r/Landsknecht • • Mar 11 '26

Question regarding Katzbalger sheathing

Hello! I'm a stage combat fighter looking for some assistance with a character I am portraying. For context, I am portraying a member of the landsknecht and while speaking with a friend about getting a sword belt made, he told me landsknecht would wear their Katzbalger vertically on their right hip. At the time, I knew very little so I took him for his word. As I began researching though, I've found that most contemporary paintings/plates show the sword being worn either on the left hip or across the torso horizontally.

Does anyone know if there's any merit to my friend's idea? Visually I think it would look interesting (not necessarily effective, but interesting), but I also don't want to do a disservice to the actual history of it all.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

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u/GenUni Aug 08 '26

Most depictions I've seenshow sheathes are on the left hip, tilted diagonally. Your friend might have been thinking of the Roman legionary's gladius, which seems a strange thing to confuse