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Early XVIth century Tower of London, Class VII, No. 909

Italian, early XVIth century Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 310)

Early XVIth century. Collection: the late Sir Noël Paton, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh

of one of the princely houses of Northern Italy. Another splendid example of the same type, but of a later date, is to be seen (Fig. 910) in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris (K 197), etched with a design in which the arms of Louis XIII and the city of Lyons appear. There can be little doubt that in the first half of the XVIth century the bill was the most popular of the hafted weapons. In the 1547 inventory of the arms and armour at the Tower and elsewhere over 6,700 are recorded; among them figure the "blake billes," the "Almyne" or German bills, "fforest billes," and other types, and some few "billes ptely guilte, with longe staves of brassell," in other words bills of ceremony. Barbaro, the Venetian ambassador, in describing the weapon of the English billmen in 1551, says: "They have a short, thick