Medieval Knives of the huntsmen -- myArmoury.com

Kenneth B · Posted: Sun 27 Oct, 2013 4:52 pm Post subject: Medieval Knives of the huntsmen

Hello all!

I hope that you can help point me in the correct direction...

I am interested in making myself a knife.....it will be used to initially gut and split up game in the field....anything from a squirrel to an American Elk.....but.....I would also like it to be large enough to handle wrist thick wood for shelter building and batoning of dry firewood.....

I have seen bauernwehr that might fit the bill and large knives in a medieval trousse....but still I am a bit of a loss.....

Would a bauernwher have had a wide (spine to edge) blade? The repros I see tend to only be 1-1 1/8" wide.....

Ideas? thoughts? musings??? I had a hunk o' 5160 steel here at home that needs to be made into a (for lack of better knowledge) medieval camp knife???

Mark Moore · Posted: Sun 27 Oct, 2013 7:41 pm Post subject:

Here in Texas, we have such a nifty multi-purpose knife............it's just called 'Bowie'............. Big Grin

...........McM

G Ezell · Industry Professional

Knowing which culture and time period ('Medieval' covers a 10 century spread) you are interested in would narrow down the possibilities. The first thing that comes to mind is a brokeback seax, but that could be because I'm a bit obsessed with them...

Anything between a squirrel and an elk can be skinned with a 3-4 inch blade, much more blade than that and it can be cumbersome. Anything with a blade under 9 inches does not chop wood effectively, you really want a 10 inch plus length blade for that. This means that a knife hefty enough for shelter building will be too large to skin with, and one small enough to comfortably skin with will not be up to the task of shelter building... then there is always the 5 through 8 inch blade, which can be used for both but is not ideal for either. Perhaps you should consider two knives...

http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/vv18/GHEzell/DSCN0045.jpg

Baard H · Posted: Mon 28 Oct, 2013 1:43 am Post subject:

Actually, you don't need a 10+ inch knife to make a shelter or chop wood. If the knife has the weight distribution it required it will chop just fine even if it's just 7-9 inches.

In scandinavia we have just this knife, the sami-knife:
http://www.samekniv.no/index.php?option=com_c...;Itemid=75

This knife is so utilitarian that it is standard-issue in multiple parts of the Norwegian Army.

Unfortunately I don't know when this particular design came along, I just wanted to show that it's not impossible to make a single-bladed "swiss-army knife".

Bjorn Hagstrom · Posted: Mon 28 Oct, 2013 2:19 am Post subject:

Still, field dressing a squirrel as was mentioned in the original post would be a challenge with that sami-knife I think.

I would go for a small blade for the gutting, and a hatchet/tomahawk/small axe for firewood.
Chopping and cutting are different things. And an edge honed for cutting can easily be ruined by wood-chopping.

Luka Borscak · Posted: Mon 28 Oct, 2013 5:25 am Post subject:

Kenneth, make yourself a big knife for camp making and buy yourself a little skinning knife. They are not expensive and you can found some very generic looking that would fit into historical types...

Kenneth B · Posted: Mon 28 Oct, 2013 5:40 am Post subject:

I should have added.....this is a big knife for a pair....I already have the smaller knife for the more delicate tasks....

This is for heavier tasks.....

Time period: say late-ish 1500s Germany....

Were there wide bladed bauernwehr?

Radovan Geist · Posted: Mon 28 Oct, 2013 6:41 am Post subject:

Kenneth, try to search online auctions such as Hermann Historica - when I was working on my bauerwehr some time back it really helped me. For your time period you´d find blades that are 5+ cm wide. Just as an example - the one I´ve attached is 47 cm long and 5 cm wide.

Also, check this article (I have already linked it in another thread): http://www.arsmaiorum.eu/Texty/Petr/Tesaky_s_...i_trny.pdf
It´s in Czech, so you probably wouldn´t understand, but it has some nice pictures. See page 4 - blades pictured there are 55 and 50 mm wide.

Alex Indman

You know Kenneth, your requirements can't be covered by one knife - and this is why starting late Middle Ages (if not earlier) there were so many big knives or short swords carried with a by-knife (or more than one) in the same scabbard!
Various bauernwehr, wood knives, hunting swords, hangers, etc.

I made one that is later than Medieval, though (more like XVIIIc) - see attached picture. Posted a long post about it on this forum last year, but it was lost in the site crash.

Alex.

Mark Moore · Posted: Thu 31 Oct, 2013 5:29 pm Post subject:

I still love that, Alex. That is way, way sweet.............McM