Talk:Baselard

[Untitled]
In Levine, Bernard and Weland, Gerald. Knives, Swords, & Daggers. Barnes & Noble: New York. pg. 100, it states that the swiss dagger is often confused with the schwizerdegen (which is a longer, Swiss short sword), but is not actually the same thing. Does anyone know more about this?Uroscion (talk) 16:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, on page 105 it says that the Baselard is considered a forerunner to the Swiss dagger, indicating that they are considered separate weapons.Uroscion (talk) 16:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Earliest record of the name?
I spent ages looking for early occurrences of this name. This is highly non-trivial as there are literally dozens of ways to spell it.

Now for a long time, the earliest attestations I found were firmly within the 1340s (the 1341 one from Nuremberg being the earliest, but from the same decade also French badelare, leaving a rather short window for the supposed corruption from bas- to bad-.

But now I find the 'Mainzer Friedgebot' of 1300 with its beseler.
 * wel man zu Meinze inne woninde ist, der rutinge dregit odir swert odir beseler, der sal uz Meinze varin ein vierteil iaris
 * "whichever man has residence within the city of Mainz, and carries a ruting(?swordstick), or a sword, or a beseler, he shall be banished from Mainz for a quarter-year."

now the 1300 edition has beseler, amended to baseler in the 1335 version.

This seems to substantiate the hypothesis that the German name is primary, as it leaves a window of 40 years for the term to enter French usage, and be corrupted to baselard, badelare. But it makes the association of teh German term with Basel less evident, as the earliest known form is now beseler. --dab (𒁳) 12:00, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Why is the yataghan reference in here? Apart from the single reference in an obscure work, it's not precisely relevant to a middle ages dagger used by the Swiss. Theblindsage (talk) 04:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

size
Probably a description of the size of these things is a good idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.76.196.150 (talk) 13:33, 9 January 2014 (UTC)