202. Rondelle.
In a challenge for a tournament recorded by Monstrellet, one of the conditions is, "that each person shall make provision of lances, but the rondelle which lies on the hands shall be only four fingers broad and no more." Mr. Johnes says he does not understand this. "In the original it is tondelle, altered by Du Cange to rondelle, which is translated by Cotgrave 'a small target,' but four fingers wide would be too insignificant for any defence."—What Cotgrave means is the roundel, or small shield which was borne before a general, . . a thing of ceremony, not of service. The roundel of the text is the guard of the tilting spear, which was shaped like a funnel.
This explanation will be found in Pineda's Spanish Dictionary, under the word Arandela. Minshen only interprets the word rebatoes, supporters for women's ruffs. I perceive by the Dictionary of the Portuguese Academy, that the word has this meaning also, and that the nozzle of a candlestick was formerly called by the same name. Arandalla is the Portugueze word. Some have supposed it to be originally Arabic, but it does not appear in Fr. Joam de Sousa's Vestigios da Lingua Arabica em Portugal. Pineda says it is thought to have been invented at Arundel in Sussex, and thence to have its name; this is a very unlikely guess. He calls it "a thing in the shape of a funnel fastened to the thick end of a lance to defend the man's hand." But whoever looks at the representation of a tilting lance will see that the stave itself is shaped like a funnel just at the part where it was held. Roundel seems to have been corrupted from this word by an obvious reference to the form of the thing denoted.