[Raf]

Im tending to read the whole thing as a Dainty Device. A clever allegory that means something special to the owner , or giver , but not a lot to anybody else . The figure has to be Eros ; carefree youth crowned with flowers . Hence arrows and wings . Perhaps significantly protector of homosexual love . The female figure playing the Portative organ looks straight out of the Cluny tapestries . An allegory of hearing or sound. Also the lion. What we read as an eagle could be a parakeet , as in taste. The armorial device with the shield on its side could be read as something rejected or cast aside. From the gothiky architecture a fifteenth century date seems credible

Probably a wacky idea but following on the classical allusions and a superficial similarity to a Roman Gladius perhaps it was originally made as a symbolic sword with a wooden blade which was later converted. Its certainly a rare and fascinating thing

Waster , as in wooden sword . The youths of this city also have used on holy days after Evening prayer, at their masters’ doors, to exercise their wasters and bucklers.”Stowe 1598