are riveted to a wide, flat, slab tang. There isn't really a distinct, single-piece pommel as you'd see in a sword. The sticky-out clamshell bit on the left of the pic is the nagel, there to offer some hand protection.
This is a weapon of the 14th-15th century, and from the one session I've had with it, it's lovely. A couple of inches longer than the arming swords, it cuts and parries sweetly: it's much less crude of a weapon than the name (and aspects of the construction) might suggest.
It's a pretty logical evolution of the langseax, a Norse long knife popular until about the eleventh century (and a weapon I enjoy using, even though it's outside my normal period). At various points in European history, there were strict rules about who could make swords, so the story is that in Poland and the east of Europe the knife-makers used to make these instead. Hey, it's not a sword, it's just a big knife! Apparently, this excuse worked well enough, because we have good evidence of them being widely used - by knights and professional soldiers as well as those lower down the social scale.
The final sword in my collection is another Armour Class weapon, a messer falchion. This one would again be suitable for 14th-15th century stuff, maybe even a bit later.
The messer falchion is basically what you get if you take a messer blade and give it a sword hilt instead of a knife hilt.
You can see the differences here, including the fishtail pommel and the hand guard, with the upcurve at the back which you can use to bind your opponent's weapon.
There were various different types of falchions, including the classic 'cleaver' style blade which widened considerably towards the end, and others with curved, sabre-type blades: some were one-handed, some two-handed. The messer falchion is a relatively common type, a bit faster than the cleaver-type in my experience, with better balance. The common factor is that they were all single-edged cutting swords.
A frequent misconception about falchions is that they were low-quality peasant weapons, but in fact, the evidence suggests that wasn't the case. Like other swords, they appear to have been mostly used by knights and professional soldiers, and to be correspondingly expensive.
This one is also popular with the students for loans, as it's actually the second lightest sword I own - again, somewhat against the stereotype of falchions as hefty weapons. The hand protection is also appreciated!
So that's my collection, hope you enjoyed looking at it. :)
So this is the second arming sword, and the second Armour Class sword, I have to show you.
It's a similar length to the Heron arming sword, but with a broader blade and a somewhat chunkier wheel pommel, and with the straight cruciform hilt, making it suitable for use in 13th-14th century shows.
I got this just before Christmas - it was a real steal. Second hand, but it had literally been used twice. It had only one little nick in the crossguard. (It has a few more now!)
It's a bit heavier than my other swords and therefore useful for whacking people in maille. Not a subtle weapon at all. Still pretty quick, but I like my swords to be quick. Again, it can be used hand-and-a-half style, but is really a bit short for that: in a single hand grip, though, you definitely feel the weight, making it a real hack-and-slash sword. It's also in many ways the ugliest of my swords - that pommel and crossguard don't win any beauty contests, and the blade is anything but graceful - but it's effective.
This is my new toy:
Technically, it's not a sword at all. It's a knife. Literally, a big knife - a grosse messer. (There are bigger examples yet, like the two-handed Kriegsmesser.)
Why is it a knife and not a sword? The difference is down to things like the blade shape (single-eged, curving to a point, somewhat like a straight sabre) and, critically, the hilt construction.
For anyone who doesn't know this, in swords and knives the blade continues into a rod of metal called the tang that runs through the hilt. It's all one piece, so the blade won't separate from the hilt. In a sword, the tang is normally tapered considerably from the blade, though it's still sturdy: it goes through a hole in the centre of the pommel and is then hammered or 'peened' to hold everything in place. The grip (normally wood wrapped with leather and/or wire) is built around the tang, concealing it almost entirely, except for the 'peened' end on the pommel.
As you should be able to see from this pic, the hilt in the grosse messer is made like a knife - two panels of wood (horn or bone could also be used) are riveted to a wide, flat, slab tang. There isn't really a distinct, single-piece pommel as you'd see in a sword. The sticky-out clamshell bit on the left of the pic is the nagel, there to offer some hand protection.
This is a weapon of the 14th-15th century, and from the one session I've had with it, it's lovely. A couple of inches longer than the arming swords, it cuts and parries sweetly: it's much less crude of a weapon than the name (and aspects of the construction) might suggest.
It's a pretty logical evolution of the langseax, a Norse long knife popular until about the eleventh century (and a weapon I enjoy using, even though it's outside my normal period). At various points in European history, there were strict rules about who could make swords, so the story is that in Poland and the east of Europe the knife-makers used to make these instead. Hey, it's not a sword, it's just a big knife! Apparently, this excuse worked well enough, because we have good evidence of them being widely used - by knights and professional soldiers as well as those lower down the social scale.
The final sword in my collection is another Armour Class weapon, a messer falchion. This one would again be suitable for 14th-15th century stuff, maybe even a bit later.
The messer falchion is basically what you get if you take a messer blade and give it a sword hilt instead of a knife hilt.
You can see the differences here, including the fishtail pommel and the hand guard, with the upcurve at the back which you can use to bind your opponent's weapon.
There were various different types of falchions, including the classic 'cleaver' style blade which widened considerably towards the end, and others with curved, sabre-type blades: some were one-handed, some two-handed. The messer falchion is a relatively common type, a bit faster than the cleaver-type in my experience, with better balance. The common factor is that they were all single-edged cutting swords.
A frequent misconception about falchions is that they were low-quality peasant weapons, but in fact, the evidence suggests that wasn't the case. Like other swords, they appear to have been mostly used by knights and professional soldiers, and to be correspondingly expensive.
This one is also popular with the students for loans, as it's actually the second lightest sword I own - again, somewhat against the stereotype of falchions as hefty weapons. The hand protection is also appreciated!
So that's my collection, hope you enjoyed looking at it. :)