Hello. I have a question, proberly more for the practioners of messer fechten.
For practicing fighting with the langes messer, does the quillon length effect the use of the knife in terms of techniques?

I see in the Talhoffer works, his messers have a medium sized crossguard as opposed to Leckuchners, which have a very short crossguard, and then that goes also for various original pictures I have seen.

As I ask, because we (training partners and I) are currently looking at the langes messer, and in time will most likely aquire steel/aluminium weapons (we have Talhoffer inspired wasters).

We will be mostly following leckuchners works (Wallerstein at present), and of two messers that I have seen on and to be on the market, both from highly regarded sword makers (in the USA) one has small quillons and the other long quillons (I personally like the latter as it has a higher finish). Both seem to be simular in weight and lengths.

So I am thinking that really it shouldn't matter to much as to what the langes messer looks like, as if its a langes messer wouldn't it behave like a langes messer despite appearence?

As probably with all other swords, crossguard length is more a matter of personal preference and fashion. Longer quilons protect the hand better and allow some techniques, but they can restrict other techniques. IMO longer quilons are better for fighting, but they get in the way when you are carrying the weapon so that might explain why some originals had very short crossguards. This seems to be a good page with lots of surviving originals and period illustrations. Short quilons seem to be quite rare compared to the longer ones.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15053

Awesome site, great pictures cheers I'll save it to favorites!

My personal experience indicates that quillon length is not particurly important. I have found that most of the time when my opponents blade contacts the quillons it is on the first couple of inches next to the blade. When I first started studying historical combat, I did tend to suffer strikes to the wrist and found a longer crossguard helpful, but as I gained more experience this became less of an issue. One characteristic I have found very helpful is an s-curved guard. The out-curving proximal quillon in particular seems to catch my opponents blade more easily and gives me a better sense of control over the opponents blade. Luckily, most commercial blunts have mild steel or stainless guards that are easily bent into an s-curve. As an aside, I have had problems with long quillons catching in my pockets when wearing modern trousers at practice, so I always make sure to wear pocketless trousers at practice. It can be quite embarrassing when you perform a thrust from Pflug and part of your trousers decide to go along with your weapon. :lol: