The tang, which is of many shapes—long and short, straight-lined or curvilinear, plain or pierced for attachment—ends in the pommel or ‘little apple’ (le pommeau, il pomolo, der Knauf or Knopf), into which it should be made fast by rivets or screws. The object of this globe, lozenge, or oval of metal is to counterpoise the weight of the blade, to prop the ferient of the hand, and to allow of artistic ornamentation. The grip of wood, bone, horn, ivory, metal, valuable stones, and other materials, covered with skin, cloth, and various substances, whipped round with cord or wire, is protected at the end abutting upon the ‘chape’[431] or guard proper (la garde, la guardia, die Parirstangen, die Leiste or die Stichblätter) by the hilt-piece, which also greatly varies. It may, however, be reduced to two chief types—the guard against the thrust, and the guard against the cut. The former was originally a plate of metal, flat or curved, circular or oval, affixed to the bottom of the hilt, dividing the shoulders from the tang: in fact, it was a shield in miniature (la coquille, la coccia, das Stichblatt). We still use the term ‘basket-hilt,’ and apply ‘shell’ (la coque, la coccia, der Korb or die Schale) to the semicircular hilt-guards—mostly of worked, chased, embossed, or pierced steel—which appear to perfection in the Spanish and Italian rapiers of the sixteenth century. This hilt-plate has dwindled in the French fencing-foil to a lunette, a double oval of bars shaped like a pair of spectacles. In the Italian foil, which preserves the plate, the section of the blade between that and the grip is called the Ricasso (a); the parallel bar is the Vette traversale (b, b); and the two are connected by the archetti d’ unione (joining bows, c, c).
Fig. 106.—The Italian Foil.
The guard against the cut is technically called the cross-guard (les quillons,[432] le vette, die Stichblätter). This section is composed of one or more bars projecting from the hilt between tang and blade, and receiving the edge of the adversary’s weapon should it happen to glance or to glide downwards. The quillons may be either straight (fig. 109)—that is, disposed at right angles—or curved (fig. 107). When the two horns bend down from the handle-base towards the point they are called à antennes. Others are turned up towards the hilt, counter-curved or inversed—that is, faced in opposite directions—or fantastically deformed (fig. 110).
Opposed to the guard proper is the bow or counterguard (la contregarde, l’elsa, la contraguardia, der Bügel). It is of two chief kinds. In the first the quillons are recurved towards the pommel: the second is a bar or system of bars connecting the pommel with the quillons (fig. 108). The former defends the fingers, the latter serves to protect, especially from the cut, the back of the hand and the outer wrist. This modification, unknown to the ancients of Europe, became a favourite in the sixteenth century, and it is still found in most of our actual hilts. Another product of the early modern age is the pas d’âne.[433] At the end of the fourteenth century it was composed of two circular or oval-shaped bars, disposed on both sides of, and partly over, the fort of the blade. In the sixteenth century it was generally adopted, and became a complicated and highly-decorated adjunct to the handle. The pas d’âne is now almost obsolete: a relic remains in our army-claymore.[434]
Fig. 107.— a. Pommel; b. Quillons; c. Pas d’Âne.
Fig. 108.—Double Guard (Guard and Counterguard).
