Baselard

The baselard (also basilard, baslard, in Middle French also badelare, bazelaire and variants, latininzed baselardus, basolardus etc., in Middle High German beseler, baseler, basler, pasler; baslermesser) is a historical type of dagger or short sword of the Late Middle Ages.

In modern use by antiquarians, the term baselard is mostly reserved for a type of 14th-century dagger with an I-shaped handle which evolved out of the 13th-century knightly dagger. Contemporary usage was less consequent, and the term in Middle French and Middle English could probably be applied to a wider class of large dagger. The term (in many spelling variants) first appears in the first half of the 14th century. There is evidence that the term is in origin a Middle French or Medieval Latin corruption of the German basler [messer] "Basel knife".

Both the term baselard and the large dagger with H-shaped hilt or "baselard proper" appear by the mid 14th century. Several 14th-century attestations from France gloss the term as coutel "knife".

Depictions of mid-14th-century examples are preserved as part of tomb effigies (figuring as part of the full military dress of the deceased knight). By the mid-14th century, the baselard is a popular sidearm carried by the more violence-prone section of civilian society, and it retains an association with hooliganism. One early attestation of the German form pasler (1341) is from a court document of Nuremberg recording a case against a man who had injured a woman by striking her on the head with this weapon. Several German law codes of the 14th to 15th centuries outlaw the carrying of a basler inside a city. By the late 14th century, it became fashionable in much of Western Europe, including France, Italy, Germany and England. Sloane MS 2593 (c. 1400) records a song satirizing the use of oversized baselard knives as fashion accessories.Piers Plowman also associates the weapon with vain gaudiness: in this case, two priests, Sir John and Sir Geoffrey are reported to have been sporting a girdle of silver, a baselard or a ballok knyf with buttons overgilt.

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