SPANISH DAGGER
The inseparable friends
- fencing and a rapier - experienced accomplishments in the 1st half of the17th century
as indispensable companions through the European society. Simultaneously with them the prosperity
of sword makersī workshops in Spanish Toledo was thriving, too. During the years 1640-1680 Spanish masters
made their own type of the rapier, the rapier with the bell basket.
Left-hand daggers became an inherent accessory of these rapiers.
The dagger of course served primarily for parrying and
breaking the rivalīs rapier.
Therefore the dagger had round cut-outs in the blade under the quillon, sometimes
two forked spikes in which the rivalīs blade could be caught. The basket of this dagger rose from the quillon
up to the pommel as a triangular sleeve with the skilfully bent border having a very prosaic name - ROMPEPUNTAS, which
can be literally translated as a spike breaker.
If a dual was taking place somewhere in a narrow lane or in a corridor, it was not possible to draw the long sword
and the dagger became the only usable weapon.
