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Originally Posted by midelburgo
I understand that Julian del Rey was a Granada Muslim up to 1478, making swords there, then became a Christian, changed name, and made blades in Toledo and Zaragoza afterward. Two of the jinetas have its perrillo (little dog) mark, those at Paris and another that used to be at the Royal Armoury in Turin (at least until 1840). It is possible that these blades were made in Toledo and mounted in Granada before the war started in 1482. Maybe it is hard to believe Muslims would have allowed an animal representation on their swords, but there you have the lions fountain at Alhambra.
The "perrillo" swords are a common find in Spanish XVIth century literature, now there are difficulties in making clear, which ones were made by Julian del Rey, its successors and which are imports from Passau.
Another of the jineta blades is marked with a roman alphabet S, what seems unlikely if made in an Islamic country.
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Going to these notes after more revisiting other entries I think it is important to consider just when the 'perillo' began appearing on blades.
If Julian Del Rey was in fact working for Boabdil (Abu Adullah, Boabdil was a Castilian corruption of the name) in Granada, it would be interesting to see how he would have signed or marked his blades.
We know (as noted in my previous post) that his father and brother used the cross (in latten) in some fashion as Julian apparently used as well.
Were they in Toledo?
When Fernando II took over at the surrender of Boabdil in 1492 and later enforced expulsion or conversion of Muslims, Julian elected to stay on as swordmaker to him. Here is where the lore begins about the 'little dog' which is believed to derive from the description of this zoomorphic mark in Cervantes in "Don Quixote" in late 16th into 17thc. As far as I know, this mark, nor the term. perillo….did not exist prior to 1492.
But apparently the cross mark did as Julians father seems to have used it as well as Julian and his brother.....this was the contested mark between them Not the perillo.
So were blades made in Toledo and exported to Granada? Then what was Julian doing in Granada if not making blades? We know that blades were also made in Barcelona and Valencia, and Muslim smiths were well connected with their associated smiths in Syria in producing high quality blades.
It seems that some blades indeed did come into these regions from Germany, and the Passau wolf must have been known as they were in use in the 15th century. But did this 'perillo' come into being in imitation of that wolf, or is it perhaps a rendition of the rampant lion which was known in Castilian heraldry (though representing Leon).
It is suggested that the perillo, like the moon crescent with face, was added to marks on blades possibly in some other meaning.
While we presume to have record of the markings placed on blades in the time after the Reconquista into 18th century (when these were collected by Palomares) we have no certain knowledge if or how blades were marked in the Muslim regions of Al Andalus.
Though this may seem a digression from the topic on Jineta swords it is addressing markings which may establish period and region of blades which appear on many of them and swords of these times.
Regarding the letter 'S' on the blade mentioned, in some cases a letter, presumed an initial (uncrowned) would occur on a blade. It should be noted that in many cases a letter (crowned) would be noted to a maker, but the initial may not concur with the makers name (numerous in Palomares).
It may be a symbol meaning something other than a letter, and either way if used symbolically, why not on a blade from Andalusian Spain?