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A Swashbuckler
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A buckler was a small, round shield usually carried by a handle at the back used to ward off an adversary's blows. By the 1590s gentlemen preferred the rapier and dagger; the sword and buckler were the weapons of servants and swaggerers. "Swash" was an onomatopoeic word for the sound made when metal struck metal, so a swashbuckler meant a swaggerer who tried to intimidate his opponent with a loud noise by striking his buckler with his sword. The illustration comes from DiGrassi, His True Arte of Defence "showing how a man without other Teacher or Master may safelie handle all sortes of Weapons," "translated out of the Italyan language" of Giacomo di Grassi of Medena and published by Thomas Churchyard [London, 1594].
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