Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/379

 The early XVIth century spetum, ranseur, and voulge all had their counterparts in their decorated descendants of the late XVIth and of the XVIIth centuries. These later weapons are not, however, rarities, and examples may be studied in nearly all important collections. There should also be noted the various forms of the early boar-spear, which often by the elaboration of their ornamentation are weapons of great richness. As an instance we point to the fine head in the British Museum (Fig. 1420), a very beautiful specimen of chiselling and gold damascening, and certainly the work of an armourer of note; for the head is cleverly designed and would appear to have been a popular model, as a repetition of it with certain variations can be noted in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna (Fig. 1421). Both these examples would seem to be Milanese and of the closing years of the XVIth century. In the Wallace Collection (No. 488) there is a finely decorated boar-spear head (Fig. 1422) with the upturned lugs, which Meyrick described as "a partisan of the Guard of the Duke of Parma," but which without doubt is a hunting weapon. The workmanship shows great care and the richness of the gold overlay is remarkable. It is charged with the quarterings of Farnese and of Parma; so it is doubtless an Italian production of about 1590-1600.

Etched with the arms of Farnese and Parma. Italian, about 1590-1600. Ex Meyrick Collection. Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 488)

All the forms of "morning stars," "holy water sprinklers," and military forks, including the arms evolved from peasant weapons, are to be seen in their late XVIth and early XVIIth century forms; but since our notice of the hafted weapons of earlier date in Vol. III, Chapter XX, dealt with them even in their latest form we will not again here allude to them. Practically the only pole-weapon newly invented in the second half of the XVIth century was the linstock, a weapon of double service, possessing a central blade resembling a small partisan, and projections, spetum-like on either side, which often terminated in monsters' heads, the mouths