Hand-Forged Quillon Dagger, Broad Blade

Because it is built to do a different job, and both were made. The dagger most people picture from this period is narrow and stiff with a raised ridge down the centre, and it is built almost purely to thrust: into the gaps of a harness, through a visor, into a joint. Cutting is barely a consideration. A broad flat blade like this one keeps far more sharpened edge along its length and enough width to actually slice, while still tapering to a point that will drive. It is a cut-and-thrust dagger rather than a pure thruster. The trade is stiffness: a wide flat section will flex sooner under heavy point pressure than a narrow ridged one, which is exactly why the armour-piercing forms went narrow. So the question to ask yourself is what the piece is for. Against a man in plate, narrow wins and it is not close. As a general sidearm, and as an object, the broad blade does more and looks like more.

They hold rather than deflect. A straight cross stops a blade at the guard but gives it somewhere to go: an opposing edge sliding down your blade meets the cross and can run off the end of it toward your hand or past it. Quillons that curve forward toward the blade turn the cross into a shallow hook on each side, so a blade coming down the length is caught in the angle and held there instead of continuing. That matters on a dagger far more than on a sword, because dagger work happens at a distance where you are binding and controlling constantly rather than at reach. The forward curve also protects the back of the hand slightly better when the dagger is held point-down in a reverse grip, which is how a great deal of medieval dagger work was actually done. Straight quillons are the more common survival and we build those too.

They are the two sections of the same family and we build them as a deliberate pair. Our Quillon Dagger, Ring Pommel has a 13 inch blade with a raised medial ridge, a narrow stiff section, a straight cross with squared terminals and a polished steel ring at the end of the tang, weighing 660 grams. This one has a 14 inch blade, a broad flat section, forward-curved quillons and a small domed pommel button, weighing 750 grams. That extra 90 grams on a blade only an inch longer is the width doing it, and it is the honest way to see the difference: one is a thruster, one cuts as well. If you own neither and want the more historically typical dagger, take the ring pommel. If you own that one already, this is the one that adds something rather than repeating it.

Gripping. The heavy squared section immediately above the cross is left unsharpened, which lets you lay a thumb or a finger over the guard and onto the blade itself. That shortens your effective grip and gives you far finer control of where the point goes, which is what you want on a weapon used at very close range. It also gives you somewhere safe to hold the dagger when it is being used as a tool rather than a weapon, and somewhere to rest a hand when passing it to someone. On this dagger the block is squared rather than rounded so it sits flat in the fingers. If you see a dagger of this type with the edges ground all the way back to the cross, the maker has copied a silhouette without understanding how the thing is held.

A quillon dagger, which is the type built like a sword in miniature: a straight or curved cross between blade and grip, a pommel at the end of the tang, and a symmetrical double-edged blade. The name comes from the quillons, the two arms of the cross. It is the dagger a knight wore alongside his sword, and it is usually the plainest of the medieval forms because it borrows its design language from the sword rather than developing one of its own. The others are told apart by their hilts rather than their blades: a rondel has flat discs at guard and pommel, a bollock has two rounded lobes and no cross at all, a baselard has a capital-I hilt with a bar top and bottom, and a cinquedea has a blade five fingers wide at the base. Misericorde is not a shape but a role, meaning any narrow stiff dagger used to finish an armoured man, and it gets used as a type name by sellers when it is not one.

No, and we would rather set it out than let the word medieval imply otherwise. Two things differ from the surviving examples. The grip is a shaped rosewood section held between fitted steel collars, where period daggers of this type generally used a one-piece shaped grip of wood, horn or bone over a narrower tang, sometimes wrapped. And the pommel is a small plain domed button, where the record gives you wheels, scent-stoppers, fishtails and faceted forms, all of which are heavier and do more to balance the blade. What we have built is sound and comfortable; it is simply modern. The period arrangement is the first build option above and it changes the look of the piece considerably, particularly the pommel, which is the single fitting that most dates a dagger to the eye.

It is at the top of the range rather than outside it. Surviving quillon daggers run roughly ten to sixteen inches of blade, and the bulk of them sit in the lower half of that. Past about sixteen to eighteen inches a piece stops being a dagger in any useful sense and becomes a short sword, and it should be built as one with a longer grip to match. Fourteen inches with a broad blade is a substantial thing to wear on a belt: it will foul when you sit, and it hangs low. If you want the piece to be worn rather than displayed, order ten to twelve inches, which is closer to typical and considerably more practical. If it is going on a wall or into a kit where presence matters, fourteen looks the part.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, brought to temperature in the forge, quenched in oil and tempered back so the edges are hard while the body of the blade stays springy. On a broad flat blade the tempering matters in a particular way: there is no medial ridge adding stiffness, so the steel itself has to provide the spring, and a blade tempered too hard would take a set or crack rather than flexing and returning. It is not stainless, deliberately: stainless grades that genuinely resist rust give up toughness, and on a wide thin section toughness is what keeps the blade straight.

The tang runs the full length of the hilt with the pommel fitted over it at the end, which is through-tang construction rather than the slab-and-rivet full tang used on a working knife. That is the correct build for this pattern: a cross, a fitted grip and a pommel all need a narrow tang for the hilt to look and handle as it should, and the cross and pommel clamp the grip between them so the whole assembly works in compression. It is not weaker when it is done properly. If you would prefer a visible full tang with riveted scales, that is a different hilt design and we would build the dagger around it from the start rather than adapting this one.

Sharp and ready, with both edges put on a stone by hand at the forge and the ricasso left properly blunt. If you would prefer it shipped unsharpened — for display, for a gift, for a group where a live edge is not permitted, or because of the rules where you live — say so in the order comments and we will do it at no extra cost, and rebate the point as well if you need it. What we cannot do is convert a sharp into a safe training weapon afterwards: a proper trainer needs thicker rolled edges and a flared blunt tip designed in from the first heat.

Yes, and it is the order we most enjoy taking. The same cross profile, the same pommel form, the same material and treatment of grip, and both scabbards cut from the same hide, so the two pieces read as one set instead of two purchases. Historically that is how they were worn — the dagger was the sword's companion, hung on the same belt and often dressed to match it. Tell us which sword you have or want, or send a photograph of one you already own, and we will quote the pair together or quote the dagger dressed to match it.

In our own workshop in Tokha-3 on the northern edge of Kathmandu, Nepal, by around ten smiths, most from families that have forged blades for generations. Everest Forge has operated since 2010, and we forge, grind, heat treat, fit the hilts and cut the leather in the same building. A European dagger made in Nepal deserves the same word we give our bowie and our seax: this is not our own tradition and we do not pretend it is. It is worked from the record, which is why this page tells you plainly which parts of the piece follow it and which do not.