rondel dagger

In the 15th century, the rondel dagger also rose to popularity among the emerging middle class.

"Oh, for God's sake," she laughed, seeing then that the old man was carrying the Rondel dagger.

A few examples also exist of four-edged rondel daggers, the blade having a cruciform profile.

She had a leaf-green mantle around her throat, and a rondel dagger stuck down her bodice lacings.

The rondel dagger was a fighting knife with a double-edged, tapered blade and a hilt featuring circular guards.

Rondel daggers which have survived and found their way into museums and collections are usually those with fine craftsmanship and often ornate decoration.

Spotlight: The Rondel Dagger (myArmoury.com article)

The rondel dagger evolves in the 14th century from the early knightly dagger of the 12th to 13th centuries, matching the evolution of full plate armour.

These weapons may forgo defined edges altogether and take on a more cylindrical shape as the rondel dagger acted historically as a thrusting and stabbing weapon.

The development of the Scottish dirk as a weapon is unrelated to that of the naval dirk; it is a modern continuation of the 16th-century ballock or rondel dagger.

In a scene from a miniature by Girat de Roussillon depicting the construction of twelve churches in France (c. 1448), merchants and tradesmen can be seen wearing rondel daggers at their waists.

Hans Talhoffer in his combat manuals of the 1440s to 1460s includes numerous examples of techniques for fighting with the rondel dagger, both in unarmed combat and in single combat in armour.

First developed in Italy, the stiletto dates from the late 1400s, and is thought to be a development of the rondel dagger or misericordia, a needle-pointed weapon with a narrow blade designed primarily for thrusting, though possessing cutting edges.

In this period these arts were largely reserved for the knighthood and the nobility - hence most treatises deal with knightly weapons, such as the rondel dagger, longsword, spear, pollaxe and armoured fighting mounted and on foot.

Rondel daggers were ideal in battle for puncturing chain mail, and although they would not have been able to punch through plate armour, they could be forced between the joints in a suit of armour and helmets.

Since they were able to penetrate a suit of armour (at the joints, or through the visor of the helmet), rondel daggers could be used to force an unseated or wounded knight to surrender, for a knight might fetch a good ransom.

Over the years, the term has been used to describe a wide variety of thrusting knives, including knives that feature only a single cutting edge, such as the European rondel dagger or the Persian pesh-kabz, or, in some instances, no cutting edge at all, such as the stiletto of the Renaissance.