Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/66

 with few exceptions consisted in a circular guard or rondel, known by the name of "besague," set on the top of the blade (and resembling to a great extent the tsuba or guard on the Japanese sword) in a grip, and, placed upon that, in place of the pommel, a second rondel flat on the top and parallel to the rondel guard. The rondel which protected the arm pit, seen on suits of armour of XVth and early XVIth century dates, was also termed "besague." We have been unable to arrive at the derivation of the word. A most protective form of hilt, the rondel yet appears to have had its disadvantages; for the very size of the pommel disk, which in most cases was as large or even larger than the guard, must very seriously have hampered any movement of the wrist, more especially if the hand was armoured. This we can vouch for from practical experience; for we have used a dagger of this description in modern representations of XVth century fights. We are, therefore, inclined to imagine that this type of dagger was primarily used to kill a defeated opponent, and was not employed in any school of fight. In its latest form the rondel dagger is several times represented in the Freydal of Maximilian I.

One of the most representative rondel daggers of mid-XVth century date still extant is the example in the Wallace Collection, No. 110 (Fig. 780). Its hilt is composed of a circular flat pommel and guard of equal proportions, each formed of two slightly convex plaques joined round the edge. The grip has applied plaques of wood secured in the centre by a quatrefoil-shaped brass-*headed rosette; whilst bands of the same metal are inlaid down either side of the wooden grip plaques. The blade is back-edged, triangular in section, the two principal facets slightly hollowed; at the hilt there is an armourer's mark inlaid in brass. This fine and complete weapon was dug up from a peat-fen in the north of France. A smaller weapon of the same type and period, but lacking its grip, is in the collection of the author (Fig. 781). This was found in the Thames at Westminster. The fact that it is precisely of the same construction as that of the one found in the north of France, shows the general use of this particular form of rondel dagger; others of exactly the same type have been found in London excavations, in various parts of Germany, and throughout France and Belgium.

Occasionally, instead of the rondels being hollow convex plates of metal, they are solid with chamfered edges, as in the case of a very fine and massive dagger in the Godfrey Williams' Collection. Another form of rondel is one which is built up in layers of metal and other materials such as horn, bone, ivory, or hard wood; but this type may be considered as belonging to a somewhat later period, dating possibly within the third quarter of the XVth cen