A silvered sword from the Saxon armoury

With weaponry from the electoral court, the more silver on show, the higher the rank of the owner

-  HENRY YALLOP

THE SWORD has always been an object of status, both on the battlefield and for the hunt. During the 16th century the sword came to form an essential part of noble dress, and complex hilts of the period gave craftsmen greater opportunity to apply their skills and reflect the status of the sword’s owners than on the simple cruciform hilts that had dominated for the previous centuries. The period saw a flourishing of different hilt forms, some of which were regionally distinct. This sword’s straight quillons of flattened triangular section flaring into spatulate form are of Saxon type, which feature prominently in the collection of the armoury at Dresden in Germany, where this sword originally resided.

The electoral Saxon armoury of Augustus I (reigned 1553-86), Christian I (1586-91) and Christian II (1591-1611) contained a vast array of high-quality swords, some duplicates of which were sold from the Dresden armoury from the mid 19th century onwards.