Long knife

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Replica of a long knife (blunt battle ready weapon )

Long knife (also called long knife) was a weapon in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance .

History and dissemination

The origin of the long knife has not been conclusively clarified. A common myth is that an attempt was made to exploit a loophole in the law that forbade ordinary citizens from carrying a sword. Since the construction of a sword (the tang goes through the handle and pommel and is attached at the end by riveting) differs from that of a knife (the handle scales are riveted onto the tang), this should also have allowed a non-aristocratic citizen to use it. But since the possession of various weapons in cities was a punishable offense and only a few cities have restricted the use of them, this is unlikely. The more likely reason seems to have been anchored in guild law. Here the manufacture of knives was reserved for the knife makers, while the manufacture of swords was in the hands of sword makers. Similar to modern patent law, exact manufacturing and construction conditions are specified here to distinguish them, which the knife makers could bypass by manufacturing oversized knives and thereby enter the lucrative "self-defense market". The long knife is a long version of the medieval peasant army and the Bohemian dussack . It is about 1 meter long, weighs 1 kilogram or more, and has a back cutting edge at the end of its curved blade. In contrast to the saber-like large knife , the course is straight and uniform in cross-section. Nevertheless, both terms are often used synonymously. The long knife is mentioned in almost all historical fencing books and is shown there as an effective and popular weapon of the non-nobility. The shapes of the long knife are very different, but often it has a "defense nail" as an additional guard in addition to the crossguard. However, certain fencing techniques can also be performed with the nail.

Most long knives were unadorned in the late Middle Ages. They were the weapons of the common people and free peasants.

Today's most famous work on this weapon was written by the Nuremberg clergyman Johannes Lecküchner , who wrote it at the end of the 15th century, making use of the techniques of other edged weapons for the long knife.

Dimensions

The dimensions of a typical weapon are as follows:

  • Length: approx. 1100 mm
  • Width: approx. 40 mm
  • Weight: approx. 1220 g

Long knives vary greatly in length, weight and blade width. There are also not only knives with an arming nail as shown here, but also with a ring-shaped attachment, sometimes called “cow foot”.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard D. Haage, Wolfgang Wegner, Gundolf Keil, Helga Haage-Naber: German specialist literature of the Artes in the Middle Ages and early modern times. Schmidt Erich Verlag, 2007, p. 260. Online at [1]
  2. ↑ The long knife, an almost forgotten weapon ( Memento from February 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Johannes Lecküchner Transcription (PDF; 797 kB)
  4. ↑ Long knife data sheet (PDF; 429 kB) Society for Research and Testing of Historical Weapons eV