baselard

thumb|upright|100px|A 14th-century baselard (Swiss National Museum) thumb|100px|upright|Drawing of the baselard shown on the effigy of Thomas de Topcliffe, North Yorkshire|Topcliffe (died 1365) (Dillon 1887). The baselard, Schwiizerdolch in Swiss-German (also basilard, baslard, in Middle French also and variants, Latinized etc., in Middle High German ) is a historical type of dagger or short sword of the Late Middle Ages.

==Etymology== In modern use by antiquarians, the term baselard is mostly reserved for a type of 14th-century dagger with an I-shaped handle. It evolved out of the 13th-century knightly dagger, but was 'carried by everyone, and not exclusively a "knightly" weapon'. Contemporary usage was less specific, and the term in Middle French and Middle English could probably be applied to a wider class of large dagger. The term (in many spelling variants) first appears in the first half of the 14th century. There is evidence that the term baselard is in origin a Middle French or Medieval Latin corruption of the German basler [messer] "Basel knife".