The scabbard is of wood lined with sheepskin, and is covered with a series of five silver-gilt plates, profusely decorated with Hispano-Moresque lacería, studded with various kinds of gems. These gems upon the scabbard amounted once upon a time to seventy-six, which sum, through pilfering or accident (probably the former, since the finest stones are gone), has been diminished by one-half. An inventory, made in the reign of Philip the Second, states that the inner side of the sheath, now wholly worn away, was covered with lions and castles, and that the belt was of broad orange-coloured cloth, with silver fittings.

This sword has been absurdly attributed to the nephew of Charlemagne, who lived not less than half a thousand years before its date of manufacture. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan thought that it may have been the property of a Spanish monarch of the thirteenth century,—perhaps Alfonso the Learned, or Ferdinand the Third, Alfonso's father. Ferdinand, we know, possessed a sword which he delivered with due ceremony to his elder son, the Infante Don Fernando, upon his leading out a force against the town of Antequera. This sword the chronicler Alvar García de Santa María described as having “a sheath in pieces, with many precious stones.”

Of even greater interest than the foregoing weapon is the great two-handed and two-edged estoque or ceremonial sword of Ferdinand and Isabella, which measures forty-two inches in length. The fittings are of iron, gilded and engraved. The crossbars, terminating in small half-moons, with the concave side directed outward, are inscribed with the well-known motto of the Catholic sovereigns, TANTO MONTA, and with a supplication to the Virgin, MEMENTO MEI O MATER DEI MEI. The pommel is a flat disc, suggestive in its outline of a Gothic cross, and bears upon one side the figure of Saint John together with the yoke, emblem of Ferdinand the Catholic, and upon the other the sheaf of arrows, emblem of his consort Isabella. The hilt is covered with red velvet bound with wire.

The sheath of this most interesting sword—affirmed by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan to have been used by Ferdinand and Isabella, and subsequently by Charles the Fifth, in the ceremony of conferring knighthood, and also, during the Hapsburg monarchy, to have been carried by the master of the horse before the king upon his formal visit to a city of his realm—is made of wood covered with crimson silk, bearing in “superposed” embroidery the arms of Spain posterior to the conquest of Granada, together with a repetition of the emblems of the Catholic sovereigns (Plate [liv]., No. 2).

In the same collection are two other swords which probably belonged to Ferdinand the Catholic. One of them (Pl. [lvii]., No. 1), has a discoid pommel and a gilded iron handle. The flat crossbars grow wider and bend down towards the blade, and on the hilt we read the words PAZ COMIGO NVNCA VEO, Y SIEMPRE GVERA DESEO (“Never does peace attend me, and always do I yearn for war”).

This sword has been attributed to Isabella. The evidence for this belief is slight, although the Count of Valencia de Don Juan discovered that in the year 1500 Isabella was undoubtedly the possessor of certain weapons and armour which she sometimes actually wore. Among these objects were several Milanese breastplates, a small dagger with a gold enamelled hilt in the shape of her emblem of the sheaf of arrows, and two swords, one fitted with silver and enamel, and the other with iron.

ADARGA
(Royal Armoury, Madrid)

The other sword, which probably belonged to Ferdinand the Catholic, is of the kind known as “of a hand and a half” (de mano y media; see p. 248, note), and also of the class denominated estoques de arzón, or “saddle-bow swords,” being commonly slung from the forepart of the saddle upon the left side of the rider. Ferdinand, however, had reason to be chary of this usage, for Lucio Marineo Sículo affirms that at the siege of Velez-Málaga the sword which he was wearing thus suspended, jammed at a critical moment of the fray, and very nearly caused his death. Sículo adds that after this experience Ferdinand invariably wore his sword girt round his person, just as he wears it in the carving on the choir-stalls of Toledo.