dussage german sword

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Berber,
Interesting question, and its good to have you here on this side

As in many terms out of the old literature, this is one of those broadly used terms that seems to have come out of Hungarian/Bohemian regions (possibly from the Czech word 'tesak') for a heavy curved blade weapon in abiut the 16th century. In Germany the peasantry often fashioned these out of a single piece of iron and simply placed an opening in the end to serve as a handle. ("Schools and Masters of Fencing" Egerton Castle, p.229; p.77, fig. 51).

The term became applied to heavy curved weapons with basket type guards used in Northern Europe, until the misnomer 'Sinclair Sabre" took over after the ill fated Scottish expedition. The term dusack, tesak, dusagge referred to these swords of 15-18th c. wherever the 'collectors' sinclair sabre tag was not used.

Most of the standard references, as you have undoubtedly discovered, are notably vague on the term or the swords it is thought to refer to.

Here are two well known examples of the 'Sinclair Sabre' (dusagge/tessack)

At the top of the page use the 'search' feature under 'dusagge' and you will find discussions with some great detail from a few years ago.

Hope this helps,
Jim