The pageant weapons of a prince’s guard, though formed like those used in actual warfare, were especially rich in this respect; and the stocks of crossbows, which afforded great scope for ornamentation, were not only beautifully inlaid with bleached stag’s horn, ivory, and mother-of-pearl, but often adorned with mythological, historic, or biblical legends, carried out with rare elegance and finish. The great German smiths—Hans, Jörg, and Conrad Seusenhofer, Brockberger, Lorenz Kolman, Conrad Lochner, Swartz, Jörg Endorfer, Klemens Horn, Peter Munich, Wilhelm Wirsberg, etc., etc.; and the Italians—Antonio and Tomaso da Missaglia, Philippo Ciro, Giacomo and Francesco Nigroli, Ghinelli, Spacino, Antonio and Lucio Piccinino, and many others, vied with each other in the production of consummate creations of workmanship and art, some of them in armour of proof, others in offensive weapons, and many in both; and if the palm of excellence may perchance be awarded to the latter nation for originality and delicacy in design and finish, surely the Germans were but little if anything behind their confrères beyond the Alps in all these respects. The swords of Bordeaux and Poitiers were now far behind those of Toledo in renown, and the great Spanish masters, such as Antonio Ruiz, 1520; Juan de Almau, 1550; Francisco Ruiz, 1617; Tomas de Ayala, 1605; Sebastian Hermandez, 1637; and hosts of others rendered their cities and country illustrious by the excellence and beauty of their workmanship. Still, strangely enough, quantities of Solingen blades were imported into Spain during these centuries; for it will be noticed that the majority of rapiers picked up by collectors in that country have these German blades. The marks used by these smiths and many others may be found in the Catálogo de la Armeria de Madrid, and in a work by the learned curator of the Imperial collection at Vienna, entitled, Meister der Waffenschmiedekunst von xiv. bis xvii. Jahrhundert, and in the excellent catalogue of the Königl. Historische Museum at Dresden, compiled by Herr Max von Ehrenthal, the accomplished curator.
Fig. 41.—Hand-guns, Renaissance Work.
During the “renaissance” the gunsmith and his coadjutors lavished all manner of ornamentation on pageant hand-guns and their accessories. Barrels were chastely engraved, and stocks inlaid with bleached stag horn, silver, gold, steel, brass, stained wood, and mother-of-pearl; but these highly decorated weapons were not so much for real campaigning as for the use of body-guards, palace troops, and purposes of display generally, and especially for the hunting-field. [Fig. 41] represents three of these enriched weapons, inlaid with bleached stag’s horn. They are late sixteenth or early seventeenth century work.
The weapon of the Harquebusier and Musketeer was much plainer; and the matchlock was preferred to the wheel-lock by reason of its greater rapidity of discharge. There were, however, corps, especially cavalry, armed with wheel-lock weapons. The use of the longbow, which had for so many centuries played a predominant part in the combinations of English campaigning, had gradually languished with the greater mobility and precision of firearms; and the bayonet was soon destined to add new lustre to the British name. An order in Council of 26th October, 1595, ordains that the bows of the trained bands were to be handed into store, and calivers and muskets issued in their stead. In the year 1638 the stock of bows and arrows was omitted altogether from inventories of arms, thus showing that the weapon had become obsolete.
PART XVI.
THE SWORD.
The sword has always been the most universal of weapons among almost all nations and ages. It is alike the symbol of honour and the vindicator of justice; though often, alas, the instrument of oppression. The history of the sword is almost that of humanity itself, and supernatural attributes have often been ascribed to it. There is something about an ancient sword that appeals to the dullest imagination—it is so suggestive of historic memories, both in heroism and treason. It is typical of the force behind the law; but the living sword of our forefathers is now but a memory. It would be fascinating to follow its forms, traditions, and ramifications from the “stone age,” and from Menes to Julius Cæsar and Charlemagne—in fact, something like such an enterprise was begun by Sir Richard F. Burton. His book is indeed “A Romance of the Sword,” but the priceless stores of information he has collaborated, and his fine florid imagination, help us but little in the present quest: sad it is that his researches stop at such an early stage.
The sword, and its diminutive of which it is doubtless an extension, forms a distinct class of arms, in contradistinction to the numerous family of hacking, clubbing, and staff weapons generally. It is difficult to draw any very arbitrary line between the sword and the dagger—the hilt is often the same in form, but some swords are short and some daggers long. Perhaps the best definition of difference is that the dagger is roughly under two feet in length, and was used rather as an auxiliary to the sword, for thrusting only; besides being more capable of concealment, and more efficient at close quarters than the larger weapon. Writers differ in their method of imagining the position of a sword for descriptive purposes—that is to say, whether it be held downwards or upwards. It will here be regarded as being held in the right hand, point uppermost.
Bronze swords were deficient in hardness, so that they could not be adequately tempered; they were narrow and leaf-shaped, and this was the characteristic form everywhere. That recorded on Assyrian monuments is straight, narrow, and like the Greek, more for thrusting than cutting. The Roman type was longer, though still not of much use for parrying; and the leaf form became less accentuated.