Chapter XXIX: A Velón 168 (6)

Another author who describes the arms and armour of the Granadinos is Al-Jattib, who says in his _Splendour of the New Moon_; "There are in Granada two kinds of soldiery--those of Al-Andalus and those of Africa. Their leader is a prince of royal blood, or some exalted personage at court. Formerly they used the Christian arms; that is, ample coats of mail, heavy shields, thick iron helmets, lances with broad points, and insecure saddles.... Now they have discarded that equipment, and are beginning to use short cuirasses, light helmets, Arab saddles, leather shields, and thin lances." Of the African troops the same historian adds; "Their weapons for attacking are spears, either short or long, which they propel by pressing with the finger. These arms they call _marasas_; but for daily exercise they use the European bow."

Descriptions of the Spanish-Moorish swords inserted in the chronicles and poems of the Middle Ages, together with the few examples that have been preserved until our time, enable us to form an accurate idea of the shape and decoration of these weapons generally. Those of the sultans and the Muslim aristocracy were, as a rule, profusely ornamented, either with precious stones or with enamels, or else with delicate and lavish damascening, or with the characteristic Oriental _ataujía_-work of gold and silver inlay. Inscriptions, too, were freely used upon the hilt or scabbard. Thus we are told that the great Almanzor kept for daily use a sword which bore the legend; "_Strive in warfare till ye win great victories. Battle with the infidels till ye win them over to Islam_"; and similar inscriptions may be quoted in great number. But four or five of these magnificent arms have proved superior to the ravages of time, and naturally tell us more than any weapons whose renown survives in written records merely. Among such extant Spanish-Moorish swords are two attributed respectively to Aliatar and Abindarraez; two others which are known to have belonged to the last ill-fated monarch of the Moors of Spain, Boabdil el Chico; and another, considered to have also been Boabdil's property, now in possession of the Marquises of Campotejar, owners of the Generalife and of the Casa de los Tiros at Granada.

The "sword of Aliatar," preserved in the Museum of Artillery at Madrid, is said to have been wrested from the clenched hand of that warrior, father-in-law of Boabdil and governor of Loja, as his corpse was swept away down stream after the rout of the Moorish expedition at Lucena. This arm is richly damascened as well as decorated with the characteristic _ataujía_. The centre of the hilt is made of ivory, and the pommel and crossbars--which latter terminate in elephants' heads with slightly upturned trunks--of damascened and inlaid iron, ornamented here and there with _ataujía_. Part of the blade--probably about an eighth--is broken off. The sheath has disappeared.

An idle superstition has attributed the so-called "sword of Abindarraez" to the hero of the well-known sixteenth-century romance entitled _The Abencerraje and the Beautiful Jarifa._ This weapon, which for many years was in possession of the Narvaez family, belongs at present to the Marquis of La Vega de Armijo. The decoration is not particularly rich, and part of it is worn away; but the narrow blade is still engraved with figures or portraits from the story which has given the sword its name.

The sword (Pl. xliv.) belonging to the Marquises of Campotejar, and which is preserved in the Casa de los Tiros at Granada, bears some resemblance to the "sword of Aliatar," and has about the same dimensions. Although it is commonly believed that Boabdil was the original owner of this sword, Gómez Moreno considers that more probably it belonged to one of the Moorish princes of Almería. The handle and crossbars, as well as the shape of the sheath, are silver-gilt, covered with minute arabesque ornamentation forming leaves and stems, and further decorated with enamel. The sheath is of Morocco leather worked with silver thread. The crossbars, curving abruptly down,[119] terminate in elephants' trunks boldly upturned towards the pommel. The blade is stamped with a Toledo mark consisting of Castilian letters and a pomegranate.

[119] In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, this characteristically
eastern downward curve of the crossbars grew to be popular even
with the Christian Spaniards, as we observe from the swords of
Ferdinand himself, preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, and
the Chapel Royal of the cathedral of Granada.

But the most important, interesting, and beautiful specimens of Spanish-Moorish arms preserved to-day are those which were captured from Boabdil at the battle of Lucena (1482), when the monarch was made prisoner by the young Alcaide de los Donceles, Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova. A manuscript _History of the House of Cordova_, quoted by Eguilaz Yanguas,[120] says that upon the day in question, irretrievably disastrous to the Moorish cause in Spain, Boabdil carried "a short, silver-handled sword, a damascened dagger, and a lance and buckler of great strength" (Plates xlv. and xlvi.). These arms, together with another and a larger sword (_montante_ or _estoque real_) for wielding with both hands, and certain articles of Boabdil's clothing, continued in the captor's family for centuries, and were, some years ago, presented by the Marquises of Villaseca, his direct descendants, to the National Museum of Artillery.

[120] _Las Pinturas de la Alhambra_, p. 15.

The smaller or _gineta_ sword[121] is handsomer and more important than the large _estoque_. The crossbars, as we find so often in weapons of this character and date, are bent abruptly down, and then curve up in a design of dragons' heads--the well-known emblem of the Nasrite sultans of Granada. Part of the handle is of solid gold adorned with crimson, white, and blue enamel distributed about the top and bottom of the hilt, the pommel, and the _arriaces_ or crossbars. The centre of the hilt consists of ivory, richly carved. On either side of it are two octagonal intersecting figures, bearing upon one side, in semi-Cufic characters, the words, "_Achieve thy aim_," and on the other, "_in preserving his_ (_i.e._ the owner's) _life_." Round the upper border of the ivory is carved the sentence; "_In the name of God; the power belongs to Him, and there is no Divinity but He. Happiness proceeds from God alone_"; and round the lower border, "_The marvellous belongs to God. Assuredly at the outset the ignorant do not know their God; seeing that error is their custom._"

[121] The Count of Valencia de Don Juan states that seven
Hispano-Moresque _gineta_ swords are known to exist to-day: the
one vwhich is here described, and those belonging to the Marquises
of Viana and Pallavicino, Baron de Sangarrén, the Duke of Dino,
Señor Sánchez Toscano, the archæological museum at Madrid, the
museum of Cassel in Germany, and the national library at Paris, A
_gineta_ sword in the Madrid Armoury popularly attributed to
Boabdil can never have belonged to him. The hilt is modern, and
the blade proceeds from Barbary.

Other inscriptions of a sacred character, combined with delicate _ataujía_-work, are on the pommel and the upper portion of the hilt; but it has been remarked that, although the entire decoration is amazingly elaborate and rich, these inscriptions nowhere indicate that the weapon belonged to a personage of royal blood.

The sheath of this most sumptuous arm is also lavishly adorned with silver and enamel on a purple leather ground. The blade is of a later date than either sheath or hilt, and bears the letter S, believed to be the mark of Alonso Sahagun the elder, of Toledo. The total length of this weapon is thirty-nine inches; and Gayangos declares that it was worn suspended by a belt between the shoulders.[122]

[122] A number of Moorish swords are mentioned in the inventory,
compiled in 1560, of the Dukes of Alburquerque. One is
particularly interesting. It is described as "a Moorish _gineta_
sword which belongs to the Count of Monteagudo, and is pawned for
six thousand _maravedis_. The sheath is of bay leather, worked in
gold thread. The chape and fittings are of silver, decorated with
green, blue, purple, and white enamel. There are two serpents'
heads upon the fitting, together with the figure of a monster
worked in gold thread on a little plate, and two large scarlet
tassels: the little plate has three ends of the same enamel and a
silver-gilt buckle." A note at the margin adds; "The chape is
wanting, and is owed us by the Marquis of Comares, who lost it at
the cane-play at Madrid."

The two serpents' heads formed part of the arms of the Alahmar
sultans of Granada; so that from this and from the richness of
this weapon we may infer that it had once belonged to Mussulman
royalty. The same inventory describes "a Moorish scimitar with
gilded hilt; the cross and pommel, and a great part of the
scimitar itself, being of gilded _ataujía_ work. The sheath is
green inside, and black and gilt upon the face; and hanging from
the hilt is a gold and purple cord with a button and a black
tassel."

The large _montante_ which belonged to the same ill-fated monarch has a cylindrical hilt, narrower in the centre of the handle than at either end. This hilt is made of steel inlaid with _lacería_ or network ornament in ivory. In a small shield within the decoration of the pommel, appear the words "_To God_"; and in the centre of the handle, the familiar motto of the Nasrite sultans of Granada; "_The only Conqueror is God._"

Part of the blade is broken off. That which is left is broad and straight, with two grooves (one of which extends about three inches only) on each side, and bears an oriental mark consisting of five half-moons. The sheath is of brown Morocco decorated with a small gilt pattern forming shells and flowers. The mouth and chape are silver-gilt.

In beautiful and skilful craftsmanship Boabdil's dagger or _gumía_ matches with his swords. The handle is of steel inlaid in ivory with floral patterns, and terminates in a large sphere, similarly decorated. The blade has a single edge, and is exquisitely damascened in gold designs which cover more than half of all its surface. Along one side we read the inscription; "_Health, permanent glory, lasting felicity, permanent glory, lasting felicity, and lasting and permanent glory belong to God_"; and on the other side, "_It was made by Reduan._"

The sheath of this little arm is made of crimson velvet richly embroidered with gold thread, and hanging from it is a large tassel of gold cord and crimson silk. The chape and mouth are silver-gilt, profusely decorated, and the latter of these pieces is embellished with circular devices of a lightish green enamel, in addition to the chasing.

The small, plain knife, also preserved among the spoil, was carried in this sheath, together with the dagger.[123]

[123] To-day the craft of finely decorating arms is not forgotten in
Morocco. "A silversmith advanced to show a half-completed
silver-sheathed and hafted dagger, engraved with pious sentences,
as, "God is our sufficiency and our best bulwark here on earth,"
and running in and out between the texts a pattern of a rope with
one of the strands left out, which pattern also ran round the
cornice of the room we sat in, and round the door, as it runs
round the doors in the Alhambra and the Alcazar, and in thousands
of houses built by the Moors, and standing still, in Spain. The
dagger and the sheath were handed to me for my inspection, and on
my saying that they were beautifully worked, the Caid said keep
them, but I declined, not having anything of equal value to give
in return."--Cunninghame Graham; _Mogreb-El-Acksa_, p. 234.

The Royal Armoury at Madrid is often thought by foreigners[124] to contain a representative collection of the arms, offensive and defensive, used by the Spanish people through all their mediæval and post-mediæval history. This is not so. Although it is the choicest and the richest gallery in Europe, the Armería Real was formed almost entirely from the _cámaras de armas_ or private armouries of Charles the Fifth and of his son, and is, as Mélida describes it, "a splendid gallery of royal arms," dating, with very few exceptions, from the sixteenth century.

[124] _E.g._, by Townsend, who wrote of it, with ill-informed
enthusiasm, as "an epitome of Spanish history." Swinburne's notice
of the same armoury is also curious: "At the bottom of the
palace-yard is an old building, called the Armeria, containing a
curious assortment of antique arms and weapons, kept in a manner
that would have made poor Cornelius Scriblerus swoon at every
step; no notable housemaid in England has her fire-grates half so
bright as these coats of mail; they show those of all the heroes
that dignify the annals of Spain; those of Saint Ferdinand,
Ferdinand the Catholic, his wife Isabella, Charles the Fifth, the
great Captain Gonsalo, the king of Granada, and many others. Some
suits are embossed with great nicety. The temper of the sword
blades is quite wonderful, for you may lap them round your waist
like a girdle. The art of tempering steel in Toledo was lost about
seventy years ago, and the project of reviving and encouraging it
is one of the favourite schemes of Charles the Third, who has
erected proper works for it on the banks of the Tagus."

The greater part of its contents were made within a limited interval, as well as not produced in Spain. Such are the glittering and gorgeous harnesses constructed for the actual use of Charles the Fifth by celebrated German and Italian armourers, ponderous suits for jousting or parade, or lighter suits for combat in the field, whether on foot or horseback (Plate xlviii.), fashioned, chiselled, and inlaid by craftsmen such as the Negroli and Piccini of Milan, Bartolommeo Campi of Pesaro, or Kollman of Augsburg, bombastically called, by a Spanish poet in the mode of Gongora, "the direct descendant of Vulcanus."

This German and Italian armour, with its multitude of accessorial pieces,[125] falls outside the province of a book on Spanish arts and crafts. Nevertheless, I reproduce, as being too little known outside Madrid, the sumptuous jousting harness (Plate xlix.), of Charles the Fifth, made for the emperor when he was a lad of only eighteen years by Kollman Helmschmied of Augsburg.[126] Laurent Vital, describing the royal jousts at Valladolid in 1518, relates that "après marchait le Roy bien gorgiasement monté et armé d'un fin harnais d'Alemaigne, plus reluisant que d'argent brunti." This is the very harness told of by the chronicler. The helmet turns the scale at forty pounds; the entire suit at two hundred and fifty-three pounds; and the length of the lance exceeds eleven feet.

[125] Throughout this time, the full equipment of the knight consisted
of no less than four complete suits, for tournament or battle, or
for foot or mounted fighting, together with their lances, swords,
and targes. The Alburquerque inventory describes in detail a
complete set ("all of it kept in a box") of war and tourneying
harness belonging to the duke. Although the warriors of that day
were short of stature, their muscular strength is undeniable, for
one of their lances has to be lifted nowadays by several men. When
the author of _Mogreb-El-Acksa_ wrote contemptuously of the
"scrofulous champions tapping on each other's shields," he was
perhaps, forgetful for a moment of this fact.

[126] The Count of Valencia de Don Juan has found, from documents at
Simancas, that in the year 1525 Kollman visited Toledo to measure
Charles for armour. It is also certain, adds the Count, that, in
order to produce this armour of a perfect fit, Kollman first
moulded Charles' limbs in wax, and then transferred the moulds to
lead. In a budget of accounts which coincides with Kollman's visit
to Toledo appears the following item: "Pour trois livres de cire
et de plomb pour faire les patrons que maître Colman, armoyeur,
a fait"--followed by details of the cost.

There is, however, also in this armoury a jousting harness (Plate l.) formerly the property of Philip the First of Spain, a part of which, including the cuirass, is known to be of Spanish make. The cuirass in question bears the mark of a Valencia armourer, and the harness generally dates from about the year 1500, at which time Gachard tells us in his _Chroniques Belges_ that Philip was learning to joust "à la mode d'Espaigne." Besides the enormous helmet and the Spanish-made cuirass, covered with gold brocade, this ornament includes a tourneying lance with a blunt three-pointed head,[127] and a curious form of rest, said by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan to be peculiar to the Spaniards and Italians. This rest is stuffed with cork, on which, just as the fray began, the iron extremity of the lance was firmly driven. Another interesting detail is the _cuja_, fastened to the right side of the cuirass, and also stuffed with cork, made use of to support the lance upon its passage over to the rest. Nor in this instance was the _cuja_ a superfluous device, seeing that the lance is over fifteen feet in length.

[127] This, in the later Middle Ages, was a favourite form of tourneying
lance.

These are the principal portions of the harness. The seemingly insufficient protection for the arms is explained by the fact that the solid wooden shield completely covered the fighter's left arm, while the right would be defended by the shield-like disc or _arandela_ of the lance.

Spanish shields and swords of great antiquity and interest are also in this armoury. The oldest of the shields dates from the twelfth century, and proceeds from the monastery of San Salvador de Oña, Burgos. The material is a wood resembling cedar, although much eaten by moth, and is covered on both sides with parchment bearing traces of primitive painting of a non-heraldic character. Inside the shield, this decoration consisted of a black ground crossed diagonally by a broad red band, and outside, of a red ground covered with rhomboid figures, some in gilt and some in colour. Such figures were a popular pattern at this time and on this class of objects. The general stoutness of this shield shows that it was meant for war. It still retains the strap which slung it from the warrior's neck, as well as fragments of the braces--made of buffalo leather covered with crimson velvet--for the hand.

Another shield, proceeding from the same monastery, dates from the thirteenth century. The material, here again, is wood and parchment; but in this hundred years formal heraldic ornament had superseded fancy or conventional devices. Accordingly, this shield is painted with a blazon, now much worn, of which, however, enough remains to show that it consisted once upon a time of four black chaperons crowned with gold _fleurs-de-lis_ upon a gold ground--said to have been the arms of Don Rodrigo Gomez, Count of Bureba.

The _scut_, or polished metal shield, with painted blazonry or other decoration, was limited to Aragon and Cataluña.[128]

[128] _Historia General del Arte; Armas_, by García Llansó; p. 445.

Among the smaller and more modern shields preserved in this collection are two wooden bucklers dating from the sixteenth century. One is in the Spanish-Moorish style and of a convex shape, with iron bordering and umbo, and a lining of yellow brocade. The other, of the Christian Spaniards, is small and lined with painted parchment, and was intended, so the inventory says, "for going about at night."[129]

[129] "Dès que le soir arrive, on ne va point n'y à Madrid ny ailleurs,
sans cotte de maille et sans _broquet_ qui est une
rondache."--Bertaut de Rouen, _Voyage d'Espagne_ (1659 A.D.),
p. 294.

The arms of Spaniards promenading after dark were even fixed by
law. The _Suma de Leyes_ of 1628 ordains that after ten o'clock
nobody is to carry arms at all unless he also bears a lighted
torch or lantern. No arquebus, on pain of a fine of ten thousand
_maravedis_, may have a barrel less than a yard long. Nobody may
carry a sword or rapier the length of whose blade exceeds a yard
and a quarter, or wear a dagger unless a sword accompanies it.
Sometimes these prohibitions extended even to seasons of the year.
In 1530 an Ordinance of Granada proclaims that from the first of
March until the last day of November nobody may carry a hatchet,
sickle, or dagger, "except the dagger which is called a
_barazano_, of a palm in length, even if the wearer be a
shepherd." The penalty for infringement of this law was a fine of
ten thousand _maravedis_; but labourers who worked upon a farm
were exempted from the prohibition.

Swinburne wrote from Cataluña, in 1775, that "amongst other
restrictions, the use of slouched hats, white shoes, and large
brown cloaks is forbidden. Until of late they durst not carry any
kind of knife; but in each public house there was one chained to
the table, for the use of all comers."

There is also a richly gilt and silvered buckler of the seventeenth century, made at Eugui in Navarre, and covered with a scene--decadent in design and workmanship--which represents the judgment of Paris. Defensive armour, chiefly of a highly decorative kind, was made all through this century at the capital of Navarre, Pamplona. The Royal Armoury contains a Pamplonese parade harness (Plate lii.), offered as a gift to Philip the Third, as well as six diminutive sets of armour made to his order for the youthful princes Don Felipe, Don Fernando, and Don Carlos.

The _adarga_ was a kind of targe used by the light cavalry, and had its origin in Africa. Those which were stored in the palace of the Nasrite sultans of Granada are described by Al-Makkari as "solid, without pores, soft to the touch, and famed for their imperviousness." The material was strong leather, such as cowhide, often embroidered with a scutcheon or with arabesques. Two Spanish-made _adargas_ in this armoury are particularly handsome. One is of Moorish craftsmanship, and dates from the end of the fifteenth century. The other (Plate liii.), apparently the work of a Spanish Christian and dating from a century later, is embroidered in silver thread and coloured silk with arabesque devices and also with four coats of arms, one of which belongs to the noble family of Fernández de Cordova. The dimensions of this shield are a yard in height by thirty inches in breadth.

There also are preserved in this collection a shield (late sixteenth century) adorned by Mexican Indians with a most elaborate "mosaic of feather-work," and a number of Spanish _adargas_ of the same period, for playing the _juego de cañas_ or "game of canes." The armoury contained in former days as many as forty-two _adargas_; but the fire of 1884 completely destroyed sixteen and badly damaged twenty-three, obliterating their heraldic and other decoration. A yet more sinister event befell on December 1st, 1808, when the Spanish mob, exasperated by the French, broke in and seized three hundred swords, not one of which was afterwards recovered. Mention of these disasters leads me to recall the quantity of beautiful or historic military gear that Spain has lost through many tribulations and vicissitudes. Formerly her noble families had excellent collections in their palaces or castles. Such were the private armouries of the Dukes of Pastrana at Guadalajara, and of the Dukes of Alburquerque at Cuéllar Castle, near Segovia. Bertaut de Rouen describes the first as "une des plus belles qui se voyent pour un seigneur particulier. Il y a quantité d'armes anciennes, et l'on y void une épée qui s'allonge et s'accourcit quand on veut, de deux pieds et demy."[130] The Cuéllar armoury was pulled to pieces by Philip the Fourth to arm his troops against the French. "Send me," he wrote to the Duke from Madrid, in a letter dated April 16th, 1637, "all your pistols, carbines, harness for horses, breastplates and other arms for mounted fighting"; and the loyal nobleman complied upon the spot, despatching more than five hundred pieces, many of which were doubtless of the greatest interest.[131]

[130] _Voyage d'Espagne_, p. 199.

[131] Gonzalo de la Torre de Trassierra; Articles on Cuéllar published
in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_.

Had I the erudition and the time, I would attempt to write, as it deserves to be written, an introduction to the history of Spanish swords. Of all the objects mentioned in these volumes, here is the most inherently symbolic of the Spanish character and history. The Spanish Moors and Spanish Christians spoke of it as something superhuman. "Once the sword is in the hand of man," observed, in solemn tones, the Wise Alfonso, "he hath it in his power to raise or lower it, to strike with it, or to abandon it." The Spanish Mussulmans talked of putting "clothes and breeches" on a sword that had a sheath, as though it were a breathing person; while a Spaniard of the time of Gongora would often use such language as the following: "Truly in point of look there is as great a difference between a costly sword and a _Toledan Loyalty_ or _Soldier's Dream_, as between a marquis and a muleteer, or a washerwoman and the Infanta. Yet every sword is virtually an hidalgo. Does not the basest of our Toledanas, even to the _perrillos_ and _morillos_, which have no core, and cost a dozen _reales_ merely, afford a chivalrous lesson to its wearer, as it bids him _no me saques sin razon, ni me envaines sin honor_?[132] The horse and the sword," he continued, taking a magnificently damascened rapier, and stroking it caressingly, "are the noblest friends of man, albeit the nobler is the sword; for the horse at times is obstinate or faint-hearted, but the sword is ready continually. The sword, moreover, possesses the chiefest of all virtues--justice, or the power of dividing right and wrong; a soul of iron, which is strength; and, last and greatest, the Cross, which is the symbol of the blessed Catholic Faith."[133]

[132] "Draw me not without a cause, nor sheathe me without honour." A
sword with this inscription is in the Royal Armoury--(G. 71 of
the official catalogue).

[133] Leonard Williams; _Toledo and Madrid: their Records and Romances_;
p. 102.

Notices of early Spanish sword-makers are far from common. Don Manuel G. Simancas quotes the following, dated in the thirteenth century:--

"_Master Almerique._ By letters of the King and Queen, to Master Almerique, for making the (sword) blades for the King; out of the MCC _maravedis_ of his salary he received CCCC _maravedis_."

"_Master Enrique._ By letters of the King and Queen, to Master Enrique, for making the swords, MCCCC, (of which) he received CCCCXII _maravedis_."

Other entries of the same period relate to Juan Ferrández, armourer, who received a sum for making coverings for arms and saddles; and to Master Jacomin, who was paid three gold _doblas_, or sixty-three _maravedis_, for making a breastplate.

In the inventory (1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque occurs a very curious notice which seems to show that mediæval Spanish swords were manufactured even in the rural districts. The entry runs; "an old grooved sword of a broad shape, bearing the words _Juanes me fezió_ ("John made me"). In the middle of the same a P within a parted wave, with Portuguese fittings, varnished, black silk hilt and fringes, and double straps of black leather, with varnished ends and buckles and black leather sheath. _Juan de Lobinguez made this sword at Cuéllar._"

The Spanish guilds of armourers enjoyed high favour,[134] since the examination for admission to this craft was very strict, as well as fenced about with curious prohibitions. Thus at Seville, "no Moor, Jew, black man, or other person such as the law debars, shall set up a shop for making and selling defensive arms, or undergo examination in this craft."[135] The penalty for infringement of this law was confiscation of the arms, together with a fine of twenty thousand _maravedis_.

[134] In the Corpus Christi festival at Granada the banner which
preceded all the rest was that of the armourers and knife-makers,
followed by that of the silk-mercers. _Ordenanzas de Granada_;
tit. 126.

[135] _Armourers' Ordinances of Seville_, extant in ms. (quoted by
Gestoso; _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_; vol. I.,
p. xxxvi).

Throughout these times the armourer's and the gilder's crafts are found in closest union; just as the armourer's craft would often alternate with that of the goldsmith or the silversmith. At Seville, the Ordinance of 1512 prescribed that every candidate who came to be examined must make "a set of horse harness, complete with stirrups, headstalls, spurs, poitral, and the fittings of a sword; and he must silver several of these pieces and blue them with fine blue; and make of iron, and gild the spurs and fittings of the sword. Thus shall he make, and gild, and silver the aforesaid pieces."

Equally severe and comprehensive are the swordsmiths' Ordinances (1527 to 1531) of Granada. The aspirant to the title of _oficial_ "shall mount a sword for wear with ordinary clothes, fitted in black, together with its straps, and fringed and corded hilt; besides a sword gilded a low gold, together with its straps and other parts, all of a single colour. Also he shall fit a velvet-scabbarded, silver-hilted sword, and a two-handed sword, fully decorated, with the knife attaching to the same, one-edged and with a smooth hilt; also a sword whose scabbard shall be fitted with knives numbering not less than three; and a hilt of _lacería_ (network ornament); and another sword in a white sheath, with woven hilt; and another of a hand and a half."[136]

[136] "_De mano y media_"; _i.e._ for wielding either with one hand or
both. Specimens of this kind of sword existing at Madrid will be
described immediately.

The Royal Armoury at Madrid contains an excellent collection of these weapons. Among the earliest known to be of Spanish make are two which date from the thirteenth century. One of them (Plate liv., No. 1), with fittings of a later time, is frequently miscalled the "Cid's Colada," and seems to have been confounded with the genuine weapon of that hero which was acquired in the thirteenth century by one of the sovereigns of Castile, and which has probably disappeared.

The blade of this remarkable sword has two edges and tapers gradually to the point. Part of the blade is slightly hollowed, and bears, extending through about a quarter of the hollow or _canal_, the following inscription or device:--

This is believed by some authorities to represent the words SI, SI, NO, NON ("Yes, yes, no, no"); and by others to be a purely meaningless and decorative pattern. The weapon, in any case, is in the best of preservation, and is especially interesting from the fact that engraved blades dating from this early period are very seldom met with. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believes this weapon to be the same _Lobera_ which belonged to Ferdinand the Third, and aptly quotes the following passage from the chronicle. When Ferdinand, conqueror of Seville, was lying on his death-bed in that capital, surrounded by his children, he gave his blessing to his younger son, the Infante Don Manuel, and addressed him in these words. "I can bequeath no heritage to you; but I bestow upon you my sword Lobera, that is of passing worth, and wherewith God has wrought much good to me." If the Count's surmise be accurate, another passage which he quotes from the work _Nobleza y Lealtad_, written by the twelve councillors of Ferdinand, fully explains the legend on the blade. "_Sennor, el tu si sea asi, e el tu non, sea non; que muy gran virtud es al Príncipe, ó á otro qualquier ome ser verdadero, e grand seguranza de sus vasallos, e de sus cosas._"[137]

[137] "Señor, let thy yea be yea, and thy nay be nay; for of great
virtue is it in the prince, or any man, to be a speaker of the
truth, and of great security to his vassals and to his property."

I said that the chiselled and gilded iron fittings to the blade are of a later period. They date from the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and are the work of Salvador de Avila, of Toledo.

The other sword in this collection, and which also belongs to the thirteenth century, has a long, broad blade with two edges and a central groove, thinly engraved with circles (Pl. liv., No. 3, and Pl. lv.). The crossbars are of silver-gilt, engraved with _ataurique_, curving towards the blade and terminating in trefoils. A shield midway between them bears the arms of Castile upon one side, and those of León upon the other. The grip is of wood, covered with silver plates with decorated borders, and the pommel is of iron, also covered with ornamental plates of silver-gilt. Formerly this arm was studded with precious stones, but all of these excepting one have disappeared.

The scabbard is of wood lined with sheepskin, and is covered with a series of five silver-gilt plates, profusely decorated with Hispano-Moresque _lacería_, studded with various kinds of gems. These gems upon the scabbard amounted once upon a time to seventy-six, which sum, through pilfering or accident (probably the former, since the finest stones are gone), has been diminished by one-half. An inventory, made in the reign of Philip the Second, states that the inner side of the sheath, now wholly worn away, was covered with lions and castles, and that the belt was of broad orange-coloured cloth, with silver fittings.

This sword has been absurdly attributed to the nephew of Charlemagne, who lived not less than half a thousand years before its date of manufacture. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan thought that it may have been the property of a Spanish monarch of the thirteenth century,--perhaps Alfonso the Learned, or Ferdinand the Third, Alfonso's father. Ferdinand, we know, possessed a sword which he delivered with due ceremony to his elder son, the Infante Don Fernando, upon his leading out a force against the town of Antequera. This sword the chronicler Alvar García de Santa María described as having "a sheath in pieces, with many precious stones."

Of even greater interest than the foregoing weapon is the great two-handed and two-edged _estoque_ or ceremonial sword of Ferdinand and Isabella, which measures forty-two inches in length. The fittings are of iron, gilded and engraved. The crossbars, terminating in small half-moons, with the concave side directed outward, are inscribed with the well-known motto of the Catholic sovereigns, TANTO MONTA, and with a supplication to the Virgin, MEMENTO MEI O MATER DEI MEI. The pommel is a flat disc, suggestive in its outline of a Gothic cross, and bears upon one side the figure of Saint John together with the yoke, emblem of Ferdinand the Catholic, and upon the other the sheaf of arrows, emblem of his consort Isabella. The hilt is covered with red velvet bound with wire.

The sheath of this most interesting sword--affirmed by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan to have been used by Ferdinand and Isabella, and subsequently by Charles the Fifth, in the ceremony of conferring knighthood, and also, during the Hapsburg monarchy, to have been carried by the master of the horse before the king upon his formal visit to a city of his realm--is made of wood covered with crimson silk, bearing in "superposed" embroidery the arms of Spain posterior to the conquest of Granada, together with a repetition of the emblems of the Catholic sovereigns (Plate liv., No. 2).

In the same collection are two other swords which probably belonged to Ferdinand the Catholic. One of them (Pl. lvii., No. 1), has a discoid pommel and a gilded iron handle. The flat crossbars grow wider and bend down towards the blade, and on the hilt we read the words PAZ COMIGO NVNCA VEO, Y SIEMPRE GVERA DESEO ("Never does peace attend me, and always do I yearn for war").

This sword has been attributed to Isabella. The evidence for this belief is slight, although the Count of Valencia de Don Juan discovered that in the year 1500 Isabella was undoubtedly the possessor of certain weapons and armour which she sometimes actually wore. Among these objects were several Milanese breastplates, a small dagger with a gold enamelled hilt in the shape of her emblem of the sheaf of arrows, and two swords, one fitted with silver and enamel, and the other with iron.

The other sword, which probably belonged to Ferdinand the Catholic, is of the kind known as "of a hand and a half" (_de mano y media_; see p. 248, _note_), and also of the class denominated _estoques de arzón_, or "saddle-bow swords," being commonly slung from the forepart of the saddle upon the left side of the rider. Ferdinand, however, had reason to be chary of this usage, for Lucio Marineo Sículo affirms that at the siege of Velez-Málaga the sword which he was wearing thus suspended, jammed at a critical moment of the fray, and very nearly caused his death. Sículo adds that after this experience Ferdinand invariably wore his sword girt round his person, just as he wears it in the carving on the choir-stalls of Toledo.

The Royal Armoury contains another sword improperly attributed both to Ferdinand the Third and Ferdinand the Catholic. It dates from the fifteenth century, and has a blade of unusual strength intended to resist plate armour. This blade, which has a central ridge continued to the very point, is very broad towards the handle, tapers rapidly, and measures thirty-two inches. At the broader end, and on a gilded ground embellished with concentric circles, are graven such legends as:--

"The Lord is my aid. I will not fear what man may do to me, and will despise my enemies. Superior to them, I will destroy them utterly."

"Make me worthy to praise thee, O sweet and blessed Virgin Mary."

The handle is of iron, with traces of gilded decoration, and corded with black silk. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says that no reliable information can be found concerning this fine arm. Its length and general design would allow of its being used with one hand or with both, and either slung from the saddle-bow or round the middle of a warrior on foot.

Another handsome sword, wrongly attributed by the ignorant to Alfonso the Sixth, is kept at Toledo, in the sacristy of the cathedral. The scabbard is adorned with fourteenth-century enamel in the _champlevé_ style. Baron de las Cuatro Torres considers that this sword belonged to the archbishop Don Pedro Tenorio (see p. 269), and adduces his proofs in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for March 1897. The prelate in question, appointed to command an army sent against Granada, was, like so many of the Spanish mediæval clerics, of a warlike temper, and "exchanged with great alacrity his rochet for his harness, and his mitre for his helm."

One of the most ridiculous and barefaced forgeries in the Royal Armoury is a sixteenth-century sword which has inscribed upon its blade the name of the redoubtable Bernardo del Carpio. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says he remembers to have met with other blades of later mediæval make, engraved with such legends as "belonging to Count Fernán-Gonzalez," or even "Recaredus Rex Gothorum," while others in this armoury are ascribed, without the least authority of fact or common sense, to García de Paredes, Alvaro de Sande, and Hernando de Alarcón. Others, again, with less extravagance, though not on solid proof, are said to have belonged to Hernán Cortés, the Count of Lemos, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza.

Some, upon the other hand, belonged undoubtedly to celebrated Spanish warriors of the olden time. Such are the swords of the Count of Coruña, of Gonzalo de Córdova, and of the conqueror of Peru, Francisco Pizarro. The first of these weapons (Pl. lvii., No. 4) has a superb hilt carved in the style of the Spanish Renaissance, with crossbars curving down, a _pas d'âne_, and a Toledo blade of six _mesas_ ("tables") or surfaces, grooved on both sides, and ending in a blunt point. The armourer's mark, which seems to represent a _fleur-de-lis_ four times repeated, is that of the swordsmith Juan Martinez, whose name we read upon the blade, together with the words IN TE DOMINE SPERAVI, and on the other side, in Spanish, PARA DON BERNARDINO XVAREZ DE MENDOZA, CONDE DE CORVÑA.

The sword of "the great captain," Gonzalo de Córdova (1453-1515), is not of Spanish make (Plate lvii., No. 3). It has a straight blade with bevelled edges. The pommel and _quillons_ are decorated with Renaissance carving, and the bars, which are of gilded iron, grow wider at their end and curve towards the blade. The pommel, of gilded copper, is spherical, and bears, upon one side, a scene which represents a battle, together with the words GONSALVI AGIDARI VICTORIA DE GALLIS AD CANNAS. Upon the other side are carved his arms. Other inscriptions in Latin are also on the pommel and the blade.

The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believed that this sword was a present to Gonzalo from the corporation of some Italian town, and that it replaced, as an _estoque real_, or sword of ceremony, the state sword (see p. 252) of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Pizarro's sword remained in possession of his descendants, the Marquises of La Conquista, until as recently as 1809, in which year this family presented it to a Scotch officer named John Downie, who had fought in the Peninsular War against the French. Downie, in turn, bequeathed it to his brother Charles, lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army, from whom it passed into the hands of Ferdinand the Seventh. The appearance of this sword is not remarkable. It has a stout, four-surfaced blade, with a powerful _recazo_ or central ridge, engraved with the Christian name of Mateo Duarte, a swordsmith who was living at Valencia in the middle of the sixteenth century. The hilt is of blued (_pavonado_) steel, inlaid with leaves and other ornament in gold. The pommel is a disc; the _quillons_ are straight, or very nearly so, and there is a _pas d'âne_ (Plate lvii., No. 2).

The sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries are famous as the epoch of the Spanish rapier. Toledo, as the world is well aware, enjoyed an undisputed name for the production of these weapons. Within this ancient and historic capital generations of artists bequeathed, from father to son, and son to grandson, the secret (if there were a secret) of the tempering of these matchless arms; nor have Toledo blades deteriorated to this day. Many an idle superstition seeks to justify the talent and dexterity of these swordsmiths; though probably the key to all their skill was merely in the manual cunning, based on constant practice, of the craftsman, as well as in the native virtues of the water of the Tagus.

In one of my books I have described the workshop of an armourer of Toledo in the sixteenth century. "After a few moments we entered the Calle de las Armas, which struck me as having grown a good deal narrower; and my companion, pausing beside an open doorway topped with a sign depicting a halberd and a sword, invited me to enter. Two or three steps led downwards to a dark, damp passage, and at the end of this was a low but very large room, blackened by the smoke from half a dozen forges. The walls were hung with a bewildering variety of arms and parts of armour--gauntlets and cuirasses; morions, palettes, and lobster-tails; partisans and ranseurs; halberds, bayonets, and spontoons; as well as swords and daggers without number. Several anvils, with tall, narrow buckets filled with water standing beside them, were arranged about the stone-paved floor; and beside each forge was a large heap of fine, white sand.

"The showers of sparks, together with a couple of ancient-looking lamps whose flames shook fitfully to and fro in the vibration, showed thirty or forty workmen busily engaged; and what with the clanging of the hammers, the roaring of the bellows, and the strident hissing of the hot metal as it plunged into the cold water, the racket was incessant.

"My cicerone surveyed the discordant scene with all the nonchalance of lifelong custom, daintily eluding the columns of scalding steam, or screening his _chambergo_ from the sparks. Finding, however, that I was powerless to understand the remarks he kept addressing to me, he finally held up his finger and gave the signal to cease work; upon which the _oficial_ handed him a bundle of papers which I took to be accounts, and the men, doffing their leathern aprons, and hanging them in a corner, filed eagerly away.

"'It is quite simple,' said my companion, as though divining the query I was about to put to him; 'and indeed, I often wonder why we are so famous. They say it is the water; but any water will do. Or else they say it is the sand; and yet this sand, though clean and pure, is just the same as any other. Look! The blade of nearly all our swords is composed of three pieces--two strips of steel, from Mondragón in Guipúzcoa, and an iron core. This latter is the _alma_, or soul. The three pieces are heated and beaten together; and when they grow red-hot and begin to throw out sparks, they are withdrawn from the fire, and a few handfuls of sand are thrown over them. The welding of the pieces is then continued on the anvil; and, finally, the file is brought to bear on all unevennesses, and the weapon passes on to the temperer, the grinder, and the burnisher.'

"'It is in the tempering that we have earned our principal renown, although this process is quite as simple as the rest. Upon the forge--see, here is one still burning--a fire is made in the form of a narrow trench, long enough to receive four-fifths of the length of the weapon. As soon as the metal reaches a certain colour' (I thought I noted a mischievous twinkle in the armourer's eyes, as though this _certain colour_ were the key to all our conversation), 'I take these pincers, and, grasping the portion which had remained outside the fire, drop the weapon so, point downwards, into the bucket of water. Any curve is then made straight by beating upon the concave side, and the part which had been previously kept outside the trench of fire returns to the forge and is duly heated. The entire blade is next smeared with mutton fat, and rested against the wall to cool, point upwards. There is nothing more except the finishing. Your sword is made.'"[138]

[138] _Toledo and Madrid: their Records and Romances_; pp. 99-101.

The following passage from Bowles' _Natural History of Spain_, written in 1752, is also of especial interest here:--"At a league's distance from Mondragón is a mine of varnished, or, as miners term it, frozen iron. It lies in the midst of soft red earth, and produces natural steel--a very curious circumstance, seeing that, as I am assured, there is no other mine of this description in the kingdom. A tradition exists that the iron from this mine was used for making the swords, so celebrated for their tempering, presented by Doña Catalina, daughter of the Catholic Sovereigns, to her husband, Henry the Eighth of England. A few of these swords are yet extant in Scotland, where the natives call them _André Ferrara_,[139] and esteem them greatly. The famous sword-blades of Toledo, and the Perrillo blades of Zaragoza, which are still so highly valued, as well as others made elsewhere, are said to have been forged from the iron of this mine, which yields forty per cent. of metal. It is, however, somewhat hard to melt. With a little trouble it is possible to secure excellent steel, because this mine, like many another, possesses in itself the quality of readily taking from the coal of the forge the spirit which is indispensable for making first-rate swords; but without cementation I do not think it would serve for making good files or razors."

[139] Andrés Ferrara was a well-known armourer of Zaragoza.

"The swords of which I spoke as being so famed were generally either of a long shape, for wearing with a ruff; or broad, and known as the _arzón_, for use on horseback. It is probable that when the ruff was suddenly abandoned at the beginning of this century, large quantities of ready-fitted swords began to be imported from abroad, of such a kind as was demanded by the novel clothing. This would account for the decline and the eventual collapse of our factories, and the loss of our art of tempering swords. Concerning the mode of executing this, opinions differ. It is said by some that the blades were tempered in winter only, and that when they were withdrawn for the last time from the furnace, the smiths would shake them in the air at great speed three times on a very cold day. Others say that the blades were heated to a cherry-colour, then plunged for a couple of seconds into a deep jar filled with oil or grease, and changed forthwith to another vessel of lukewarm water, after which they were set to cool in cold water; all these operations being performed at midwinter. Others, again, declare that the blades were forged from the natural iron of Mondragón by placing a strip of ordinary iron along their core so as to give them greater elasticity; and that they were then tempered in the ordinary manner, though always in the winter. Such are the prevailing theories about the iron swords of Mondragón, which are, in truth, of admirable quality."

Magnificent examples of Toledo sword-blades, produced while her craft was at the zenith of its fame--that is, throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries--are in the Royal Armoury (Pl. lvii., Nos. 5, 6, 7). Among them are a series of _montantes_ made for tournament or war, and a superb blade, dated 1564, forged for Philip the Second by Miguel Cantero. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan considered this to be one of the finest weapons ever tempered; adding that the sword-blades of the city of the Tagus were held in such esteem all over Europe that he had seen, in numerous museums of the Continent, weapons professing to be Toledo-made, in which the blade and mark are evidently forged; bearing, for instance, _Ernantz_ for Hernandez, _Johanos_ for Juanes, and _Tomas Dailae_ for Tomás de Ayala.

It is generally agreed that the changes in the national costume, together with the importation of a lighter make of sword from France, were directly responsible for the decline of the Toledo sword-blades early in the eighteenth century. However, this decline was only temporary. Townsend wrote in 1786: "From the Alcazar we went to visit the royal manufactory of arms, with which I was much pleased. The steel is excellent, and so perfectly tempered, that in thrusting at a target, the swords will bend like whalebone, and yet cut through a helmet without turning their edge. This once famous manufacture had been neglected, and in a manner lost, but it is now reviving."

Laborde endorsed these praises subsequently: "Within a few years the fabrication of swords has been resumed at Toledo; the place allotted to this object is a handsome edifice, a quarter of a league distant from the city, which commands the banks of the Tagus. This undertaking has hitherto been prosperous; the swords are celebrated for the excellence of their blades, which are of finely tempered steel."

The modern small-arms factory of Toledo, situated on the right bank of the Tagus, a mile from the city walls, had, in fact, been opened in 1783, when the same industry was also reviving at Vitoria, Barcelona, and elsewhere. Toledo worthily maintains to-day her ancient and illustrious reputation for this craft. The Tagus still supplies its magic water for the tempering, while part of the prime material of the steel itself proceeds from Solingen and Styria, and the rest from Trubia and Malaga.

Cutlery continued to be made in Spain all through the eighteenth century. Colmenar says that the knives of Barcelona were considered excellent. According to Laborde, cutlery was made at Solsona and Cardona in Cataluña, at Mora in New Castile, and at Albacete in Murcia. "The cutlery of Solsona is in great repute; but the largest quantity is made at Albacete. In the latter place are about twenty-eight working cutlers, each of whom employs five or six journeymen, who respectively manufacture annually six or seven thousand pieces, amounting in the whole to about one hundred and eighty thousand pieces."[140]

[140] Vol. iv. p. 358.

FIREARMS