Note 129 — ARMS
Reading edition
“Dès que le soir arrive, on ne va point n'y à Madrid ny ailleurs, sans cotte de maille et sans broquet qui est une rondache.”—Bertaut de Rouen, Voyage d'Espagne (1659 A.D.), p. 294.
The arms of Spaniards promenading after dark were even fixed by law. The Suma de Leyes of 1628 ordains that after ten o'clock nobody is to carry arms at all unless he also bears a lighted torch or lantern. No arquebus, on pain of a fine of ten thousand maravedis, may have a barrel less than a yard long. Nobody may carry a sword or rapier the length of whose blade exceeds a yard and a quarter, or wear a dagger unless a sword accompanies it. Sometimes these prohibitions extended even to seasons of the year. In 1530 an Ordinance of Granada proclaims that from the first of March until the last day of November nobody may carry a hatchet, sickle, or dagger, “except the dagger which is called a barazano, of a palm in length, even if the wearer be a shepherd.” The penalty for infringement of this law was a fine of ten thousand maravedis; but labourers who worked upon a farm were exempted from the prohibition.
Swinburne wrote from Cataluña, in 1775, that “amongst other restrictions, the use of slouched hats, white shoes, and large brown cloaks is forbidden. Until of late they durst not carry any kind of knife; but in each public house there was one chained to the table, for the use of all comers.”