Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/93

 shield was always held at arm's length, so that the idea that the cup-hilt of the rapier provided a similar defence is very plausible. Mr. Castle was of opinion that the very earliest cup-hilts originated in Spain, and that the true main gauche dagger, adopting practically a similar arrangement of hand defence, had also its origin in that country. With that statement, however, the author is only in accord as regards the true main gauche dagger; for as we have already said, the very earliest cup-hilted rapiers that we have seen and examined are undoubtedly Italian. It has also been suggested that the invention of the solid hilt to the main gauche dagger was the outcome of an idea of someone who, attempting to hold both a dagger and a target together in the left hand, conceived the practical notion of combining the two in a single weapon; or the form may even have been adopted as a modification of the Indian mardu or the Moorish adarga, a parrying shield furnished with a solid hand protection and projecting spear-like points.

Of Spanish fashion, but probably Italian workmanship, about 1640. Rutherford Stuyvesant Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York

When we come to consider the mid-XVIIth century rapier, with its accompanying main gauche dagger made really as a twin to it, we find that