Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

batjka · 26th October 2019, 08:27 PM

While gunners' stiletto did appear in the 17th century, stiletto as a weapon form came about much earlier, in the 15th century.

I would love to see actual city statutes that prohibit stiletti as "dangerous weapons". A lot of what we assume today is an invention of 19th century historians. Take Langes Messer, for example. It was long claimed that this weapon form became popular because it was a workaround statutes prohibiting citizens from wearing swords. So people started wearing "long knives" because they were "not a sword". We now know that it is a complete and utter nonsense. Burghers were not prohibited from wearing swords and if they were this technicality would not have helped them. A knife-type hilt construction came about due to guild regulations where knifemakers were able to get into a sword making business.

26th October 2019, 08:27 PM	#30
batjka Member Join Date: Mar 2014 Posts: 39	While gunners' stiletto did appear in the 17th century, stiletto as a weapon form came about much earlier, in the 15th century. I would love to see actual city statutes that prohibit stiletti as "dangerous weapons". A lot of what we assume today is an invention of 19th century historians. Take Langes Messer, for example. It was long claimed that this weapon form became popular because it was a workaround statutes prohibiting citizens from wearing swords. So people started wearing "long knives" because they were "not a sword". We now know that it is a complete and utter nonsense. Burghers were not prohibited from wearing swords and if they were this technicality would not have helped them. A knife-type hilt construction came about due to guild regulations where knifemakers were able to get into a sword making business.