390 Mr. Frederick Pollock [June 1, 



shaped blade as we should now call it. From the blade with a double 

 '•median ridge" we get a blade of quadrangular section, not corre- 

 sponding to anything now in familiar use. Both the three-edged and 

 the four-edged sliape occur among mediaeval daggers ; they are also 

 found, though exceptionally, in Indian specimens. It is difficult to 

 say when they were introduced. We have a distinct record of three- 

 edged swords or long daggers having been employed at the battle of 

 Bovines (a.d. 1214 j ; they are specially described by the chronicler as 

 a novelty.* But no example of so early a date appears to be either 

 preserved or figured anywhere ; and it was as nearly as possible five 

 centuries afterwards that the bayonet-shaped small-sword prevailed 

 over the rapier. It is worth noticing that some of the Scottish broad- 

 swords of the late seventeenth and early eightecntli centuries have a 

 " median ridge " so strongly marked as to make them almost three- 

 edged. 



As for the two-edged rapier, its parentage is obvious. It is the 

 military sword of all work, in the form it had assumed in the first 

 half of the sixteenth century, lengthened, narrowed, aud more finely 

 pointed.t The interesting question is, what led to the use of the 

 point being studied and developed at that particular time. It may 

 seem a paradox to say that the art of fencing is due to the invention 

 of gunpowder ; but I believe it to be true. So long as the body was 

 protected by armour, there was no necessity and no scope for fine 

 svvordsmanshij). Hard liitting was the only kind of attack worth culti- 

 vating. Fire-arms, however, made armour not only of less value, but 

 at short ranges a source of positive danger, just as nowadays, when 

 the side of an ironclad is once penetrated by shot, the splinters make 

 matters worse than if there had been no resistance at all. Armour 

 being abandoned as worse than useless against fire-arms, it became 

 needful to resort to skill instead of mechanical protection for defence 

 against cold steel at close quarters. Various experiments were tried ; 

 the shield was reduced in dimensions to make it more manageable, 

 and in England sword and buckler play, which had long been a 

 favourite national pastime, still had, at the very end of the sixteenth 

 century, its zealous advocates against the new-fangled rapier. But 

 the point, of no avail against comj)lete armour, soon manifested its 

 superior power when this barrier was removed. There is some ob- 



* 'Guillelmi Armorici liber' (Guillaume le Breton), anno 1214, § 192 (p. 283 

 of ed. 1882, published by the Societe' de I'liistoire do France).—" . . . Ante 

 oculos ipsius regis occiditur Stephanus de Longo Campo, miles probus et fidei 

 integre, cultello recepto in capite per ocular! um galee. Hostes enim qnodain 

 genere armorum utebantur admirabili et hacteiius inandito ; habebant enim cul- 

 tellos longos, graciles, triacumhies, quolibet acumine indifferentei- secantes^a cuspide 

 usque ad manubrium, quibus utebantur pro gladiis. Sed per Dei adjutorium pre- 

 valueruut gladii Francorum," &c. 



t It has been said that the rapier and its distinctive manner of use were 

 derived from an elongated dagger employed for piercing the joints of plate 

 armour; but I iiave met with nothing to support this view. 



