HEMA Messers

The knife that grew into a sword

Every other sword in this catalogue is built the same way underneath. A narrow tang runs up through a cross, up through a grip, up through a pommel, and the end is peened over to hold the whole assembly in compression. The messer is not built that way. Its tang is a flat slab the full width of the grip, two wooden scales are laid one on each side, and rivets pass straight through all three. That is knife construction, and it is the single feature that decides whether a sword belongs in this family.

The name simply means knife in German, and the construction is the reason. You can see it on every piece on this page. Look at the grip edge on and the steel of the tang shows as a stripe running between the two scales from the guard block to the butt. Brunhak and Brenvald show three brass rivets, Jarnfeld shows four, Storvekk shows five along a longer grip, and Hallvarn shows two.

What this changes in the hand

Slab tang construction puts more of the mass forward of the hand than a pommel assembly does, because there is no heavy counterweight sitting behind the grip. Six of the nine pieces here carry no pommel at all in the usual sense. Skarnvald closes its tang with the rear rivet and nothing else. Others finish with a cap rather than a pommel, and the cap forms are worth knowing by name. A beak cap hooks back over the heel of the hand, which is what Brenvald and Brunhak carry. A trumpet cap flares outward behind the hand, which is Jarnfeld and Storvekk. Hallvarn is closed by a plain steel ferrule.

You will read in a good many places that messers were built as knives so that townsmen could carry a sword while technically owning a knife, and so slip around a law restricting sword ownership. It is a tidy story and the sources do not support it. Treat it as folklore. The construction is far better explained by the fact that cutlers and bladesmiths were separate trades with separate guilds, and a cutler could build this.

The nagel, and the forms it takes

The nagel is the stud that projects sideways from the guard block, standing out over the flat of the blade and shielding the back of the hand. It is the second signature of the family after the slab tang, and it is the part where the forms differ most. Ransack Viking lists the nagel form on every product page in this category because it changes how the piece protects you.

A ring nagel closes back on itself into a loop, which covers more of the hand and catches an incoming blade rather than deflecting it. Brenvald and Brunhak both carry that form, Brunhak's being the larger of the two. A mushroom head nagel is a short stud with a flared cap, which is what Molgarth has, and it gives the least coverage of the three but the least to catch on a scabbard or a belt as well. A spike nagel is a long bar angled forward towards the point, and Aurnvik carries an especially long one.

Two pieces here take the idea in the opposite direction. Jarnfeld and Storvekk both carry a full knuckle bow instead, a bar sweeping from the guard block back to the butt cap, which encloses the whole hand. That is the late form of the family and it is the one that eventually becomes the sabre hilt. Hallvarn and Skarnvald go the other way and carry a nagel with no cross bar of any kind.

The size bands, from bauernwehr to kriegsmesser

Messer is a family rather than a single type, and the names describe overlapping size bands rather than four hard categories. Retailers and the period sources both use them loosely. What follows is the consensus range, and every piece here is listed with its own real measurement so you can place it yourself.

Bauernwehr

The smallest, at roughly 15 to 35 cm of blade. It is a large belt knife rather than a sword, worn as a working tool and used as a sidearm. Hallvarn on this page is the one example here, at about 24 inches overall with an 18 inch blade, no cross bar and a single side nagel. It is sharp.

Langes messer and grosses messer

The heart of the family and the one the fencing sources care about. Blades run roughly 45 to 90 cm, with the grosses messer sitting at the upper end at about 75 to 113 cm overall. Six of the nine here sit in this band, from Aurnvik and Molgarth at about 35 inches overall up to Skarnvald at about 39 inches. All are used in one hand. Do not treat langes and grosses as separate products. They overlap in period and they overlap in retail.

Kriegsmesser

The one genuinely distinct item, because it is two handed. Period examples run 1 to 1.35 m overall. Storvekk is the example here at about 44 inches with a 33 inch curved blade and a grip half again the length of a one hand messer grip, held by five brass rivets through walnut scales. It is the piece to buy if you already fence longsword and want the same reach with a single edge.

Lecküchner, Meyer and what the sources teach

The messer has more surviving instructional material behind it than most people assume. Johannes Lecküchner completed the largest work on the langes messer in 1482, a manuscript of several hundred leaves that takes the German longsword system and rebuilds it for a single edged sword used in one hand. Guards, master strikes, winding at the bind and the whole vocabulary are carried across. If you already know longsword, the messer is the shortest road into a second system, because a great deal of what you know transfers directly.

Joachim Meyer's printed treatise of 1570 does not teach the messer itself. It teaches the dussack, the short single edged practice blade that took over the same role in the German schools of the later sixteenth century, and the dussack material is generally read as carrying the single edged tradition forward from where Lecküchner left it. If you want to see where the family goes next, the dussack guide follows it, and the sabre and dussack category carries the pieces.

The clipped point and the false edge

Most messers finish in a clipped point. The spine is cut away at an angle for the last few inches, which brings the point down towards the centre line of the blade so the piece thrusts properly despite having only one true edge. That cut back section is usually sharpened on the sharps, and it is called a false edge, because it is an edge on the back of the blade rather than the cutting side.

Seven of the nine here carry a clipped point. Molgarth does not, finishing instead in a rounded tip with a straight spine running all the way, which is the safest of the nine at the point and a sensible choice for a first messer. Aurnvik has the clip but the point itself is rounded off. On the blunts, Brenvald and Brunhak have a false edge along the clip that is blunted rather than ground. On Torvhaug and Jarnfeld it is sharp.

Sharps against blunts

Three of the nine are sharp and six are blunt. This is not a preference. It is two entirely different products that happen to share a shape.

Torvhaug, Jarnfeld and Hallvarn are 1095 high carbon steel hardened to 54 to 58 HRC with ground and finished cutting edges. They are made to cut tatami, water bottles and rolled mat, and they will hold an edge doing it. They are not sparring tools and Ransack Viking will not sell them as such. Do not take one to a club night.

The other six are 51CrV4 spring steel hardened to 49 to 52 HRC with a blunted flat land along the edge and a rolled or rounded point. That lower hardness is deliberate. A blade at 54 to 58 HRC resists bending until it takes a permanent set or breaks, which is fine on a wall and dangerous in a bind. Spring steel at 49 to 52 HRC bends and returns. It will never take a fine edge, and it does not need to. The guide on blunts against sharps sets out the full difference, and the flex guide explains the tiers.

On tip shape, read the ruleset of any event you intend to enter rather than the listing. Some published rulesets require a spatulated or rolled tip with a minimum diameter of 1.5 cm, and a rounded tip is not the same thing as a spatulated one. Ransack Viking claims tournament legality for nothing on this page without naming the ruleset.

Every messer on this page, side by side

Every figure in the table below is taken from the specification panel of a product on this page. Nothing is estimated. Sizes vary piece to piece because each blade is forged and ground by hand, so read a stated length as nominal rather than exact.

Blade lengths run from about 18 inches on Hallvarn to about 33 inches on Storvekk. None of the nine ships with a scabbard.

Browse related sword categories

• Messers in the main sword range, sharpened and for display
• The full HEMA range, from feders to rapiers and sabres
• Sabres and dussacks, where the single edged tradition goes next
• Arming sword trainers, the single handed double edged answer
• HEMA longswords and hand and a half blunts for two hands
• Feders, the purpose built longsword fencing tool with a schilt
• Sabres in the main sword range, curved and single edged
• Engraved and personalised pieces across the whole catalogue

Guides worth reading first

• The messer guide, from bauernwehr to kriegsmesser
• What HEMA is, and what the sources actually are
• Blunt against sharp training swords, and which one you need
• How to choose your first HEMA sword without wasting money
• HEMA sword flex explained, tier by tier
• The dussack, the Czech blade that became a German sidearm
• HEMA tournament gear rules and what the rulesets ask for
• Care and oiling for carbon and spring steel blades