Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/50

 the pommel is almost crescent shaped. Another illustration (Fig. 737) shows this same shaped pommel even more pronounced, though it is on a quillonless hilt. This example was considered by the late Signor Ressman, in whose collection it was, to be Venetian of the closing years of the XIVth century. We next represent (Fig. 738), full size, two bronze crescent-shaped dagger pommels, both found in Italy and of about the same period. Belonging to the close of the XVth century are two daggers that indirectly appear to have been evolved from the daggers which have duplicated pommel and quillon. One (Fig. 739) is a highly enriched Venetian example of 1480. The other (Fig. 740) is of the same nationality and of about the same period, though of a rather different type.

When it is considered that throughout the XVth century the dagger was the only weapon worn with the civil dress of the time, the sword not being worn with a gentleman's ordinary attire until the next century, the multitude of shapes which the quillon dagger assumed is not surprising. We shall therefore content ourselves by only illustrating two others that we can assign to the XVth century, without encroaching upon other types which will be discussed under other headings. The first illustration (Fig. 741), which is a detail taken from a picture attributed to Gentile Massi (da Fabriano), "The Adoration of the Magi," shows a dagger being worn alone with a civil costume of about 1440-50; while the second (Fig. 742) represents an excellent example of the more ordinary late XVth century quillon dagger, on the hilt of which may be traced the early influence of the Maximilian feeling as regards decoration.

Affiliated to the class of the quillon dagger is the type that figured not only as the weapon of a knight, but also as that of the merchant franklin or freeholder. It has been called the basilard. We must retrace our steps to follow its history. Included among the Sloane MSS. (2593) is a satirical song of the reign of Henry V which mentions the basilard:—

There is no man worth a leke Be he sturdy, be he meke But he bere a baselard.

Its blade was stiff, strongly tapering, with a section as a rule of flattened diamond form. Its hilt consisted in a grip of wood or some other hard substance, which, having its smallest circumference in the middle, splayed out towards either end in the manner characteristic of those early XVIth century Swiss daggers, the decoration of which is always associated with the name of Holbein. At the pommel end of the grip and at its junction with the blade