dagger series, small landsknecht dagger 1520
 

there are a number of daggers in my collection that are interesting to post on this forum , as an example , however, that at least I hope .

I will limit myself to two main types of the 15th and 16th centuries , the ballock and the rondel dagger and daggers that arrise from these types.
these daggers seem at first , unique in its kind but later it almost always turns out again that similar daggers can be found in art and literature, in style and blade geometry.

the first dagger is a landsknecht dagger of 26cm lenght of the rondel type.
the blade has a intersting geometry , a flat side and one side with three faces of different width, one with a fuller, making that two different cutting edges/angles occur.
A dagger of similar type with the same blade geometry is published in laking part III 1907 , see Annex

The pommel is mushroom shaped with a rounded bulge ,the further you get into the 16th century, the rounder the pommel on rondel daggers becomes, i noticed .

the grip is formed outof a steel sleeve with a small band as decoration .
the parry plate/rods is formed as a pair of glasses , a phenomenon also seen at two beautiful daggers in the Met-museum.

Hi Jasper,


I do like this dagger a lot! :) The quillons strongly remind me of the cypher-8 shaped hilts of Katzbalgers.

Have ever seen a sword hilt with this type of quillons?


Best,
Michael

Hi Michael,

thanks!
yes I have seen a few landsknechtswords with a pair of glasses-guards like this but together with guillons, like the MET daggers.

best,
Jasper

Well, what I meant was: Have you got any pics of such swords you can share?

m

unfortunately I cannot find the one between the 25000 pictures.
if I find something relevant I will share it, of course

best,
Jasper

A promising statement, Jasper :) .
Another heavy weight collector expands the unveiling of his precious jewels in our forum :cool: . Competition definitely knocked out :eek: .

Just 25,000 pics?

Poor boy, I got more than 190,000 analog ones, the digitals are countless ... :shrug:

m

Hi Michael,

the family vacation and photos of beautiful women, you should not count!

best,
Jasper

Peanuts :rolleyes:
Think of my 1000 ... cats snapshots included :cool:

Exactly, Jasper,


Family there is none, but women - oh boy! :D

And of course lots of cats, just like in 'Nando's photo library! :eek:


Best,
m

Don't let out the composite ones :cool: :eek:

.

If there was a contest for the 'forum pic of the year 2013', I would say we got it! Thanks a lot,my dear friend 'Nando, for your black 'composite' three-legged tomcat!

m ;)

Ah, ah :D
By composite i was referring to the picture including both cats weapons. That is Adriano the 8,5 Kgs. four legged one :cool:
Here is Daniel, the three legged family member. He likes bizarre endroits :D .

.

Now the contest who has the biggest is over.
lets try, I know it is not easy, to go back to the dagger.

The ergonomics of the handle of the rondel dagger implies that it was used almost exclusively in the underhand style .
apart from that, the overarm blow with a downward-pointing blade is much powerful than an underarm trust.
a overarm blow is a natural innate reflex of humans.

The image of a dagger fight in Solothurn fechtbuch around 1500, by the way with a dagger with bulky pommels of the type above, clearly illustrates this.
see also the study sketch of Durer, a hand that grasps a rondel dagger firmly.

the Met landsknecht dagger

landsknechtdagger, Rothenburg museum.

I am grateful to Cornelistromp for posting this, I am keenly interested in this family of daggers with the eyeglass-shaped parry plate, and examples seem to be very rare. The 2 examples at the Met are familiar to me and have become a bit of a personal obsession, although I have not seen them in person. Absolutely beautiful pieces!

Hi Justin,

welcome to the forum.
nice that you like the article, which is a compliment in itself.
Everyone knows the classification of daggers in 5 groups;
Guillon-, ballock-, rondel dagger, basilard and cinquedea.
(hauswehr is placed under knifes)
but it is mainly the subgroups of those daggers that makes it interesting stuff.
In my posts DAGGER SERIES , I try to describe a dozen with examples from literature, art and collections.

thanks+best,
Jasper

Thank you for the welcome, that was my first post here although I have been enjoying this forum for a few years now. I am following your dagger series and have seen some wonderful examples and variations, but I have a particular fascination with landsknecht daggers so this thread finally inspired me to post.
Leonid Tarassuk mentioned in his article that the 2 examples at the Met belong to a typological group of 9, but until now I had only ever seen the 2 and have been hungering to see more, so your example is exciting for me to see.

welcome, in this case we share the same passion

I believe that the criterion used by Leonid Tarassuk is;
a landsknecht a dagger where the s or 8 shaped inner guard is removed (cut off in half) to get a better parry action while protecting the wrist.

as an example, he publishes a landsknecht dagger figure 5. of the same type as one from my collection, see

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=river


I do not support this hypothesis, I think those landsknechtdaggers have a flat side so that they can be worn comfortably along the body.

This is also supported by JP Puype in A & A of knigths and landsknechts.
'm Curious about the other seven daggers of this type in the MET, he mentiones.
I think they can be of different types then the ones with a pair of classes.

best,

I tend to agree with you about the reason for the lack of an inner guard, but do not consider myself knowledgeable enough about such things myself to make any useful speculation. The photos and his mention of this typological group are what drew my interest to the article.

I would be very interested in seeing the other 7 of the group, whether or not they have the eyeglass-shaped feature.

Unfortunately # 26.145.43 is the only one of the group on display as far as I can determine, and I have received no response to inquiries about the others, so for the time being the other 7 remain a mystery and I have only found the single photo of 26.145.40.

Speaking of daggers, likle the parrying ones, the Landsknecht Met examples and all...
I have been browsing the Web on this subject, due to a left hand dagger i was about to acquire ... which i ended up doing.
Here with the thread on it, requesting you Gentlemn to have a look ... and possibly a saying on it:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...454#post165454

But what i wish to transmit here is this article i came across, written by Leonid Tarassuk, which i find very interesting on this subject ... even including examples posted by Jasper on this ongoing thread.
It is more than probable that you know all about this paper; don't even know if it is already quoted in these current threads.
For give me if that is long known by you; i just wish to be usefull :

Hi Fernando,

yes thank you, this well known article fits perfectly in this thread.

best,
Jasper

:cool: