[lwn]

I've visited a castle in Germany once, where they had special short swords for defending the staircases. The staircases in that castle were too small to wield a regular sword.

[Freak_NL]

That sounds eerily similar to the myth from the linked article. Although there is a chance that some enterprising blacksmith came up with a clever marketing scheme for those to convince the nobility that they really needed such a set of short swords.

'Just in case pillagers come up the stairs, and I'll throw in a Zweihänder for half the price too, in case your attacker steps out of reach of your regular sword!'.

[akozak]

I love this. Naive feudal lords as the historical equivalent to high net worth preppers.

[quotz]

Zweihander means two handed swords quite literally, so in this case i guess it would be einhander haha

[smokel]

Ehm. The article does not actually give any evidence, so this argument is becoming rather absurd.

[russdill]

Was there period documentation? Or a just so story about short swords?