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Fig. 791. Dagger or dirk

Scottish, late XVIIth century. Collection: the late Sir Noël Paton Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh

Fig. 792. From the brass of Sir William de Aldeburgh

About 1360. Aldborough Church, Yorkshire

double swellings above the blade socket (Fig. 791) were of this same type. This form is also represented on monumental slabs and effigies. The earliest we can record in England is perhaps that shown on the brass of Sir William de Aldeburgh, in Aldborough Church, Yorkshire (Fig. 792). But on the Continent it is to be seen at even an earlier date, first on the monumental slab of Jean and Gérard, seigneurs de Heers (1332-98), now preserved in the Musée du Cinquantenaire, Brussels, and secondly, at Gothem, on the monumental slab of Gerardus de Gothem, who died in 1358. In the latter case a clearly defined "kidney" dagger is to be seen, the hilt of which is attached by a chain to the right mamelière. The next English "kidney" dagger, about 1379, is depicted on the brass of Robert Parys in Hildersham Church, Cambridgeshire (Fig. 793). Another good example is to be seen on another civilian brass of about 1380 at Kings Somborne, Hampshire, and it is to be noted that the kidney dagger, unlike the purely military rondel form, was worn with civilian dress (cf. also the illustration reproduced from the Theuerdank, Fig. 820). On the effigy in Canterbury Cathedral of Thomas, second Duke of Clarence, second son of King Henry IV, who was killed at Beaugé in 1421, a finely