{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "debate: is a really long sword-length but still otherwise knife-like knife valid to be considered a knife, or is it now a sword...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/168876247593/", "html": "

longswordsinlondon:

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petermorwood:

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ivanasksyou:

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forbosmargad:

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lord-kitschener:

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notabrobro:

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swordmutual:

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swordmutual:

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debate: is a really long sword-length but still otherwise knife-like knife valid to be considered a knife, or is it now a sword because it\u2019s long

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@nagunkgunk

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It\u2019s a knword and it\u2019s Valid

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I don\u2019t wanna like Kill The Joke but this brings up a really cool fact about swords in ~14th-16th century Germany! The only people who were allowed to own Real Swords were the royalty and nobility BUT! Everyone else was allowed to own knives. The definition of a knife, however, was based on not length but handle construction, and to some extent how it was sharpened. The handle had to be constructed Like So with 2 pieces of wood sandwiching the metal tang.

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Only one edge was allowed to be sharpened, but oftentimes a small part (a couple inches) of the short edge (e.g. the edge that wasn\u2019t sharp) would be sharpened, and weapon design often allowed for this

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In this way, something that looked like This, a messer of just over a meter in length\u2026

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\u2026would be legally considered a knife, and therefore allowable for non-nobility to possess. (you can also see the bit on the back of the tip that would be sharpened)

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So @swordmutual, there\u2019s a not definitive but certainly interesting historical perspective on your question

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Lemme correct you there @forbosmargad

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There is litterally no historical evidence of late medieval/rennaisance Germany having laws against commoners owning swords, plus the definition of a sword under medieval German weapon law was effectively length-based rather than on those features.

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The real reason Messers showed up is because of Medieval German craft guilds. In order to make a sword, you would have to be a member of the local swordsmiths\u2019 guild. What then happened was the local knifesmiths\u2019 guild decided they wanted in on the buiseness and started making things that technically counted as knives in terms of production, undercutting the swordsmiths\u2019 prices.

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\nIf you think modern \u201cunion rules\u201d are restrictive as to who could and couldn\u2019t do what, medieval guild rules were there before them - closed shop, trade embargo, import tariffs, you name it.

I don\u2019t know what people in Gothic-armour-making Nuremberg would think of a local knight who wore Milanese-style plate armour from Italy \n(shades of how his mates would look at a Ford car-worker from Detroit or Dagenham who drove a Volkswagen or Toyota)\u2026

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\u2026 but he wouldn\u2019t make many friends or be invited to the best parties. Or jousts, or whatever.

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Re. the OP image - that\u2019s a big knife, but not the first I\u2019ve seen for advertising purposes\u2026

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Defining\nthe difference between a \u201csword\u201d and a \u201cknife\u201d when they\u2019re both the same\nlength is one of those herding-cats-at-a-crossroads things.

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Is it\nbecause the sword has two edges and the knife has one? \u00a0Then what about scimitars, sabres, katanas,\nbackswords\u2026?

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Is it\nbecause a knife is a tool and a sword is a weapon? You could say that a sword\nis principally a weapon, while a knife is principally a general-purpose cutting\nimplement that can be used as a weapon, but despite that the combat use of\nshort blades is known as \u201cknife-fighting\u201d rather than \u201cdagger-fighting\u201d.

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Is it\nbecause of the way they\u2019re constructed? A sword has a full grip enclosing the\nblade tang, secured by peening (heating and hammering) the end of the tang down onto the pommel like a rivet\u2026

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\u2026while\nthe knife has a grip composed of two separate scales, often/usually leaving the\ntang visible between them, secured by adhesive or by rivets through the tang\nlike a chef\u2019s knife, and which usually has no pommel\u2026

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\u2026except when it does. And a full grip, too.

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There are, however, Indo-Persian swords which often have no pommels and\nwhose grips are held in place with strong adhesive rather than a peened tang, and the Turkish yataghan short sword has a grip secured by, yes, rivets through\nthe tang but also has a very big pommel indeed.

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Is it\nbecause the sword is longer than the\nknife? That doesn\u2019t work when an Afghan choora (Khyber knife) or a big kukri can\nbe as long as a Roman gladius (short sword) and of course, further down, there\u2019s\nthe Renaissance Messer (which means \u201cknife\u201d no matter how big it got \u2013 and \u201cbig\u201d\ncould mean the size of a longsword). Here\u2019s an example:

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The sword is a qama or quaddara, the dagger is a kindjal - but if they were two images resized so both weapons were the same length, only the hand-space on the grip would show which was originally bigger. And by the way\u2026

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\u2026quaddaras could be single-edged.

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Confused\nyet? I am\u2026but then that\u2019s par for the course; our ancestors had the annoying\nhabit of not giving things all the specific names we seem so fond of, and often\ncalled a sword just a sword and a knife just a knife. And as for the names and\nshapes of complex-headed polearms, let\u2019s not go there right now\u2026 \u00a0

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\u201cMesser\u201d, as mentioned before, simply means \u201cknife\u201d - the aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt may have had knifesmiths as ancestors - but as they got bigger and more swordlike the word had extra descriptors tacked onto it: \u201cGrossmesser\u201d (big knife), \u201cHeibmesser\u201d (hewing knife), and of course \u201cKriegsmesser\u201d (war knife).

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Here are two Landsknechts using longsword vs Kriegsmesser, with no suggestion that one weapon\u00a0 is in any way better than the other.

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A couple of characters in Breughel\u2019s \u201cPeasant Dance\u201d painting (the bagpiper and the first dancer) are wearing short Messers that are obviously weapons, not just everyday knives: the bagpiper\u2019s Messer has a long, S-curved crossguard and a side-ring to protect his knuckles.\u00a0\n\n

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\n(For extra interest, the way the knife\u2019s guard is constructed and the way he wears it on his right \nhip (perhaps even the way he plays his bagpipes) show he\u2019s left-handed.)\n\n

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The dancer\u2019s Messer is even more clearly a weapon, since it has a knucklebow and side-plate (compare it to the ordinary knife - that little black thing with the brown top - worn by the man in red hose).

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All the on-line images of this character are either dark or small, but here\u2019s a much clearer reproduction of that very Messer.

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Here\u2019s another weapon-carrying bagpiper, and two more men (white hose left, orange doublet / tan coat centre back) with ordinary general-purpose or eating knives for comparison.

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This selection of repros by Tod\u2019s Stuff shows what the ordinary knives look like more clearly than the paintings (maybe they were so ordinary and familiar that Breughel didn\u2019t take much trouble over painting them).

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Messers weren\u2019t just weapons for commoners: Emperor (and armour, jousting and weapons-in-general fan) Maximilian I owned this one.

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If Messers were good enough for the Holy Roman Emperor, they were good enough for anybody.

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Oh thank god someone made the \u201cCAN THIS MYTH DIE ALREADY\u201d comments before I had to.

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