Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/104

 wearer. From this was suspended a semicircular loop of metal, which by means of a spring stop and hinge could be set at any angle at which it was desired that the rapier should hang; while a rotatory turn to the rapier could be obtained through the junction of the upper and lower part of the tackle working in a socket, which again, though not in all cases, was regulated by a spring catch. The means of attaching the rapier-sheath to this carriage-device was achieved by the slender split-bar seen on each of the specimens illustrated passing up a corresponding cylindrical apartment made in the top of the scabbard. This aperture was placed in a reverse direction to the blade passage, the result being that on squeezing the top of the scabbard, in order to compress the spring of the split-bar and jerking it forward, the scabbard, either with its rapier or without, was at once released.

For attaching the rapier scabbard to the belt. Italian, late XVIIth century

Collection: Mr. Felix Joubert

Our brief notes on the cup-hilted rapiers of the XVIIth century have taken us down to the closing years of that period. We must now retrace our footsteps in order to refer to other types of sword hilts which came into prominence in the course of the century; but we shall not again refer to the