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Ryan S.




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PostPosted: Sat 04 May, 2024 7:24 am    Post subject: Rapier as Cavalry Sword?         Reply with quote

Is it possible that the rapier started off as a cavalry sword? I am thinking about this for a few reasons:
1. Reitschwert, meaning riding sword is used synonymously with sidesword, which is a modern word for a rapier that is less rapier-like. Reitschwert can also describe longswords, and I don’t know what makes a long sword a Reitschwert or not.
2. Complex hilts allow better finger protection, allowing one to wrap a finger around the cross and give point.
3. The Polish Koncerz is similar to a rapier, especially a "true rapier" in that it is a long thrust dedicated weapon. In fact, it is longer and more thrust oriented.

I am not saying that rapiers weren’t duelling weapons, but rather wondering if the original idea was similar to the idea behind the koncerz.


Last edited by Ryan S. on Thu 16 May, 2024 12:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Vincent Le Chevalier




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PostPosted: Mon 06 May, 2024 8:34 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Not terribly likely I think.

Terminology is mostly post-hoc, so I wouldn't trust the "reitschwert" thing too much.

Finger rings are actually first documented on cutting swords, before being adopted on other swords. More hand protection is always good, of course, but I don't think the fingering actually has so much to do with thrusting (mark that the koncerz do not have finger rings, either).

I'm not saying rapiers weren't used on horseback, of course. But they don't seem to have been designed primarily for horseback use. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence for this is that in all lands were they were imported as foreign weapons (England, Germany essentially), they were described as dueling focused and on foot. I'm not aware of any source text alluding to a horseback development.

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Sat 11 May, 2024 8:58 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote



One problem is that complex-hilted military swords with four-sided blades often get described as 'rapiers' today. Seventeenth-century swords like the "Munich Town Guard" group or these in Schloss Ambras are not rapiers as described by George Silver or as depicted in the prints to Thibault and Capo Ferro. They are shorter with wider fortes.

The Met even calls this a rapier even though it has a blade that would look fine on an eighteenth-century English backsword! https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22366

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Ryan S.




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PostPosted: Mon 13 May, 2024 9:48 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Reitschwert is more of a historical term whose meaning is unclear today, rather than a new creation that represents a clear typological distinction. It is possible that a few of the museums that use the term Reitschwert, have taken the term from their inventory. Wendelin Boeheim doesn’t mention the term, using the term Degen for rapier. He uses the term rappier to refer to a flexible practice weapon.

When checking Boeheim I noticed that he mentions that the Degen was used as a cavalry sword, and continued to be used as such in Southern Europe after it was adopted by foot soldiers in other parts of Europe. His definition of Degen includes Haudegens, which he defines as single-edged Degens.

The word Degen at some point became a synonym for sword, but I will have to check when. It is possible that in German, the word Rappier changed in meaning significantly by the time the Boeheim was writing.


Last edited by Ryan S. on Thu 16 May, 2024 12:55 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Tue 14 May, 2024 4:55 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

If the rapier started as a cavalry weapon, you'd expect to see its length shorten when it gets adopted by infantry. We see the opposite occur; rapiers get longer over time before shortening again.
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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Tue 14 May, 2024 11:11 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Ryan S. wrote:
Reitschwert is more of a historical term whose meaning is unclear today, rather than a new creation that represents a clear typological distinction. It is possible that a few of the museums that use the term Reitschwert, have taken the term from their inventory. Wendelin Boeheim doesn’t mention the term, using the term Degen for rapier. He uses the term rappier to refer to a flexible practice weapon.

You might want to ask around the German HEMA people to see who has collected sources from Central Europe that talk about swords from the 16th and 17th century.

Reitschwert shows up in Georg von Nürnberg's German-Italian phrasebook from 1424. Tuck and estoc are useful words to explore in France and the British Isles.

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Ryan S.




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PostPosted: Tue 14 May, 2024 11:41 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
If the rapier started as a cavalry weapon, you'd expect to see its length shorten when it gets adopted by infantry. We see the opposite occur; rapiers get longer over time before shortening again.


Interesting. Do you have more data on the length of rapiers over time? In Europäische Hieb und Stich Waffen it says that the length helped infantry to be able to reach riders.

I have cleared up some historical terminology for the meaning of Rapier in German. The word was supposedly adopted from French. By the 18th century, it came to mean a fencing foil and Degen came to refer to rapiers, small swords as well as other post medieval straight swords. At some point, rapier came to mean a lighter, longer Degen.

Europäische Hieb und Stich Waffen says that if one isn’t sure if it is a Degen or a sword, then anything with a blade wider than 30 mm is a sword. I don’t know how widespread this cut off point is, but can swords be classified based on blade width alone? With long and short narrow blades belonging to a group together?
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Pedro Paulo Gaião




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PostPosted: Tue 14 May, 2024 1:18 pm    Post subject: Re: Rapier as Calvary Sword?         Reply with quote

Ryan S. wrote:
Is it possible that the rapier started off as a calvary sword?


No. I posted about early rapiers here: http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=40252&highlight=

I said elsewhere about Italians being early adopters and more enthusiasts with knuckle-bows (or ponte/punte/bridge in Iberian), probably having to do with Slavic influence in Venice.

We can trace the actual complex hilt fever to 1470-1`s Portugal (we have Portuguese artistic evidence for swords with rainguards and one finger-ring arrangement in the 1460`s). But in the Iberian Peninsula, swords with complex hilts were used by heavily armored people in war contexts as well (Pastrana Tapestries, Knightly Book of Burgos etc), while it seems that Italian artistic evidence (Signorelli paintings from the Conversion of Paul and later pictures) show a more civilian context and a not-so-vanguardistic tendency on the complex hilts (also the position of Arms and Armor`s website).

These swords with doublet finger rings are known as Espada de Pitones (Spanish) and Espada de Guardas Duplas (Portuguese) and are the great grand fathers of what we call today as "rapiers", as they appeared with perpendicular pins in the finger rings in the 1470`s, and with a full U side-ring in 1471.

Check Ricardo Lebre's sword made by Gael Fabre in his website, it's a Sword of Double Guards based on extant examples and Portuguese artistic evidence: it's a type XIX with long and slimmer blade (BL 88; BW 3.5), in many respect similar to the Alexandria type XIX. I discussed it with Lebre and he said how agile and fast cutter this sword could be, a similar description made by every owner and reviewer of Albion's Machiavelli and cousin-swords.

https://www.gaelfabre.com/epee-portugaise-placage-or-dorure/
----

It's usually accepted that rapiers as a thing would be dated to the 1550s (perhaps 1540`s?), but these early rapiers were still keeping the war, cutting properties of his predecessors, while refining the concepts seen in the agile cut-and-thrust fencing of their predecessors. A mostly dedicated thrusting rapier, around 2.5cm wide at the base, perhaps longer than 93-95cm, can be dated to the 1580's.

The early extant early rapiers we have are Gustav Vasa I of Sweden and a pair from Emperor Charles V (twin set, one from MET, the other from Real Armeria in Madrid). Of notable mention: swords attributed to Conquistadores such as Pizarro and Cortez in Madrid.

Charles V's twins, made in Italy, and Vasa's stossdegen, made in Germany were made in the same decade, featuring almost the same style of blade: 93-94cm long, 3.4cm wide (the MET's blade width I estimated through the pixels and some accounts). The hilt varies, most likely having to do with the center's trend: different styles of complex hilts, with the Charles's having knuckle-bows (or ponte/punte/bridge in Iberian) and Vasa the socket seen in several Dresden's rapiers.

We don't know if they were used on horse by this era, but these examples were capable of resisting blows and delivering good cuts through flesh and perhaps reminiscent padded armor of the era.

Pizarro and Cortez's swords were a few decades earlier, about 1530, but they would be placed in the gray-zone between what we call today a spada da lato and an early rapier. They differ from Charles and Gustaf's by being slimmer and having a more flat diamond section.

Funny thing: Sweden has a 1550's sword that has basically a rapier blade in a longsword grip:
https://samlingar.shm.se/object/8A9DE47A-C65B-4289-A0FA-E0ED4264B207
----

But to finally answer your question, the rapier (which pretty much almost consider an Iberian etymology) or the espada roupeira was a development for (or mostly for) Civilian usage. Estocs on the other hand was a war development of thrusting swords such as XVIa and XVIIIb. They didn't blend each other. The Eastern European sword you mentioned descends from the Estoc.

We have lots of them in the Real Armeria's catalogue. Madrid owns, or used to own, the Saxon Prince's Estoc, captured (alongside his armor) when he was trying to escape with his horse from the Battle of Muhlberg. It's as a stereotypical estoc as it could (necessary note: since the 14th century, estoc meant any thrusting dedicated sword, I'm referring to the anachronistic terminology).
-------

Rapiers were used at war in the 17th century. Gustav Adolphus' golden hilt rapier, found in Lutzen, is something I discussed with Carlos Cordeiro at length when I visited his workshop. The point suffered delamination-damage (Carlos explained by the fact that 17th-century steel wasn't yet the mono-steel quality we had during the Industrial Revolution after the Bessemer method), so they were a sort of a poor blend of steel sheets "glued" together due to stuff like low furnace temperatures and different steel pieces used to make the final piece used for the sword-making itself). Gustav Adolphus was on horse, of course, and helped to create the concept of sword-fighting cavalry of the period (where, before that, sword was a sidearm, not the first choice).

https://samlingar.shm.se/object/A48943A6-1EDB-416A-8DA1-89AFD2A5C5B6

https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/media/lutzenvarjan-livrustkammaren-25825-9d1466

Gustav Adorlph rapier is slimmer than Gustav I's sword from the 1550's, but wide enough (BW 2.8cm) to endure blows and deliver good cuts. This king also owned complex hilted swords with heavy blades
https://digitaltmuseum.se/011024415885/varja

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Wed 15 May, 2024 11:42 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Many swords with a lot of rapier characteristics have blades that could easily be mounted on a late medieval longsword in the type XV, XVI, or XVII families except for the ricasso. And those longswords could easily be called tucks or estocs even if they are not the most extreme. So its not hard to see why in sixteenth-century England "tuck" and "rapier" can refer to the same object even though not all rapiers are suitable for pushing someone out of the saddle from a moving horse and not all tucks are pretty and easy to wear around town.

I don't know of a study of sword blades from sixteenth-century Europe because they are hard to date and hard to fit into a typology.

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Wed 15 May, 2024 5:49 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The Met has photos of two sixteenth-century estocs. You can see how someone looking at the Saxon estoc in its sheath might not know whether its more for poking at the gaps in plate armour, or impaling people wearing doublets and hose.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/25627
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27434

Edit: a longsword-hilted estoc with a blade section that reminds me of a smallsword https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/211938

Long narrow stiff blades first appear on swords for fighting armoured opponents, but a lot of early complex hilts are mounted on broad flat blades, and eventually some cutlers start to offer swords with both features.

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Pedro Paulo Gaião




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PostPosted: Sat 18 May, 2024 6:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sean Manning wrote:
The Met has photos of two sixteenth-century estocs. You can see how someone looking at the Saxon estoc in its sheath might not know whether its more for poking at the gaps in plate armour, or impaling people wearing doublets and hose.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/25627
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27434


I went across this Saxon sword many times, but before you mentioned the estoc blade I just thought it was a fullered-blade, typical of a rapier. Is there a fuller anyways? The light and angles doesnt help me at all.

If I was seeing this in a sheath, I would assume it to be a normal rapier. The Philly museum link you gave, for example, has a more typical estoc handle because, at least as I assume, a flatter top on a pommel could be pushed with your second hand,
as you see in some daggers.

Sean Manning wrote:
Long narrow stiff blades first appear on swords for fighting armoured opponents, but a lot of early complex hilts are mounted on broad flat blades, and eventually some cutlers start to offer swords with both features


Up to the 16th century all sword developments were intended for war and thought under war circumstances. Even "early rapiers" would be suitable for war, thought it's generally understood to be a civilian enviroment on their development. 0

A painting made for Philip II of Spain shows him in jinete's fashion and Charles V's in full armor, armed with one of his twin's early rapiers, but way wider and with a typical type XIX spada da lato blade. I couldnt say for sure if the painter, working in 1639-40, knew anything about the subject at all



https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/charles-v-and-philip-ii/b5cababe-6bb0-4e90-8f97-d4fe913842a1

Philip's sheath seens to indicate a war rapier or a civilizian rapier in a large case

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Sat 18 May, 2024 12:54 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote:
Sean Manning wrote:
The Met has photos of two sixteenth-century estocs. You can see how someone looking at the Saxon estoc in its sheath might not know whether its more for poking at the gaps in plate armour, or impaling people wearing doublets and hose.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/25627
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27434


I went across this Saxon sword many times, but before you mentioned the estoc blade I just thought it was a fullered-blade, typical of a rapier. Is there a fuller anyways? The light and angles doesnt help me at all.

I think the blade of the estoc in Philadelphia has a ridge on one side and a hollow on the other side -^- The blade of the Saxon estoc in the Met looks like it has a very high medial ridge on both sides (some people would call it 'hollow ground' because smiths today would make that shape with grinders rather than hammers). I would need a better photo to decide about the blade of the other estoc in the Met.

By the fourteenth century a lot of medieval people distinguish between the sword you wear with your armour (arming sword) and other types of sword. And some swords are much more suitable for killing someone in armour than others.

Edit: might be worth exploring whether the broad-bladed, complex-hilted swords could be called 'robe swords' or if that was always associated with longer narrower blades

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Ryan S.




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PostPosted: Yesterday at 3:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Thanks, this is all great information. There are different ways to classify weapons, and it seems that they classified weapons differently than we do. I think the classification based on the type of clothes it was worn with makes sense. I am guessing that the same servant who helped with dressing also helped with armour. The term Kürißschwert is sometimes listed as another term for Reitschwert. At least some princes had swords to match a specific set of clothes or armour. There are portraits showing armour wearers carrying complex hilted swords, although they are often hard to see.



Christian II of Saxony, several swords that are known to belong to him are in museums. The colour of the hilt matches the decoration on his armour, but also the shape of the quillons matches the floral scroll shape. Similarly, one of his surviving suits of clothes matches a rapier of his in the Royal Armoury:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihL0Xzfy2Oq_GbffF_C26dEpmpbeIC2vJXnwE2l65uRdT7H1LJFqn_4DqMaiknA7i0h39fGs-K61YUQVKLVUkpUNp1uun1Wd6vxQga3w3QqQ2glJE3HGdvS2L0Tx5UC7a2IZTCC2fc6HMu/s1600/Christian+II+sword+against+parade+costume.JPG

When studying crossbows in the Dresden collection, Holger Richter was able to match documentation with specific crossbows. This allowed him to compare Wandschnepper and Vogelschnepper and determine the differences, even though it wasn’t apparent at the beginning. I wonder if this is possible with early modern swords.
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Pedro Paulo Gaião




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PostPosted: Yesterday at 7:40 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sean Manning wrote:
By the fourteenth century a lot of medieval people distinguish between the sword you wear with your armour (arming sword) and other types of sword. And some swords are much more suitable for killing someone in armour than others.


Interesting thing: I'm convinced Oakeshott mistranslated what an "arming sword" is.

I'm saying that because ALL late medieval sources in Portugal and Castile use the term "espada de armas" to meant a longsword, both hand and a half or two handed longswords. Prof. Paulo Agostinho made his master degree thesis getting the main 10 military sources from 15th century Portugal (though they generally cover 1350-1430 periods) and the issue of considering an espada de armas as a longsword is a consensus in Portuguese Military History.

Whenever "de armas" is added to a weapon, it's reffering a knightly or armoured weapon. Such as an "axe of arms" meaning a pollaxe (King joao I is reffered at Aljubarrota using an hacha de armas, which was given to a monastery as an ex-voto and depicted in the years before the Napoleonic invasion of Lisbon). A "lança de armas" is a cavalry lance, while a "lança" is an infantry spear. Well at that point you might have got the point.


Portugal shared terminology in Castile, for example: Fernão Lopes in the 15th century says that in the 14th century, a standard term for a longsword was "estoque", referring to a tournament in 1380's Lisbon with everyone using longswords and war hats; he also says this because the longsword at the time was "thick and slim, not of the length of today (ie. mid 15th century) but as big as hand swords".

A "espada de mão", that could be translated literally as hand-sword or oned-handed sword, was what we today associate as "arming sword", but such term was never used (another popular term was "espada-cinta" (literally belt-sword, because it was more conventional to carry this daily hanging at the belt). Castilian laws of the same period refer to estoc as well. Given the time-frame and Fernão description, I think most, if not all, longswords in 14th-century Iberia were type XVa.

But my point is that the Iberians rarely invented these terms when a foreign weapon or armor was adopted (see bascinete, celata, couraça, pratas, gambais, grevas, graves etc). It generally comes from the French or from the Italians, and terms such as Estocs and Swords-of-Arms could easily feat both origins. As far as I'm aware there isn't any source in 13th century or early 14th century Portugal talking about longswords (an early 14th century ordinance doesnt require either longswords or coat-of-plates for the richest men-at-arms, while longswords appear in D. Fernando's reforms of the 1360s, trying to get as near to English-French MAA as possible).

When I read Oakeshott, he quoted a French inventory about "three belle espee d'armes" and translated that to "3 beautifull arming swords", but the source was in all certainty reffering to 3 longswords, not 3 one handed swords. I guess he mistook the term and we simply adopted it.

------

Edit: might be worth exploring whether the broad-bladed, complex-hilted swords could be called 'robe swords' or if that was always associated with longer narrower blades[/quote]

Agostinho's thesis doesnt feature a single 15th century source mentioning the term "espada roupeira", but his sources only cover the period before our first refference to "espada ropeira" in Castilian, which is mid 15th century. But even the Castilian documents made no description of what a "dress sword" would be at such an early date. I mean, double finger-rings and perpendicular pins appear in 1470, while 1460's Portuguese art only shows one finger-ring and a rainguard: https://anno1471.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/a-evolucao-da-guarda-portuguesa-breve-nota-the-development-of-the-portuguese-guard-a-brief-note/

Castilians call "espada de pitones" (horned-swords) to refer to double-finger rings, but I'm not sure if this was used in the 15th century at all.

Another issue is that some Portuguese laws in the 16th century (1539, 1557, 1565) limit the size of "swords" while particularly referring to rapiers:

https://www.academia.edu/42706916/16th_century_Portuguese_laws_concerning_the_length_of_swords?ri_id=824640

So we cant say for sure what exactly a mid 15th century dress sword was in that time.

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Yesterday at 12:05 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote:
Sean Manning wrote:
By the fourteenth century a lot of medieval people distinguish between the sword you wear with your armour (arming sword) and other types of sword. And some swords are much more suitable for killing someone in armour than others.


Interesting thing: I'm convinced Oakeshott mistranslated what an "arming sword" is.

If you read the blog post which I linked, I also guess that it was Ewart Oakeshott who popularized the mistaken idea that an arming sword is a "one-handed sword" rather than "the sword you wear with your armour." Since its just a blog post I did not prove that though.

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Anthony Clipsom




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PostPosted: Yesterday at 12:27 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Before we settle on the idea of an arming sword being two-handed/hand-and-a-half, I noted the following from 1415 when looking up its origins

Y wil and ordeyne þat John Cheyne, my sone and eir, have þe short armyn swerd harnaised with gold.


The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443, eds. E. F. Jacob and H. C. Johnson, vol. 2: Wills Proved Before the Archbishop or his Commissaries, Canterbury and York Society Publications 42 (1937). (p.49)

This is given in the University of Michigan Middle English dictionary

So, an arming sword could, at least in England, be short.

Anthony Clipsom
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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Yesterday at 12:36 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Anthony Clipsom wrote:
Before we settle on the idea of an arming sword being two-handed/hand-and-a-half, I noted the following from 1415 when looking up its origins

Y wil and ordeyne þat John Cheyne, my sone and eir, have þe short armyn swerd harnaised with gold.


The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443, eds. E. F. Jacob and H. C. Johnson, vol. 2: Wills Proved Before the Archbishop or his Commissaries, Canterbury and York Society Publications 42 (1937). (p.49)

This is given in the University of Michigan Middle English dictionary

So, an arming sword could, at least in England, be short.

Did you read the blog post I linked to?

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Pedro Paulo Gaião




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PostPosted: Yesterday at 2:36 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sean Manning wrote:
If you read the blog post which I linked, I also guess that it was Ewart Oakeshott who popularized the mistaken idea that an arming sword is a "one-handed sword" rather than "the sword you wear with your armour." Since its just a blog post I did not prove that though.


I noticed it soon after posting my comment. Oakeshott supported the idea that English sources made a distinction between longsword and shortsword, but in the sense that the former is a longsword/bastard/two handed while the shortsword was an one handed sword.


My thoughts: given Fernão Lopes made a distinction between 14th century sword-of-arms and mid 15th century sword-of-arms, saying they were shorter at the period, I supect the references for "a short armyn sword" would meant longswords with shorter blades (yeah, I know it sounds contradictory but you get the point).

There are two type XV/XVa sword reviews here that shows thrust-oriented blades around 76-78cm long and grips around 12-12.5cm long. I'm not saying there references meant these specific swords, but I'm saying that not all long hilted gripped swords had necessarily long blades. I think there's a number of XVa in Oakeshott Records around 82-84cm long.

The Estoque attributed to D. Joao I, now at the Macedo dos Cavaleiros Museum or the Military Museum of Lisbon, dated somewhere between 1375-1425, has a 12.5cm long-grip and 89.5cm long blade, so long blade and bastard short hilt as another combo.
Check p. 54; https://docplayer.com.br/155416003-Cadernos-terras-quentes.html

Anyway, I'm saying that in support of the idea that the English kept the same understanding of Iberia and (likely?) France on what a espee de armes meant.
-----
Ryan S. wrote:
Thanks, this is all great information. There are different ways to classify weapons, and it seems that they classified weapons differently than we do. I think the classification based on the type of clothes it was worn with makes sense. I am guessing that the same servant who helped with dressing also helped with armour


Sources I came across through medieval period always seens to indicate that the page/squire/boy whatever was a military employee. Especially because valet-de-armes and pages were intended to wear armor and protect the campsite in case of invasion (as it has ocurred in a number of occasions, including the 100y war); I was told, without proof, that sling-armed soldiers at Aljubarrota were protecting the campsite of the Portuguese.

Btw your painting reminded me that I shared Charles V's photo with Carlos Cordeiro and he quickly gave me photos of the Real Armeria in Madrid with swords somewhat similar to the one painted in 1639. The painting was not based on Charles' early rapier, but either in a mix of weapons or in a normal width sword with complex hilt; this one is almost the same, but has a wheel-shaped pommel (which can be a later curator addition, as it happened sometimes).

So, Charles had normal one handed swords with complex hilts as well.

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There are portraits showing armour wearers carrying complex hilted swords, although they are often hard to see.


So, it seens that Western European rulers eventually adopted the use of complex-hilted swords with armor, either because pretty much all of them had, or it's simply for a painting. But before this was an international trend, only in Iberia you would see armoured people and nobles doing that. Check this book of the Fraternity of Burgos, they are putting their index in the fing-rings.

https://www.facsimiles.com/facsimiles/book-of-the-knights-of-the-brotherhood-of-santiago#&gid=1&pid=4

https://www.facsimiles.com/facsimiles/book-of-the-knights-of-the-brotherhood-of-santiago#&gid=1&pid=23

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Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
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