hilt, not alone on account of its style, but also on the more material evidence of a second rapier in existence in the collection of Major M. Dreger of Berlin. For though the hilt of this latter weapon is different in formation, its enrichment is precisely similar in style to that of the Hampden rapier; and while the ornamentation is in its general scheme perhaps of smaller proportions, it is most certainly the work of the same hand. This Berlin rapier has reputed French royal provenance (Fig. 1362).
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Fig. 1362. Chiselled steel hilt
French, last quarter of the XVIth century. The quillons are bent. Collection: Major M. Dreger, Berlin
The influence that the national characteristics of one sort of hilt exercised over those of another nation makes it very difficult to give to a specific group a country of its own. The types of Italy and France were intermixed; those of England we will endeavour to treat of as they occur. The artists and craftsmen of some nations amalgamated nearly all styles, and it is only in Spain and in the Countries that distinctive types of hilts appear of which it can, with a fair amount of certainty, be said: "That is Spanish"—"That is Flemish." Of these two countries, let us first take Spain, for it shows a greater diversity of form. We have alluded in a previous chapter to the Hispano-Moorish swords (vol. ii, p. 281); now we have to deal with that strange type of hilt familiar to us in the portraits of the Emperor Charles V, and of his successor. By this we mean a simple quilloned weapon, with a short, solid grip of metal, illustrated for example by that fine specimen in the Wallace Collection (Fig. 1363). This represents admirably the kind of hilt to which we refer. Viewed from a modern standpoint such a sword appears most uncomfortably hilted, over-*bladed, and badly balanced; yet from its constant representation in contemporary Spanish portraits it must undoubtedly have been the town-sword of the nobility of that country. The sword in the Wallace Collection has
