Rondel dagger – Wikipedia
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Kind of stiff-bladed dagger
A rondel dagger or roundel dagger was a kind of stiff-bladed dagger in Europe within the late Middle Ages (from the 14th century onwards), utilized by quite a lot of folks from merchants to knights. It was worn on the waist and may be used as a utility device, or worn into battle or in a jousting tournament as a side arm.
The rondel dagger featured a protracted, slim metal blade with a spherical or round hand guard and pommel. Designed for close-quarter fight, it was efficient in puncturing and bursting mail armor hyperlinks and penetrating weak factors in plate armor. The dagger developed from the early knightly dagger and have become the usual side-arm for knights within the fifteenth century. It was used as a backup weapon for hand-to-hand combating and as a device to power give up, as captured knights may very well be ransomed. The rondel dagger additionally gained reputation among the many center class within the fifteenth century. Varied fight strategies involving the rondel dagger may be present in Hans Talhoffer’s fight manuals from the 1440s to 1460s.
Design and development[edit]
The blade was product of steel, and was usually lengthy and slim with a tapering needle level, measuring 12 inches (30 cm) or extra; the entire dagger may be so long as 20 inches (50 cm). Rondel means spherical or circular; the dagger will get its title from its spherical (or equally formed, e.g. octagonal) hand guard and spherical or spherical pommel (knob on the top of the grip).
The blade’s tang prolonged via the deal with, which was cylindrical, usually carved from wooden or bone. In cross part, the blade was normally diamond-shaped, lenticular, or triangular. These blades would have a sharpened level, and both one or each edges would even be sharpened. They had been principally designed to be used with a stabbing motion, both underarm, or over arm with a reverse grip (harking back to an ice pick). The lengthy straight blade wouldn’t have lent itself to a slashing or sabre motion.
Rondel daggers had been designed to be excellent for close-quarter fight which regularly required grappling. They had been used for puncturing and bursting the hyperlinks in mail armour and so they might penetrate the weaker factors in plate armour and helmets, similar to areas of thinner plate, any gaps and the varied joints. As armour improved, puncturing in such methods was one of many solely methods by which the heavy armour of men-at-arms may very well be breached.
Examples additionally exist of four-edged rondel daggers, the blade having a cruciform profile. These blades wouldn’t have been fitted to reducing, or use as a basic utility device; they might have been worn as a side-arm in battle as a thrusting weapon, foreshadowing the looks of the stiletto within the sixteenth century.[1][2] Rondel daggers which have survived and located their method into museums and collections are normally these with wonderful craftsmanship and sometimes ornate ornament. The blades could also be engraved, the grips ornately carved, and the hand guards and pommels extremely adorned.
The rondel dagger developed within the 14th century from the early knightly dagger of the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, matching the evolution of full plate armour.
By the fifteenth century it had grow to be the usual side-arm for knights, and would have been carried into battles such because the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The modern autopsy on the stays of King Richard III show that at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 he suffered a rondel wound to the top earlier than different deadly wounds. They had been a knight’s backup weapon for use in hand-to-hand combating, and as such considered one of their final traces of protection. Since they had been in a position to penetrate a go well with of armour (on the joints, or via the visor of the helmet), rondel daggers may very well be used to power an unseated or wounded knight to give up, for a knight may fetch a great ransom if taken alive.
Within the fifteenth century, the rondel dagger additionally rose to reputation among the many rising middle class. In a scene from a miniature by Girart de Roussillon depicting the development of twelve church buildings in France (c. 1448), retailers and tradesmen may be seen sporting rondel daggers at their waists.
Hans Talhoffer in his combat manuals of the 1440s to 1460s contains quite a few examples of strategies for combating with the rondel dagger, each in unarmoured fight and in single fight in armour.
See additionally[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Peterson, Harold, Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World, Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-41743-3, ISBN 978-0-486-41743-1 (2002), pp. 16-26
- ^ Ford, Roger, et al., Weapon: A Visible Historical past of Arms and Armor, London: DK Publishing Inc., ISBN 0-7566-2210-7, ISBN 978-0-7566-2210-7 (2006), pp. 69, 131
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