[Cathey]

Hi Cerjak andCC

Thanks for the additional picture Cerjak. After visiting J P Puype’s website kindly provided by CC I decided to send him an email to find out if he could shed any more light on these swords as this is his specialty. His reponse was extremely interesting so I thought I should post it here:

“Dear Cathy and Rex,

Thank you for your message and for the interesting attachments.

The problem with this type of sword is that so far there has never been written a proper monography on them and that opinions on them are practically always unsubstantiated by evidence. The other problem is that they are often seen as naval but there is more evidence to tell us that they were army swords.

I think that I may be the first arms historian who identified these swords as cavary swords, but I have to admit that in publications prior to 1998 I (too) identified them exclusively as shipbard cutlasses.

In the 1990s I became increasingly ivolved in writing publications and doing museum exhibitions on Prince Maurice and the new Dutch so-called States Army of the 1590s. In the course of this involvement I analysed the pictures by Jacob de Gheyn made during the 1590s of the infantry drill and cavalry drills. These infantry pictures were published in a book in 1607, although we know that its manuscript was already in existence c. 1595-c.1597, but was withheld by Prince Maurice for reasons of security.

Simultaneously, a book on the cavalry exercise was conceived, but its publication was permanently withheld by Maurice, partly for sucurity reasons, partly also because Prince Maurice in 1597 or 1598 abolished the lancers. That's why of this cavalry work only a few isolated examples were printed (until the 1620s) which are very rare nowadays.
Among the cavalry prints the heavy cavalry has as its chief weapon the lance (it was abolished in 1597 or 1598 in favor of the wheellock pistol, and the lancers became 'pistoliers'). However, the light cavalry is armed with swords with shell-guard hilts. I am attaching two pictures from the 1597 cavalry exercise showing this sword type in use.

So we can only prove that the seashell-hilted sword apparently originated in the cavalry. The earliest proof that I have of its maritime use is after 1700. I do not know how to explain the picture of the French privateer Lolonois of 1684 (the year of appearance of the original Dutch edition) who is armed with a seashell-hilted cutlass with a curved blade with clipped point.

One other of the very few other 17th C pictures I know in which appear what seem to be shell-hilted cutlasses is on the title-page of a book published in 1673 (see the attachment). There is a heap of apparently seashell-hilted cutlasses in the foreground but it is clear that the hilts are rendered in a wrong version. The blades, however, are curved and with clipped point.

In or before 1978 the wreck of a flatboat was found in the lake what once was the Zuyderzee. This boat was full of arms and military equipment, destined for what were army outposts on islands against a possible French invasion in 1672. Among the cargo were four swords with seashell guards and straight blades. In the attachment are two archaeological drawings.

All this does not bring us definitive answers to the probrem when we view the portrait of the French privateer l'Olonnais (spelled as Lolonois) in which he is holding a seashell-hilited cutlass with curved blade with clipped point. I do not know of the actual existence of such a sword - nowhere in the world. I dare not go so far as to suggest that swords of this type may be artists' impressions only but somehow it does feel that way!

Please excuse me for giving you such an elaborate reply, but it was also good for me, i.e. for my own documentation, to have a succint story on this type of sword.

With best wishes,
Jan Piet Puype.”

I have included the attachments Jan kindly sent me as well.

Cheers Cathey and Rex