Quote:
Originally Posted by corrado26
Many thanks Jim for your answer and interesting contribution. I checked the type of my sword with help of the book of A.V.B. Norman and found the pommel of my sword on page 243 as "pommel 14", dated to the third quater of the 17th century. This dating would very well fit to the portrait on the blade of a uniform bearer with allonge wig. This type of wig certainly was out of fashion at the time of the funeral of the French king Louis XV. in 1774. The equivalent hilt is shown on page 199, drawing 112 dated from the 1640s or even earlier. As Norman writes "their presence in many English country houses, armouries, and some churches as well as the similarity of their decoration to that found on what collectors call "mortuary swords" which appear to be exclusively English, suggest their country of origin".
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Very well noted Udo. With small swords, as we are aware, while they were around through 17th c. with their use extending through the 18th, but by the time of the funeral of Louis XV their character had changed.
Note the full pas d'ane rings, by 1770s these had become more vestigial and flatter, virtually eliminating the original purpose. The blade on this seems of early form but the rebated blade tip is curious.
With blade engravings of course, they are most often commemorative with these kinds of figures such as the wigged head. I think of the hussar figures with panoplies of arms etc. are just a popular theme on many saber blades. Many of these (as well as on plug bayonets) have the 'viva pandour' phrase.
In Norman's quote (as cited) he is referring to the range of variations of the so called mortuary hilts we are discussing, which of course are unrelated to these 'mourning' small swords' , and reiterating that they were in fact used by both sides in the English Civil wars and related campaigns.
Your comparison in well placed however in noting the somber tone in the sobriquets of these swords
I would add here that the evolution of the 'mortuary' sword corresponds with the early development of the Hounslow sword phenomenon in England in which German smiths were established in the outskirts of London in the 1630s.Here they were fabricating various swords which apparently included these 'mortuary' swords.
Here is one I think may be from Hounslow before the shops were taken over by Cromwell.
This has a typical ANDREA FERARA blade from Solingen, revealing that not ALL such blades went to Scotland, but indeed reached England and Hounslow where a notable number of Solingen blades augmented those produced by the German smiths in those shops.