Hello,all. I recently went to A&A's webstie and I found a little surprise. They have announced a new 15th century sword they call a Schweizerdegen which translated to English simply means 'Swiss sword'. I expected this to appear on the forms by now and it has not. So exactly what types of swords were these? were they a common 15th Century soldiers sword, or were they exclusivley Swiss in design?

It's a baselard.
I can't recall ever seeing a production baselard sword before.
I may have to get one of these ;-)

http://armor.com/limitededition.html

Very interesting, seems almost "ancient" in feel - really light, due to limited pommel etc. with substantial blade presence....

Would love to see some originals, if anything's available on Net...

Gonna do some search.

IIRC, there was a thread here some time back, where a native German-speaker clarified the usages and meanings of dolch, degen, and baselard ... I seem to recall it challenged the common usages that had appeared in many English sources ... I'm a little short for time right now, but a quick search should locate this thread for those who are interested!

Check out this topic: www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=16920

I was thinking "Come on, Arms & Armor already makes that Alpine Dagger and Hanwei is coming out with their new version, so what on earth do you people mean nobody makes a production product?" (Let's not count that hideous Kris Cutlery thing they call a baselard.)

Then I looked at the product in question and immediately thought of holding up the A&A Alpine dagger and going "Aw, that's naught a baselard." Then pulling out the new and one and going "Now THAT'S a baselard."

I always thought baselard meant a particular type of dagger, not a full-blown sword of war, but clearly that's not always the case. Them tricky Swiss peoples and their wicked toys.

I love me a good baselard.

Woops! Found it - also by Peter, later in that thread:

Peter Grassmann wrote:

As I said before, there is much confusion about the terminology in the English language, so I will use the German terms. There are three different types of weapons: 1. Basilarde: riveted tangs, no separate mounts (they are directly made out of the tang), could be double- or single-edged. See my examples shown above. Although some authors claim that they are related to the Schweizerdolche, I wouldn't sign that assumption, as there is not too much they have in common. 2. Schweizerdolche: small tangs, separate mounts, most often double edged. 3. Schweizerdegen: Short swords that are related to the "Schweizerdolche". They have the same hilt construction, but are longer (~50-80 cm). Most of the examples known date from the second half of the 15th century. What makes all this even more difficult is the fact that daggers were called "Degen" in medieval german manuscripts. That's why Schweizerdegen and Schweizerdolch are often seen as one and the same weapon, which is wrong. For those who can speak German, read Heribert Seitz' "Blankwaffen I". It's quite good for a general overview. Peter