described in Vetusta Monumenta, vol. v. The second Chester sword which the British Museum shows is a smaller and possibly a fighting weapon, with an imperfect though very fine hilt of Italian workmanship of the end of the XVth century (Fig. 710). The quillons are missing. It has been suggested that the blade, which is of flattened diamond-shaped section, stiff and tapering to the sharp point, is from the sword of the first Norman Earl of Chester, Hugh d'Avranches (surnamed Lupus) or from that of Hugh Kevelioc, his great-great-nephew, as cut upon it with a graving tool is the inscription: HUGO COMES CESTRIAE. But in the possibility of its belonging to so early a date we cannot believe; for the blade is not of the shape or section of blades of those early times. It is, more-*over, quite in accord with the shape of the present hilt. It has a curious evenly rusted surface, a feature which, were its authenticity not assured beyond all ground of suspicion, might justify its being regarded with a certain amount of scepticism. When the quillons of the hilt were lost we are unable to say; but they are described as wanting in an allusion made to the sword in Lyson's Magna Britannia (vol. ii, part ii, p. 461) published in 1810. Two years earlier, however, Dr. Gower had made a drawing of the sword for a history of Cheshire; and in this drawing the sword is represented with a cross-guard. But this guard is very crudely rendered; so possibly the drawing of the quillons is but an imaginative reconstruction.
FOREIGN SWORDS OF CEREMONY
Some of the most superbly decorated swords on the Continent are swords of ceremony. In the armoury of Vienna there are two, once the property of the great Maximilian, both shaped on the lines of fighting swords of the time, but so large that their only use could have been that of ceremony. Possibly the finer of the two (Fig. 711) is that constructed on the general proportions of a German war sword of the latter part of the XVth century. It is splendid in its general lines, and is in admirable condition. The second Vienna sword has many points of interest, possessing as it does the original scabbard and portion of the belt (Fig. 712); it is also of earlier date, and was in all probability the property of the Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol. The construction of this sword is unusual. The diamond-shaped pommel and ends to the quillons are of copper gilt and hollow upon a core of iron; the grip is of horn, with which latter material a portion of the quillons is covered. On one side
