Historical Pedagogy

Longsword Fundamentals: The Five Core Cuts

By HILT Official · May 31, 2026 · 8 min read

The five master cuts of the German longsword tradition, what each one does, and why a 14th-century fencing master thought they were worth singling out.

The Five That Earned a Name Pick up a longsword in any club working from the German tradition and sooner or later someone will mention the five master cuts. The Meisterhäue. Liechtenauer's five "hidden strikes" that the early fight books treat as the secret core of the whole system. Five longsword cuts, singled out from the dozens of ways you can swing a sword, important enough that fencing masters spent whole sections of their manuscripts on them. Most beginners get told to learn the five master cuts and then get handed almost no explanation of why these five, or what makes them "master"…

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