[Grayson C.]

I have a quck question here about two types of swords that I am confused about. What exactly is the difference between a messer and a falchion? I know that Messer is a german name and therefore messers are generally associated with germany while falchions are more universal medieval (in my opinion at least, it may very well be wrong.)

Thank you very much for any help and information that you offer me .

[Craig Johnson]

Hi Grayson

Good question. I am not sure one could draw a distinct line between the two. I think of them both as generally single edged bladed weapons with some having a slight broadening of the blade as it nears the tip. The messer, as the name implies, is usually identified as those weapons that look more knife like in appearance. Falchions are usually a little more of the tapering wider towards the tip type blade, many with a distinct clipped point. There are weapons I would consider as crossing over the boundary of one or the other and could rightly be called either. The messer does seem to predominate in the northern European regions while the falchion seems to be the term of choice in the west and south. These pieces are a sorely neglected area of study in English texts and a good sampling of these items would add a great deal of knowledge to our ability to distinguish cleanly. If anything my guess would be the Falchion is used in a broader way today than Messer.

The Messer I think is looked at today as a usually straight handled sword with a knife shaped blade and a relatively simple guard often accompanied by a stud on the outer side, sometimes curving forward or back. They can be literally the size of a large knife to a truly large two handed variety. I am less sure if the definition was seen as such in period. When one looks at the dusack play of the manuals and art of the period I think there would have existed side by side items we would think of as falschions and messers, I am unsure wether the users in a given area would have id them differently.

Hope that helps
Best
Craig

[Nathan Robinson]

What of hilt construction? Is that not a clear means of distinction between the two types? Or is there simply too much crossover even considering that?

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Grayson,
I found an interesting bit about messers and falchions in the chapter "The Renaissance Spirit" by Donald J. LaRocca from Swords and Hilt Weapons by Michael d. Coe, et al. This is an excerpt from that book:

[Nathan Robinson]

Please see this topic for further information.

[Craig Johnson]

I like Peter's definition a lot and it does allow for some flexability, the Stortas were some of the examples that I would see as being close to cross over weapons. Do not have time to grab pics at the moment but knowing Nathan there are some in the galleries

Happy New Year
Craig

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

Nathan,

Thanks for the link to the thread. It was interesting. I think we do get hung up on names and classifications sometimes, though, and it can detract from the fun of the study of arms and armour. Ask ten different experts or scholars a question about some of this stuff, and you sometimes get ten different answers.

I can see Peter Johnsson's point about hilt construction; and it makes perfect sense. Since messer basically means knife, and knives were typically constructed with rivetted scales on the grip (think a typical steak-knife), it's a logical conclusion to call a weapon with rivetted scales as a grip a messer.

I personally think the single-edged messers with a curved blade, or a curved cutting edge, do bear a familial resemblance to the falchion. I don't believe it's too far off the mark to call these particular messers "cousins" of the falchion.

By the way, for anyone who hasn't seen the work, Hans Talhoffer's professional fencing manual of 1467, published in a translated and edited version by Mark Rector as Medieval Combat: A Fifteenth-Century Illustrated Manual of Swordfighting and Close-Quarter Combat, has plates depicting combat with messers (Plates 223-30). The messers shown are similar to the sort of messer as described in the chapter by Donald J. LaRocca in Sword and Hilt Weapons.

Here's a link to a thread with some talk about certain types of messer, with some pictures of historical examples and replicas:

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

And here's a link to a site that has the plates from Talhoffer showing combat with messers, with a translation:

http://www.schielhau.org/talmesser.html

Stay safe!

[W. Schütz]

This might not be the thread for it perhapse, but someone should post some pictures of original messers, broad-bladed grosse-messers especially. I personally have found almost only art/illustrations of those.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Here's an interesting link to a page with some nice photos of actual period falchions:

http://bjorn.foxtail.nu/h_conyers_eng.htm

And this link to the review here on myArmoury has some nice period depictions of falchions:

http://www.myArmoury.com/review_mrl_falc.html

And here's a link to an interesting image from a 14th century manuscript in the British Library showing some falchions in use by knights:

http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/britishlibrary/...&idx=2

[Chad Arnow]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Just a question about when messers are first known to be in use as the design of at least the pre-production Albion one seems late Medieval or Renaissance in style ? ( 1450 - 1550 ? )

I wonder if falchions were in use before the first known use of messers ? There seems to be some overlap when both were in use. ( At least that is the impression I get from the previous posts. )

If there were some very early messers did these early ones have simpler slab handles ? Or were they just pre-messer large fighting knives related to the seax ?

Very early falchions ? 1050 or even earlier ?

So to summarize: What are the time lines of each ?

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

I've found some interesting information about falchions in Arms & Armour of the Crusading Era 1050-1350: Western Europe and the Crusader States by David Nicolle. It seems to support the view of falchions as being something that were developed in the 13th century, with some precursors in earlier centuries.

Nicolle gives some possible definitions for period arms & armour terms in his glossary. Some of the proposed meanings may be a bit speculative, but I found these to be of interest:

[Jean Thibodeau]

Richard;

Thanks for all that research: By some strange coincidence I just bought this book from Chad but I haven't done more than skim it so far. Seems like an even better buy than I first thought.

The thing with the messer that Peter has designed for Albion is that it seems to me to be the fully developed kind with very complex as well as attractive hilt assembly with all sorts of interesting bevels and I was wondering about early versions that might be less sophisticated ?

I never paid much attention to these before but the prototype pics on the Albion site are very " tempting " ( If not now, eventually. ) http://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/ne...photos.htm

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Jean,

David Nicolle's Arms & Armour of the Crusading Era 1050-1350: Western Europe and the Crusader States is not a book for the beginner in the hobby of arms and armour (which you're certainly not - not if you've had the Paul Martin book since it was first published), but it does cover a vast amount of material. It's also not an easy book to use; the captions are listed separately in the first part of the book, and the line-drawings are in the second part. His drawings also lack some detail, but they are based directly on actual period art, and a few surviving pieces. Used in conjunction with the captions (a tricky task due to the setup of the book) they can be useful. Nicolle has looked at a tremendous amount of material, and even if you disagree with some of his conclusions, it's nice to have a reference that covers these things. I hope you get as much use out of your copy as I have gotten out of mine! (My copy has tape reinforcing the spine because it started to tear; that's how much use it's gotten!)

I find the blade on Albion's forthcoming messer that you linked to very interesting. It definitely is a falchion-type weapon with a knife-type hilt. I don't know if some of these messers seem fully developed because they sprung up, in part, from the more traditional, sword-hilted falchions, or if there is another factor involved. I've already posted all I could find in my personal library about messers, and this apparently only covers one type. Some of the earlier falchion-type weapons may have had a knife-type hilt (a grip with scales rivetted on the tang), but I'm just speculating. I tried to find more about messers, but came up empty. Perhaps what some of the scholars and researchers call falchions in their works would really be called messers according to Peter Johnsson's definition, who knows? (Most definitions of falchions I've encountered place more emphasis on the blade-shape than the form of the hilt, and some of what Nicolle called falchions or possible falchions had hilts somewhat different from the typical sword hilt.)

Maybe someone else can find some information regarding early messers. When were the terms kriegsmesser and grosse messer first used to describe certain weapons?

Stay safe!

Stay safe!

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

Here's a link to a thread here on the myArmoury forums that has some nice pictures of the "choppers" from the Maciejowski Bible, as well as a related weapon from The Romance of Alexander in the Bodleian Library:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ht=chopper

And more from The Romance of Alexander:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ht=chopper

And yet more from the Maciejowski Bible and other sources:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ht=chopper

Notice that the hilts of many of these could fall under Peter Johnsson's definition of a messer. I personally believe they do have a familial connection to the more traditional 13th and 14th century sword-hilted falchion.

[Craig Johnson]

Thanks Richard for all the info. I was tryting to put some of that and some images together but did not have enough time.

Here are two specific examples

Leaf 11 in the thread you id as Chopper could I think be seen as a messer of early form

and this piece which is knife/chopper type

Best Craig

[Richard Fay]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Richard;

Thanks again for all the research. One way I look at things is to forget what it's called, was called, disputes about what we call them and just look at these things as form follows function: All the choppers, falchions, messers are related as far as how they would function and would be used.

At the extreme we could even compare some far eastern weapons that are completely not in any line of evolution with the above but handle / work the same way.

Just a different approach ( less historical / more design ) and in no way critical of the other approach emphasizing the historical approach and trying to discover the degree that these different designs are directly related i.e. evolved from a common source or simply coexisted as similar design solutions to the same problem. ( I find both interesting. )

I may be rambling here it's just that I like to look at things from different angles and it might stimulate more discussion.