Hi All,

I am working on a comission for a short broad bladed messer of 24" x 2" and am looking for information and period pictures of messer scabbards.

Given the size of the knife/sword I assume that the scabbard was probably all leather with no chape or locket and given the period and origin quite heavily tooled beyond this I am at a loss, but paticularly how it was suspended.

Again I am assuming that the German predispostion for thonging and lashing scabbards will come into it, but particularly how the scabbard is attached to the belt. In addition to this I assume it usually hung vertically.

All in all a bucket of assumptions and little hard fact - any help would dearly be appreciated.

I have also had a good search through the site but my wife is always telling me I couldn't find grass in a field.......

Thanks

Tod

This site will bury you in images of messers, scabbards and anything else you can think of:

http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/realonline/

In the menu box that defaults to "Bildnummern," choose "Materielle objekte"

Put your start date in "Von" box and your close date in the "bis" box (1450 and 1520, for example)

Click the "Auswählen" button

On the next page either scroll through the alphabetical list of objects or enter the German term for what you want (messer and kriegsmesser will interest you, but turn up mostly small knives. Try searching for "schwert" because sometimes the large messers are listed that way). Either way, hit the "Zeige Bilder" button when your term is found. You'll get hundreds of images and you have to wait for all of them to load before you view any of them. Otherwise, the page will have to reload when you try to back up.

You'll find a huge variety of sizes, shapes, decoration, by-knives, suspensions, etc.

You should also search for "hl. petrus" under the category "personnenamen". In depictions of the apostles in the garden of Gesthemene (either sleeping or protesting the arrest of Jesus) Peter is almost always depicted with a messer or sword of similar length. The scabbard is sometimes visible, often concealed under Peter's cloak or held in his left hand.

Also, this thread includes lots of images of messer scabbards as well as Peter Johnsson's observations on the subject:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ght=messer

A sampling:

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Thanks Sean,

The site is fantastic as is the thread you put me onto there, not sure how I missed that one.

Lots of food for thought - I appreciate it.

I love that last set in the pictures, I came across it a few weeks back and have been thinking about it since.

Tod

Sorry for bumping in with OT but

Sean Flynt wrote:

This site will bury you in images of messers, scabbards and anything else you can think of: http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/realonline/

Thank you very much for this , it does indeed look like a very rich source for pictorial evidence


Regards,
Samuel

I'm attaching an image of a 16th century saber/falchion--a very different type of weapon from what is being discussed here. I wonder if there's any visual cues that can be taken from this and applied to the design of a messer scabbard. The chape is attractive. Any thoughts are welcome.

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Copyright Dresden Historishes Museum

More historical artwork attached with descriptions below.

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Circa 1480
'Passion of Christ' (Heinrich Lutzelmann), Église Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, Strasbourg, France #1

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Circa 1480
'Passion of Christ' (Heinrich Lutzelmann), Église Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, Strasbourg, France #2

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Circa1485
'Crucifixion' (Meister der Ilsung-Madonna), probably Augsburg, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, Germany

The belt in the first picture does not seem like it would hold on very well.

M.

Unless he has another 2-3 lbs hanging off the other side of the belt, it would tend to sit at an angle like that. Maybe the painter showed it at more of an angle than it should be.

Or, it could be either a double-wrap belt., or hooked to a real belt hidden under the fold of the clothing.

If it's not one of these, you're right, it does look like it would fall off his hips.

This pic fascinates me:

[ Linked Image ]

That looks an anwful lot like a snouted bascinet painted circa 1480.

Could it be because that it's a depiction of a Roman soldier taking part in the capture of Christ? Strongly looks like a derisive image to me...

That's actually not a "nice" harness according to German fashion... compare it with the preceding picture, now THAT'S a nice one! :D
On another note, the mail is clearly rusted, and the steel is of a much duller colour compared to the other harness. It gives an overall image of a not-exactly-new harness used by someone not-exactly-rich.
...
Ooops, almost forgot. I don't think that the artist wanted to show that the events happened a long ago, because on the same picture (#1) we have a quite fashionable kit with a few oddities but nothing out-of-date.

That's of course assuming that the two pictures don't have the same names coincidently. :)

Interesting observation about the bascinet. I've always interpreted the guard in Grünewald's Isenheim altarpiece as wearing a pig-face bascinet as well, and this work of art was created in around 1512. I've always wondered if the artist was being deliberately archaic or was just depicting something commonly used at the time: old armor.

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Memling also shows pig faced bacinets in his paintings of the passion of christ. I am not aware if he uses such helmets in other biblical scenes. Memling was active in the last half of the 15th C (died 1495).
Below is a painting (Passion of the Christ 1470-71) showing the road to Golgata and the crucifixion. Lots of interesting armour here. Leather armour and unusual helmets. One pig faced bacinet in the lower centre of the painting: in a group of soldiers a warrior with a pollaxe on the shoulder walks behind two horsemen.

http://static.artbible.info/large/memling_passie.jpg

And on topic: there are some intersting messer and falchoin scabbards in this painting as well. This painting is a favorite of mine: a multitude of armour styles and soldiers with different status and equipment.

I'd still go with the 'derisive' interpretation - not a representation of antiquity, but using mis-matched elements to visually represent the role of the depicted figure.