Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/92

 *tion may be that, while the true cup-hilted rapier was held in little esteem in Germany, a certain number of them were made for exportation.

The cup, quillons, and knuckle-guard are possibly German, about 1630.

The pommel is of an earlier date.

Ex Bernal collection

We have never come across any kind of main gauche dagger to accompany this deep cupped Italian rapier of say from 1630 to 1640; so we think that the ordinary quilloned dagger of XVIth century shape was the weapon used in conjunction with it, and not that unusual parrying weapon so often made en suite with the Spanish cup-hilted rapier of some years later date. The late Mr. Egerton Castle, in his admirable work "Schools and Masters of Fence," put forward a theory that in our opinion affords an adequate explanation of the evolution of the solid cup-hilted rapier with its accompanying main gauche dagger. We have noted the use in the XVIth century of the small target as an auxiliary defensive weapon in sword fights (Vol. ii, p. 245, Figs. 617 and 618); in the same way early in the XVIIth century the idea may have occurred to some ingenious swordsmith of fixing a complete cup over the quillons of the rapier hilt which would act almost as a small buckler to the right hand, leaving the left hand free for the use of the dagger. As Mr. Castle has pointed out, it must be remembered that the parrying