Blades of this century, though far from uniform, become generally more ornate and longer than in the century preceding, sometimes attaining the length of four feet, and there are even longer examples. Sword sheaths were usually of leather. The knight’s sword-belt was greatly embellished in this century by quatrefoils, jewels, and enriched pendants. The grip of the sword proper rather lengthens in the fifteenth century, and the tendency of the pommel is to become lighter, and is oftenest round or pear-shaped; there is still the plain cross-guard. The straight double-edged blade is long, and sometimes grooved. The pas d’ane guard is found in this century, though rarely. This guard projects over the base of the blade, its object being to protect the back of the hand, which it did but inadequately. It has often been assumed to have made its appearance first in the sixteenth century, but this is not the case, as a picture of the early part of the fifteenth century in a church at Mondoneda shows swords with this guard.[37] It forms, however, as a rule, an excellent guide as to date, and its presence would, under ordinary circumstances, indicate a weapon of the sixteenth century. There are some fine swords of this century (the fifteenth) in the Munich Museum, in excellent preservation, some with the original sheaths. The knuckle-bow, called the finger-guard by some writers, is comparatively rare towards the end of the fifteenth century, but becomes common in the following. Mr. John Hewitt, in one of his contributions towards the _History of Mediæval Weapons_, mentions an instance as early as the reign of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. It was long before this guard became united to the pommel. It clearly developed from the counter-curved quillons, one of which seems to have reached the pommel by stages. In Holbein’s “Costumes Suisses” is a figure of a Swiss halbardier of the first half of the sixteenth century with a sword, the knuckle-bow of which unites the quillons and pommel. The executioner’s sword is broad in the blade. A German example in the author’s collection is 39 inches in length. The pommel is circular, very heavy and flat, and engraved with an eagle; the quillons solid and plain, curving slightly towards the blade, which has a groove running up the centre. The blade is two and a half inches broad, and is inscribed with a cross, cross-bones, and a crown. Quillons are, of course, unnecessary on these weapons, and are unusual except in the case of German examples. The sword used in the foot tournament was heavier and shorter than that for war.