Hello
I was wondering how long, messers,(like Albions Soldat) stayed around as fighting weapons.I know they were around as hunting swords well into the 19th century. But would you have found them say...on a 18th century pirate ship.Or as a musketeers side arm?

I doubt you would see them outside of Germany in the 18th century. For the most part, messers are a 15th-17th century phenomenon, as far as I know. They seem to have held on longer in parts of central Europe, but would be a great rarity in the hands of a French, Spanish or English musketeer or pirate.

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/imperial-german...5-a-60390/

[ Linked Image ]

Cheers

GC

Messers never dissapear, they just got smaller and became the hunting knives used even today ;) ...

isn't messer just German for knife?

Exactly. Messer is the general German word for every kind of knife. It ranges from [ Linked Image ] to .

The introduction of the renown "Kriegsmessers" in Germany had much to do with duelling and laws explicitly defining and banning swords as an intended countermeasure. You can find such a law in most German municipalities of that time.
It's the same with reiter, both messer and reiter are general German terms for a single edged blade tool and a human on a horse that took a specific meaning outside Germany due to timely limited great influence of a connected concept.

For the renown pirate weapon, the cutlass, the German word is "Entermesser". It was a simple single edged weapon that was part of another fashion cycle. Perhaps you remember the recent comeback of leggings for women. Well, the latest wave were not just taken out of mum's old wardrobe.

interestingly to reference a nation on the othersideof the landmass of eurasia. as im sure some of you know, the DAO means knife and also formes a rangeof mostly single edged weapons of multiple shapes and sizes

and yea id say falchions and messers became hunting swords and combat/ survival knives, cutlasses etc

i remember that the cutlass evolved out of a kind of machete after all.

Exactly, Paul. I took Karls question to be specifically about the class of weapons defined by a riveted scale grip, a single edged blade and a nagel, " like the Albion Soldat." It is pretty obvious that knives continue to be used to the present day, so I doubt that that was what his question was about.