Quick Notes on Daggers

Common wisdom holds that historical dagger blades were perhaps 8 to 12 inches in length. This is not the only historical length. Viedma has the following to say about daggers (page 53r):

The dagger has to be long, at least half a vara, which is of notable advantage. The posture has to be over the arm, close to the chest, in a form that the sword doesn’t lose its straightness, nor the body its profile.

Earlier in the book, he also mentions (page 23v):

The body has to remain in profile, brought close to the master’s sword, in such conformity, that although he may have a dagger of three quarters in the left hand, he doesn’t reach to wound.

This leaves off the units, but it seems a reasonable assumption to me that the units would be the same in both instances.

One vara is about equivalent to 33 inches. Math says that this means that Viedma suggests a dagger of at least ~16.5 inches, and isn't surprised by the idea of a dagger of ~24.5 inches.

(EDIT FROM FUTURE-LUPOLD: In-period, the vara was different in different places until a declaration by King Felipe II in 1512 - well before Viedma's text was written. It's still possible, however, that Viedma was referring to a different measurement of vara. The smallest measurement of a vara that I can find is the vara of Teruel, which is 0.768 meters, and the largest measurement I can find is 0.912 meters. This means that the minimum range for a dagger would be from ~15 inches to ~22.5 inches, and the maximum range for a dagger would be from ~18 inches to ~27 inches.)

Viedma doesn't specify that this should be the length of the blade, rather than the overall weapon, but given that we have several historical examples of length being specified from the cross of the quillons in the Spanish tradition, it seems reasonable.

What of the shape of the dagger? We have historical examples of Spanish main gauches, of the correct length. However, if we look at Viedma's rather sparse art, we see the following in his section on fighting with a dagger against a sword, on page 58r:

If we are to believe this image, a Spanish dagger ought to basically look like a smaller sword, with quillons, a knucklebow, and a ricasso. This is different from the main gauche shown earlier, and indeed it seems as though Viedma advises that one use a dagger in about the same way as one uses a sword. In terms of modelling this, I could see a smallsword hilt working well for this purpose.

I am unsure if it is intentional, but the dagger shown in the art also has no distal taper, as opposed to the sword which has some degree of it. This would change the properties of the dagger and allow for more blade presence. Similarly, the sword is drawn with relatively little distal taper, which is an interesting thing to note.

*****

Other notes include the fact that Viedma implicitly mentions tempo on page 53r (emphasis mine):

It doesn’t have to serve more than at its time and blow, placed on the chest; only for some particular blows will it have to be placed at the part that the adversary’s sword has to leave, so that the blow is so brief that it almost can’t be known by the opponent, as our authors say.

This is an interesting note, given my semi-heretical definition of tempo as "the amount of time in which you can move before your opponent can react".

I really need to give this book a more thorough reading, now that I have some slight degree of understanding of Destreza. I've read the first half relatively thoroughly, but only performed a relatively detailed skim of the second half.

*****

After-the-fact edit: It's worth noting that Viedma's treatise is from 1639, which makes it somewhat post-SCA-period. However, it's only about 10 years more post-period than Pappenheimer hilts, which are ubiquitous.