[120] Las Pinturas de la Alhambra, p. 15.
[121] The Count of Valencia de Don Juan states that seven Hispano-Moresque gineta swords are known to exist to-day: the one which is here described, and those belonging to the Marquises of Viana and Pallavicino, Baron de Sangarrén, the Duke of Dino, Señor Sánchez Toscano, the archæological museum at Madrid, the museum of Cassel in Germany, and the national library at Paris, A gineta sword in the Madrid Armoury popularly attributed to Boabdil can never have belonged to him. The hilt is modern, and the blade proceeds from Barbary.
[122] A number of Moorish swords are mentioned in the inventory, compiled in 1560, of the Dukes of Alburquerque. One is particularly interesting. It is described as “a Moorish gineta sword which belongs to the Count of Monteagudo, and is pawned for six thousand maravedis. The sheath is of bay leather, worked in gold thread. The chape and fittings are of silver, decorated with green, blue, purple, and white enamel. There are two serpents' heads upon the fitting, together with the figure of a monster worked in gold thread on a little plate, and two large scarlet tassels: the little plate has three ends of the same enamel and a silver-gilt buckle.” A note at the margin adds; “The chape is wanting, and is owed us by the Marquis of Comares, who lost it at the cane-play at Madrid.”
The two serpents' heads formed part of the arms of the Alahmar sultans of Granada; so that from this and from the richness of this weapon we may infer that it had once belonged to Mussulman royalty. The same inventory describes “a Moorish scimitar with gilded hilt; the cross and pommel, and a great part of the scimitar itself, being of gilded ataujía work. The sheath is green inside, and black and gilt upon the face; and hanging from the hilt is a gold and purple cord with a button and a black tassel.”
[123] To-day the craft of finely decorating arms is not forgotten in Morocco. “A silversmith advanced to show a half-completed silver-sheathed and hafted dagger, engraved with pious sentences, as, “God is our sufficiency and our best bulwark here on earth,” and running in and out between the texts a pattern of a rope with one of the strands left out, which pattern also ran round the cornice of the room we sat in, and round the door, as it runs round the doors in the Alhambra and the Alcazar, and in thousands of houses built by the Moors, and standing still, in Spain. The dagger and the sheath were handed to me for my inspection, and on my saying that they were beautifully worked, the Caid said keep them, but I declined, not having anything of equal value to give in return.”—Cunninghame Graham; Mogreb-El-Acksa, p. 234.
[124] E.g., by Townsend, who wrote of it, with ill-informed enthusiasm, as “an epitome of Spanish history.” Swinburne's notice of the same armoury is also curious: “At the bottom of the palace-yard is an old building, called the Armeria, containing a curious assortment of antique arms and weapons, kept in a manner that would have made poor Cornelius Scriblerus swoon at every step; no notable housemaid in England has her fire-grates half so bright as these coats of mail; they show those of all the heroes that dignify the annals of Spain; those of Saint Ferdinand, Ferdinand the Catholic, his wife Isabella, Charles the Fifth, the great Captain Gonsalo, the king of Granada, and many others. Some suits are embossed with great nicety. The temper of the sword blades is quite wonderful, for you may lap them round your waist like a girdle. The art of tempering steel in Toledo was lost about seventy years ago, and the project of reviving and encouraging it is one of the favourite schemes of Charles the Third, who has erected proper works for it on the banks of the Tagus.”
[125] Throughout this time, the full equipment of the knight consisted of no less than four complete suits, for tournament or battle, or for foot or mounted fighting, together with their lances, swords, and targes. The Alburquerque inventory describes in detail a complete set (“all of it kept in a box”) of war and tourneying harness belonging to the duke. Although the warriors of that day were short of stature, their muscular strength is undeniable, for one of their lances has to be lifted nowadays by several men. When the author of Mogreb-El-Acksa wrote contemptuously of the “scrofulous champions tapping on each other's shields,” he was perhaps, forgetful for a moment of this fact.
[126] The Count of Valencia de Don Juan has found, from documents at Simancas, that in the year 1525 Kollman visited Toledo to measure Charles for armour. It is also certain, adds the Count, that, in order to produce this armour of a perfect fit, Kollman first moulded Charles' limbs in wax, and then transferred the moulds to lead. In a budget of accounts which coincides with Kollman's visit to Toledo appears the following item: “Pour trois livres de cire et de plomb pour faire les patrons que maître Colman, armoyeur, a fait”—followed by details of the cost.
[127] This, in the later Middle Ages, was a favourite form of tourneying lance.
[128] Historia General del Arte; Armas, by García Llansó; p. 445.