NASTY Messers - Bruegel's Crude Shortswords of 16th Century Europe

Hi it's Tod here and today we're going to talk about this Bruegel Messer. It's got a 37 centimeter 14 and a half inch blade on it, single edged, stout on the back, tapering down, nice S guard obviously and a thumb ring, very Messer pommel. Now the reason I call it a Bruegel Messer is you see them in the artwork of Bruegel, so mid 16th century, you see very very similar knives like this, very often worn by pretty rough looking dudes it must be said, and again very often worn either on a belt over the shoulder or low slung from belt going across the waist at quite an angle. So this one rather than the thongs that is so much more common has got a belt slit in it, hard fixed so you can either put it on your belt or slung over a longer thong. Now the thing is it is a working tool, you can tell that really from its construction, but it's also a short sword. You know it is not a fencing sword, it is a brawling sword and you can see that again from the sort of people that were wearing it. So wooden scales, hollow rivets on it, just a lovely piece, slight curve, slight upturn and like all of my knives it comes with a double layer naturally tanned leather sheath, but the other thing about this of course is it is now absolutely a right-handed weapon, but this one I've also remade as a left-handed version, so you can get this in right hand and in left hand, but that's not all in fact because we also do one with bi-knives. So this is the right-handed version only, sorry you lefties out there, but you can also get them with a pocket and a bi-knife. We do a later version with sort of mid to late 16th century knife and an earlier one from about 1500 through to about 1550. Take your pick, but of course having a bi-knife attached it's a very common thing for the 16th century, particularly Switzerland and Germany, but also going down into the lowlands, but either way it's still darn handy whatever part of Europe you come from. I hope you like it, bye.