Daggers attributed to Colonel Blood

Extract

The two daggers here illustrated (pl. xxvii) are of interest both on account of their traditional attribution, but more especially for their technical value as examples of a type which has persisted for over two hundred years. The popular name for this type is Kidney Dagger, Ballock Knife, Dague à Rognons, of course derived from the two excrescences which take the place of a cross-guard on the hilt.

The type, first appearing in the fourteenth century, became stabilized at the end of the fifteenth century, and seems to have been peculiarly English. The outstanding examples in public or private collections are the following:—

The earliest representation is on the brass of Sir William de Aldeburgh at Aldeburgh about 1360, and we find it later on the Arundel effigy of John Fitz-Alan, 1434.